Will Lewis to no longer get paid for not doing any work
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Looks like somebody else will have the CEO title at the “Washington Post” in its post-journalism phase:
Will Lewis, the embattled chief executive and publisher of The Washington Post, has stepped down, the company announced Saturday, days after the newspaper came under widespread criticism for laying off hundreds of its journalists.
Mr. Lewis said in a statement that he had made the decision “in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post.” His email, which was terse, thanked only Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Post, and did not mention journalists at the newspaper.
Mr. Lewis left three days after the company, facing years of financial losses, undertook a significant round of layoffs that cut 30 percent of the staff — more than 300 journalists — decimating The Post’s local, international and sports coverage. Marty Baron, the celebrated former editor of The Post, called it one of the “darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
In a news release announcing Mr. Lewis’s departure, Mr. Bezos said that The Post has “an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity.” He added, “Each and every day our readers give us a road map to success.” He did not mention the cost-cutting in his statement.
Meanwhile, this story makes it clear that this has become a catch-and-kill operation for the owner:
Last month, just ahead of the devastating layoffs at The Washington Post, a group of wealthy D.C. locals approached Post publisher and chief executive Will Lewis with a proposal: Would the Jeff Bezos–owned paper consider spinning off its local and sports sections and selling to them? Perhaps some type of deal could have been worked out where the property was jointly branded and operated, such as when CNN partnered with Fortune and Money magazines on CNNMoney.
The interest was there, but the group never received a response, Status has learned. A spokesperson for The Post did not comment, but Bezos has repeatedly ignored interest from would-be buyers while the newspaper disintegrates under his watch. Most notably, as Status first reported in 2024, Kara Swisher expressed serious interest in leading a group of investors to purchase the paper as it continues to make deep cuts to its newsroom under the oversight of Lewis and Bezos.
The sweeping cuts this week that axed crucial reporting teams on the foreign, local and sports desks, eliminated all staff photographers and most of the video team, raised the prospect that The Post is on the brink of a death spiral as subscribers flee and advertisers walk away under Bezos’ ownership.
To be sure, Bezos’ own actions have led to the destruction of the great civic institution that once brought down a sitting U.S. president, exposed covert NSA surveillance programs, and revealed Donald Trump’s assault on democracy that led to the January 6 attack—earning dozens of Pulitzer Prizes along the way. But in recent years, the paper’s very survival has been stymied by Bezos’ clear conflicts of interest, and general disinterest, as an owner.
“The formulaic billionaire white knight press baron doom cycle,” as Josh Marshall puts it. The power to purchase a media outlet is the power to destroy it, to paraphrase another Marshall.