An editor-in-chief who suddenly resigns, her successor who throws in the towel and a boss targeted in the columns of his newspaper: the prestigious Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, is going through a deep crisis.
At the heart of the storm is the new CEO of “WaPo”, the British William Lewis, to whom Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gave a clear mission when he appointed him last fall: to get this historic daily newspaper back on track.
The Washington Post continues to pile up the prestigious Pulitzer Prizes, half a century after breaking the Watergate scandal, but has suffered $77 million in losses in 2023, despite job cuts and the disappearance of its Sunday supplement.
But this former seasoned journalist, crowned with a historic scoop in the late 2000s on the expenses of parliamentarians in the United Kingdom, sees his position increasingly weakened. For weeks, revelations have been multiplying about his role in the early 2010s in the management of a resounding scandal of illegal telephone tapping carried out by the tabloid News of the World, while he worked for the Murdoch family’s conservative media group.
On Friday, William Lewis was again at the center of an investigation by his own journalists. According to the Washington Post, he gave the green light in 2011 to the destruction of thousands of emails, fueling suspicions of destruction of evidence, which he denies.
Requested by AFP after the publication of this article, the Washington Post did not respond.
– Effet Trump –
As the American presidential election approaches, the affair is now poisoning the life of a prestigious house which “is not doing well economically”, explains Dan Kennedy, professor of journalism at Northeastern University, to AFP.
Like other media, the Washington Post took advantage of the upheaval of the Trump years in the White House (2017-2021): “it was seen as providing reliable and uncompromising coverage” of the Republican president, adds the professor.
But when Donald Trump left the White House, readers’ appetites dried up. “The Post has been hit particularly hard. It’s a newspaper that seems to say ‘we’re the New York Times but with less to offer,'” adds Dan Kennedy.
At the end of 2022, the newspaper had 2.5 million subscribers, compared to 3 million when Joe Biden took office in early 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal. Far from the growth of the New York Times (more than 10 million subscribers), the result of a diversification strategy towards lighter content (games, cooking recipes, sports) without denying its journalistic fundamentals.
“We are losing a lot of money”, “people are no longer reading your articles, I can no longer sugarcoat things”, launched William Lewis at the beginning of June, during a tense meeting with the editorial staff, according to American media.
– “Third draft” –
The day before, journalists at the Washington Post had just learned of the sudden resignation of their editor-in-chief, Sally Buzbee.
The latter is said to have expressed disagreement with Mr Lewis’ strategy, which envisages a reorganization of the editorial staff into three divisions: two already existing ones for information and opinions, and a third intended for “information service and social networks”.
The outlines of this “third editorial team” remain unclear, but it seems intended to rejuvenate the readership and develop more lucrative content, a leap into the unknown for a rather austere newspaper.
Within the Murdoch family group, William Lewis was also the boss of the Wall Street Journal (2014-2020), another flagship of the American press.
But other articles, in the New York Times and the Washington Post, pointed to questionable methods on his part or that of Robert Winnett, one of his former colleagues whom he had chosen to succeed Sally Buzbee, such as resorting to paying informants or using hacked telephone data.
Following these revelations, Robert Winnett threw in the towel on June 21.
For Dan Kennedy, William Lewis has no choice but to leave too, because “he will not have the confidence of the team”.
“The graft didn’t take,” wrote WaPo veteran David Maraniss on his Facebook page.
“If he is not able to inspire the staff (…) the +Post+ will sail without direction, and its best elements will leave,” adds Dan Kennedy.
For several observers, the outcome of the crisis is in the hands of Jeff Bezos, who bought the Post for $250 million in 2013. For the moment, he has supported his general director.
