Will Lewis arrived at The Washington Post as the storied paper was working to shed 240 employees, saying then that as a result of faulty financial projections, “We’re not in a place that we want to be in and we need to get to that place as fast as we can.” The British media exec had come to the US to be CEO and publisher of the Post, starting in January of 2024. “My plan is to arrive and for us to together craft an extremely exciting way forward. I can smell it. I can feel it. I know it,” Lewis said in his first meeting with the newspaper’s staff.
Two years later, “exciting” might not be the word that Post staffers would use regarding the publication’s “way forward.”
The 148-year-old paper, which since August of 2013 has been owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, laid off over 300 journalists last week, a move that killed off its sports and books section, and left its local and international teams diminished.
And Saturday, Lewis was out too, sending a brief email to staff that reads “After two years of transformation at The Washington Post, now is the right time for me to step aside. I want to thank Jeff Bezos for his support and leadership throughout my tenure as CEO and Publisher. The institution could not have a better owner.”
“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” he concluded.
According to a statement from the Post, CFO Jeff D’Onofrio has taken over as acting publisher and CEO. “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus,” Bezos said in a statement regarding the transition. “Jeff, along with [executive editor Matt Murray] and [opinion editor Adam O’Neal], are positioned to lead The Post into an exciting and thriving next chapter.”
Lewis was not present on the Zoom during which Murray announced the layoffs Wednesday, Post staffers who were on the call told Vanity Fair.
He did, however, participate in meetings that day, during which he “gave no indication he was leaving,” The New York Times reports. He was spotted Thursday on the red carpet at the NFL Honors event in San Francisco, a pre-Super Bowl party attended by actor Tiffany Haddish, athlete Travis Kelce, and rap icon Too $hort, among others.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, the Post’s former editor, Marty Baron, was confounded by Lewis’s absence during the pivotal Zoom. “On a decision of this sort, as dramatic as it is, the publisher should be on a call like that,” Baron said.
“He’s basically been an invisible publisher—not visible to people on the staff, not visible to the public, and not appearing on a Zoom when he’s announcing enormous cuts in the newsroom staff. To me, it’s part of the responsibility of a publisher to speak to the staff, particularly at moments like this one.”
In a statement, the Washington Post Guild—that is, the union that represents the paper’s staffers—said that Lewis’s “legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution.”
“But it’s not too late to save The Post,” the Guild argues. “Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future,” the union says.
The Guild statement pairs well with the much-quoted sentiments of its former chair, Post reporter Katie Mettler. “I’m glad Will Lewis has been fired,” she told the NYT. “I wish it had happened before he fired all my friends.”
