The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building on 5 June 2024 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
- The Washington
Post is facing a crisis with financial pressures and leadership changes,
despite support from owner Jeff Bezos and a history of journalistic
accomplishments. - CEO William
Lewis, appointed by Bezos, is under scrutiny for past involvement in a scandal
at The News of the World and current challenges at the Post, including a
significant loss of subscribers and revenue. - The organisation
is exploring strategic shifts, including restructuring the editorial
department, amid internal discord and questions about leadership and direction.
The
prestigious Washington Post is in crisis, with pressure on from owner Jeff
Bezos to change its money-losing ways.
The Post’s
managing editor abruptly resigned; a chosen successor withdrew under fire, and
a boss has been targeted in the newspaper’s columns.
At the
heart of the storm is the “WaPo”‘s new CEO, Briton William Lewis, who
was given a mission by Amazon founder Bezos when he appointed him last autumn.
Lewis was
asked to turn around a newspaper that continues to pile up Pulitzer Prizes half
a century after the Watergate scandal it instigated but which has lost $77
million in 2023 despite job cuts and the disappearance of its Sunday
supplement.
However,
the former journalist, who made history in the late 2000s with a scoop on the
expenses of British MPs when he was editor of the Daily Telegraph, is finding
his position increasingly vulnerable.
For weeks
now, revelations have multiplied about his role in a scandal of illegal phone
tapping by the tabloid The News of the World when he was working for the
Murdoch family’s conservative media group about 12 years ago.
On Friday,
Lewis was at the centre of an investigation by his own journalists.
According
to the Washington Post, he gave the go-ahead in 2011 for the destruction of
thousands of emails, fuelling suspicions that he was destroying evidence, which
he denies.
‘Trump bump’
As the US
presidential election approaches, the affair is poisoning the atmosphere at a
long-vaunted newspaper that is “not doing well economically,”
Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy tells AFP.
The Post
was among trusted news outlets that benefited from the upheaval that marked
Trump’s four years in the White House, which ended with his loss to President
Joe Biden.
According
to the professor, the Post “was seen as a place that offered really tough,
truth-telling coverage” of Trump.
Trump’s
departure from the White House meant fewer attention-grabbing stories to keep
readers engaged.
“When
Donald Trump left the White House, the Trump bump that helped a lot of
newspapers disappeared,” Kennedy said.
“And
the Post was hit especially hard.”
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By the end
of 2022, the Post would have 2.5 million subscribers compared with 3 million
subscribers when Biden took office in early 2021, according to the Wall Street
Journal.
Meanwhile,
rival New York Times has grown to more than 10 million subscribers, the fruit
of a strategy to diversify into fun topics such as games, food, and lifestyle
while still serving up hard news.
US media
quoted Lewis as telling editorial staff in early June that he “can’t
sugarcoat it anymore” — the paper has lost a lot of money and people’s
interest in its articles.
Third news team
The day
before that editorial meeting, Post journalists learned of the resignation of
editor-in-chief Sally Buzbee.
Buzbee is
said to have disagreed with Lewis’s strategy to split the editorial department
into three divisions: news, opinion, and a new third unit devoted to social
media and service journalism.
The
contours of this “third newsroom” remain unclear, but it seems aimed
at reviving readership in a leap into the unknown for the newspaper.
Within the
Murdoch family group, Lewis was the boss of the Wall Street Journal
(2014-2020), another flagship of the US press.
However,
articles in the New York Times and the Post pointed to questionable methods
employed under his watch and that of former colleague Robert Winnett, whom
Lewis chose to replace Buzbee.
Published
allegations include paying informants, using data from hacked phones, or
intermediaries using phoney identification to get information.
Winnett
withdrew from consideration for the post following those revelations.
READ | Big tech to blame for huge layoffs in the media, says Sunday Times owner
Professor
Kennedy believes Lewis has no choice but to leave the Post because he has lost
the confidence of the team there.
“The
body is rejecting the transfusion,” Post veteran David Maraniss wrote on
his Facebook page, adding he didn’t know anyone who thinks the situation can
stand as it is.
“If he
can’t inspire the staff (…) the Post will sail without direction and its best
people will leave,” Kennedy said of Lewis.
For many
observers, the outcome of the crisis lies in the hands of billionaire Bezos,
who bought the Post for $250 million in 2013.
So far,
Bezos has backed his CEO.
