The upheaval continues at the Washington Post: Publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he's stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said it was laying off one-third of its staff, per the AP. Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper's staff, saying that after two years of transformation, "now is the right time for me to step aside." The newspaper's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher.
Neither Lewis nor the newspaper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. The cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of its photography staff, and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas. They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos' decision late in the 2024 presidential campaign to pull a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Martin Baron, the Post's first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper "a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction." The British-born Lewis was a former top executive at the Wall Street Journal before taking over at the Post in January 2024. His tenure has been rocky from the start, marked by layoffs and a failed reorganization plan that led to the departure of former top editor Sally Buzbee.
The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, called Lewis' exit long overdue. "His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution," the Guild said in a statement. "But it's not too late to save the Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future." Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement saying D'Onofrio and his team are positioned to lead the Post into "an exciting and thriving next chapter."
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
