The brand new yr has already turn into a tough one for The Washington Put up as its years-long id disaster and monetary struggles proceed to plague the Jeff Bezos-owned paper forward of the second Trump presidency.
Whereas newsroom tensions and cash woes have been persistent, they had been taken to new heights following Bezos’ appointment of Will Lewis as The Put up’s writer and CEO.
Tasked to revitalize the paper’s cratering enterprise mannequin, Lewis had some selection phrases for his employees in a June 2024 assembly following the ousting of its govt editor Sally Buzbee.
“We’re shedding giant quantities of cash. Your viewers has halved lately. Individuals are not studying your stuff … I can’t sugarcoat it anymore,” Lewis stated on the time.
Quick-forward to 2025, and Lewis has alienated himself from his newsroom.
“The corporate feels rudderless proper now,” one staffer instructed Fox Information Digital.
“Will Lewis has principally disappeared since his notorious ‘nobody’s studying your stuff’ assembly from final yr, he hasn’t named a everlasting govt editor, if he has a marketing strategy, he hasn’t communicated it to his staff, or the general public, or to anybody, it appears, besides [Puck reporter] Dylan Byers… with no readability on when and in what path the corporate is headed.”
The staffer fumed whereas speculating that Lewis had been the supply of the reporting of Puck’s Dylan Byers, telling Fox Information Digital “that’s apparently how Lewis prefers to speak along with his employees.”
“Within the final six months, perhaps extra, we have now heard from Will Lewis precisely as soon as — in his bizarrely passive-aggressive electronic mail after the election asserting the return to workplace mandate,” the staffer stated.
Final summer time, Lewis appointed former Wall Avenue Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray as performing govt editor till a everlasting alternative for Buzbee was discovered.
However an exhaustive search has resulted in nobody taking the place, leaving Lewis to nominate Murray as the brand new everlasting govt editor, based on a current report from Byers.
Lewis’ blunt feedback could have irked his employees, however Bezos’ resolution to halt The Put up’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris simply days earlier than the election sparked a firestorm not simply within the newsroom however amongst readers as properly.
The Put up was already on tempo to lose a staggering $77 million by the top of the yr, however that hit doesn’t even account for the whopping 250,000 individuals who reportedly canceled their subscriptions on account of the non-endorsement.
Many critics, each inside and outdoors of the paper, interpreted Bezos’ resolution as appeasement to then-candidate and now-President-elect Donald Trump.
Paul Farhi, a former media author for The Washington Put up who left in 2023 on account of company-wide mass buyouts, referred to as Bezos’ transfer the “single most disastrous” administration resolution within the paper’s historical past.
“The morale may be very low, in fact,” Farhi instructed Fox Information Digital. “Issues can be not nice if the paper had administration that had made all the appropriate strikes.
However it strikes me that they’ve made a sequence of horrible strikes in response to deteriorating, bigger financial situations, which have made issues lots worse.”
Posties stay alarmed by the exodus of expertise in current weeks “with no obvious effort to cease the bleeding,” present staffers have stated.
The non-endorsement led to the resignations of editor-at-large Robert Kagan and a number of editorial board members.
Within the weeks since, a number of high-profile staffers have introduced departures for different shops, together with reporters Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Tyler Web page and LeeAnn Caldwell, columnist Charles Lane and veteran editor Matea Gold.
Fox Information Digital additionally discovered that The Put up’s well being and science editor Stephen Smith is leaving for The New York Instances.
Farhi referred to as the departures a “vote of no confidence” in writer Will Lewis.
“These departures are in reflection a vote of no confidence in him and the administration of the paper,” he stated.
“You understand, politics isn’t the one factor the Washington Put up does, however it’s an enormous a part of the franchise. And while you’re shedding the core, you understand, among the finest individuals who you’ve developed through the years to be the a part of that franchise, it’s actually demoralizing and actually undermines the general enterprise. You understand, they’ll rent again. They’ll discover folks. Will they be pretty much as good? That’s an enormous query.”
What may be fueling the exits is the ideological battle that seems to be taking form inside The Put up. As Semafor’s Ben Smith not too long ago wrote, many staff had been “bought” on the concept The Put up’s mission was to be a “#Resistance newspaper.”
Nonetheless, Bezos himself alluded to creating reforms on the paper in an op-ed defending his endorsement resolution.
“Most individuals consider the media is biased. Anybody who doesn’t see that is paying scant consideration to actuality, and people who combat actuality lose,” the Amazon founder wrote in October.
“Actuality is an undefeated champion. It might be simple guilty others for our lengthy and persevering with fall in credibility (and, subsequently, decline in affect), however a sufferer mentality won’t assist. Complaining shouldn’t be a method. We should work tougher to manage what we will management to extend our credibility.”
Bezos, like a number of billionaires in Silicon Valley, has prolonged olive branches to President-elect Trump since his victory.
Bezos met with him at Mar-a-Lago final month and donated $1 million to his inaugural fund. Amazon Prime additionally introduced this week will probably be producing a documentary giving an “unprecedented behind-the-scenes look” at First Woman Melania Trump, which shall be launched globally each in theaters and in streaming.
The Put up’s Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes mocked Bezos depicting him and others groveling at Trump’s ft in a cartoon that editors refused to publish. She resigned in protest final week.
The Washington Put up’s in-house media critic Erik Wemple spoke out in opposition to a brand new coverage carried out by Murray, who stated the paper shouldn’t cowl itself when requested in regards to the lack of protection of Telnaes’ resignation.
“I couldn’t probably dissent extra strongly from that coverage,” Wemple reacted on Monday.
“The Put up’s willingness through the years to cowl its slip-ups and scandals has helped to set it aside from the various information organizations that refuse to carry themselves to the identical guidelines to which they maintain politicians, CEOs, skilled athletes, and many others. And it’s one thing, I consider, that subscribers have appreciated.”
Along with the current newsroom drama, The Washington Put up carried out layoffs this week, impacting about 4% of your entire firm, concentrating on its enterprise divisions whereas its journalists had been spared.
Regardless of their private dismay on the present state of the paper, two Posties inform Fox Information Digital they aren’t seeking to depart.
“I’d prefer to attempt to trip it via,” one stated. “I really like the corporate, love the folks I work with and for.”
The staffer urged Lewis to “deal with his staff like adults.”
“Inform us his imaginative and prescient for the corporate, clarify his path for us to get there, and rent a proficient and inspirational govt editor to take us there. Do your job. Cease letting the corporate drift into obsolescence and stem the bleeding of expertise,” they stated.
One former staffer slammed the “self-inflicted” injury being carried out by their once-beloved employer.
“It’s very unhappy to see how rapidly all the pieces that was constructed has been dismantled,” the veteran ex-Postie stated.
The previous staffer referred to as out Lewis and Murray, insisting “neither is prepared to take a stand” in opposition to Bezos. They took a swipe at Murray’s new coverage on Put up journalists not masking itself, predicting the coverage will quickly apply to not masking Amazon as properly.
“It’s actually tragic,” they stated.
The Washington Put up didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
Fox Information’ David Rutz contributed to this report.
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