Inside Will Lewis’s tumultuous two years as writer of the Washington Publish

[ad_1] S tanding on the seventh ground within the heart of the Washington Publish’s open newsroom on the morning of three June 2024, writer Will Lewis determined to ship some robust like to a information group he had taken cost of 5 months earlier.

Lewis, a veteran of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, had changed Fred Ryan, a former Ronald Reagan aide who had presided over among the Publish’s worthwhile years – in the course of the first Trump administration – however misplaced the arrogance of some staffers after clashing with workers throughout a late 2022 city corridor.

“We're going to flip this factor round, however let’s not sugarcoat it: it wants turning round, proper?” Lewis mentioned. “We're dropping giant quantities of cash. Your viewers has halved lately. Persons are not studying your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it any extra. So I’ve needed to take decisive, pressing motion to set us on a unique path.”

It turned out to be one of many few instances that Lewis would handle the entire firm. On Saturday night, Lewis, 56, abruptly introduced his resignation, simply three days after the Publish slashed practically a 3rd of its complete employees in one of many largest layoffs in US media historical past. As an alternative of placing the Publish on a extra promising monetary path, Lewis’s two years have been marked by controversy, clashes with employees and jargon-heavy initiatives that didn’t appear to quantity to a lot.

Ire over the cuts was principally directed at Lewis and the Publish’s billionaire proprietor, Jeff Bezos. Whereas Lewis nominally ran the corporate, it was left to high editor Matt Murray to ship the information of the cuts throughout an early morning Zoom assembly.

The Washington Publish newsroom after the inauguration of its headquarters in Washington DC, on 28 January 2016. {Photograph}: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Pictures However whereas he was a no-show for the assembly, Lewis was noticed a day later on the pre-game festivities for the Tremendous Bowl by a former Publish sports activities reporter, who famous his look got here after he took aside the sports activities part, together with soccer protection.

Whereas present and former staffers have suspicions about why, the larger – and nonetheless unanswered – query about Lewis’s departure is why now? Lewis had lengthy been unpopular with many Publish workers and appeared to have made little progress in his business-side efforts. A senior Publish journalist instructed the Guardian in November that Lewis was “universally reviled”.

“I used to be stunned by the timing. I used to be not stunned by the end result,” Ruth Marcus, who resigned as a Publish columnist in March 2025 after 40 years on the publication, mentioned in an interview.

“The information of Lewis’s departure triggered a thousand celebratory messages and emojis – we have been popping the digital champagne, caseloads of it,” mentioned a longtime Publish employees author who was not approved to remark. “Right here was a person who’d been handed the reins of one of many world’s most storied journalistic establishments and who appeared, virtually from the beginning, like a person who hated the job and hated us.”

Nonetheless, many Publish workers believed that Bezos was not significantly fascinated with what they considered Lewis. (Lewis didn't reply to messages searching for remark.)

The Monetary Instances reported that senior administration on the Publish have been “furious” about Lewis’s look on the Tremendous Bowl and disliked the optics of him showing at a glamorous occasion a day after a whole lot of workers misplaced their livelihoods.

Some Publish staffers, although, have identified that Bezos had not beforehand appeared involved about optics; in June 2025, a month after the Publish introduced that it could as soon as once more incentivize staffers to depart the corporate through buyouts, Bezos and his now spouse Lauren Sanchez hosted a foam occasion on a $500m yacht prematurely of their star-studded marriage ceremony in Venice. (A Publish spokesperson didn't reply when requested whether or not Lewis’s Tremendous Bowl cameo factored into his departure.)

Some Publish staffers, together with Marcus, have been initially inspired when Lewis was named to the job in November 2023. Early on, she recalled getting private emails from Lewis complimenting her columns.

“The primary time I met him was at a reception and I mentioned: ‘Hello, I’m Ruth Marcus. I’m your pen pal.’ And he mentioned: ‘Oh, can I offer you a hug? Your stuff is nice.’ I used to be initially well-disposed towards him – till I wasn’t.”

Sally Quinn, a former Publish author and the widow of the previous Publish government editor Ben Bradlee, was requested to welcome Lewis to the Publish and to introduce him round Washington DC.

She invited him to occasions they usually had dinner each few months, she mentioned. “We obtained alongside very well,” Quinn recalled. “He was very charming and humorous and sensible and we had fun. He appeared very excited and upbeat in regards to the job, so I used to be trying ahead to working with him.”

However Quinn mentioned she stopped listening to from Lewis after he confronted blowback for his dealing with of the ouster of Sally Buzbee as government editor in early June 2024. “He stopped calling and emailing,” she mentioned. “I feel he simply didn’t wish to know what I needed to say.”

There have been indicators early on that Lewis can be hampered by his previous. Even earlier than assuming the job, Lewis instructed a Publish reporter that he wouldn't touch upon allegations that he had helped cowl up a serious hacking scandal at Murdoch’s UK publications within the early 2010s as a part of his work for Information Company. (Lewis has not been discovered to have dedicated any wrongdoing.)

However Lewis’s ties to that sordid interval in British journalism continued to canine him, at the same time as they have been unlikely to have factored a lot into Bezos’s choice to oust him.

Jeff Bezos speaks onstage at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 2 February. {Photograph}: Miguel J Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP/Getty Pictures Early in his tenure, Lewis confronted accusations, which he denied, of infringing on the Publish’s protection of a lawsuit filed by Britain’s Prince Harry in opposition to Murdoch’s British publishing operation that might have mirrored on him and his work for the corporate.

To get across the apparent battle of curiosity, the Publish tapped former managing editor Cameron Barr to supervise investigative protection of Lewis and Robert Winnett, a former colleague he had picked to exchange Buzbee.

“I feel it was a credit score to the Publish to undertake and to offer the assets, which have been in depth,” Barr recalled in an interview.

Barr, who stepped down from the Publish in 2023, described Lewis’s tenure as writer as “ineffective”. “I don’t see that any of the initiatives that he launched have been a hit,” he mentioned. “It definitely hasn’t turned across the monetary fortunes of the Publish.”

Finally, Lewis would get one thing of a reprieve in January 2025 when Prince Harry and Murdoch’s operation settled the case. However questions on his previous endured. Final September, the Guardian reported that Lewis had performed a distinguished function within the effort to avoid wasting Boris Johnson’s prime ministership (Johnson, a former Telegraph colleague, knighted Lewis in 2023.)

A part of Lewis’s supposed attraction for the job was his background as a reporter. Lewis obtained his begin on the Monetary Instances in 1994, regularly rising by way of the ranks earlier than turning into enterprise editor for the Sunday Instances. He reached the higher echelons of British journalism in 2005, when he grew to become editor-in-chief of the Telegraph, receiving popularity of overseeing protection of a scandal revealing lawmakers who have been utilizing public funds for private profit.

However, throughout that June 2024 assembly with staffers, Lewis instantly clashed with among the Publish’s most revered reporters.

A kind of reporters, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Carol D Leonnig, wrote in a publish on X on Monday that Lewis “confirmed his horrendous management when, at 1st employees mtg, he snapped at my query about his imaginative and prescient for ⁦⁦@washingtonpost. He had none. In 18 months, ⁦@JeffBezos let him wreck a nationwide treasure.” Leonnig left the Publish for MSNBC – now known as MS Now – final summer season.

Lewis’s choose of Winnett to take over the newsroom turned out to be a catastrophe. Just some weeks after his appointment, after his profession was scrutinized by the Publish in a narrative headlined Incoming Publish editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed function in his reporting, it was introduced Winnett would stick together with his job as deputy editor of the Telegraph.

Because the enterprise continued to flounder into early 2025, Publish staffers discovered new causes to lash out at Lewis.

Late final April, some staffers chafed after studying that the Publish had thrown an ostentatious, over-the-top brunch to commemorate the annual White Home correspondents’ dinner weekend.

In Might 2025, Lewis was conspicuously absent when Publish staffers gathered to have a good time their Pulitzer prize wins, which some staffers took as an indication that he didn’t worth their journalism. (Staffers have been instructed that Lewis was away on a long-planned journey.)

All of the whereas, Lewis rebuffed efforts by the Publish’s unionized staffers to get him to take part in a city corridor assembly. Final month, amid widespread nervousness on the Publish about layoffs, he was in Davos interviewing Invoice Gates.

On the finish of final month, Lewis was nonetheless collaborating within the pomp and circumstance of the job, reportedly attending the celebrated Alfalfa Membership dinner, together with Bezos and Murray – as soon as once more giving no indication that he was on the outs together with his boss.

Washington Publish newspapers displayed after widespread layoffs have been introduced on 5 February in Washington DC. {Photograph}: Douliery Olivier/Abaca/Shutterstock Simply days earlier than Lewis’s departure, Murray defended Lewis in an interview with Fox Information. “Look, Will has been engaged with me very carefully on this for a very long time,” Murray mentioned, explaining his absence by saying “he had quite a lot of issues to are inclined to at the moment.”

Again in November 2023, when Lewis’s appointment was first introduced, Bezos mentioned Lewis “embodies the tenacity, power and imaginative and prescient wanted for this function”. Lewis additionally had expertise working a digital media startup, having launched The Information Motion, a social media-focused enterprise, after leaving Dow Jones in 2020.

In uncommon public remarks on Saturday, Bezos mentioned the Publish “has a necessary journalistic mission and a unprecedented alternative” and praised Jeff D’Onofrio, the enterprise government who will function appearing writer, together with Murray and opinions editor Adam O’Neal. He mentioned nothing about Lewis.

In a terse, subject-less e-mail saying his departure, Lewis thanked Bezos “for his help and management” all through his time on the Publish and, amid calls by some for Bezos to promote the paper, instructed staffers that “the establishment couldn't have a greater proprietor.”

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