'Washington Post' CEO resigns after going AWOL during massive job cuts

The Washington Post Publisher and Chief Executive Will Lewis announced Saturday evening he would depart after just two years at the paper, a tenure marked by controversy and crisis.

Lewis called his time "two years of transformation" in his resignation note, but it was defined by turbulence rather than a clear path, and it ended with brutal job cuts. The paper's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, will serve as acting CEO.

More than a third of the newsroom was laid off Wednesday after Lewis' promises of radical innovations failed to staunch several years of annual losses in the tens of millions of dollars. At one point, losses hit $100 million, Lewis told staffers in June 2024 during a rocky newsroom all-staff. The session occurred just five months into his time at the Post. Yet it proved to be his final all-staff meeting.

He was effectively AWOL as the paper's scope, ambitions and journalism were radically redefined and constricted. Lewis played no visible role in announcing the layoffs in a mandatory Zoom call for the newsroom on Wednesday. Nor did he publicly address the paper's readers to allay their concerns.

The coup de grâce came just a day later when Lewis was photographed in Northern California walking a red carpet at a Super Bowl event.

The newsroom had lost so much faith in Lewis that, in recent weeks, journalists appealed directly in letters to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the paper's owner, to spare the paper from cuts and help it find financial stability. Bezos did not respond to those appeals.

As NPR has previously reported, the sports desk was eliminated; the local news staff reduced to about a dozen from more than 40; the international desk decimated.

Abandoning the sports section was a move to focus on the national/international markets only, but their seemingly obvious natural positioning for the national market would be politics and governmental news, which is why its so odd that they cover politics and government from such an obscenely parochial viewpoint that they decided to merge their style section and their politics section could be unified. Style is normally about what’s going on in town, and the fact that politics normally dominates that in DC is understandable, but no-one in New York, LA, Boston or Philly (let alone Dallas, Pheonix, Miami, Chicago or Houston) is reading a DC paper to learn about AOC’s new dress or the new shin-dig at Sen. Shumer’s chief-of-staff’s place.

Again, the two best responses I’ve seen on this event.

Dave Burge, IowaHawk, who used to post here, has the best one line commentary.

“I just gotta say it’s truly amazing how journalists can grovel for their jobs while effortlessly maintaining their condescension.”

https://x.com/iowahawkblog/status/2019097478822531373?s=20

Then we have this from Seth Dillon, owner and CEO of the Babylon Bee:

“If your position at The Washington Post was recently eliminated, please consider applying to write for The Babylon Bee. We are seeking applicants experienced in writing fictional content presented in the tone and style of a legitimate news organization.”

https://x.com/SethDillon/status/2019493816797896907?s=20

These people think the world owes them a high-paying job propagansizing their brand of Leftist crap.

I read somewhere that 15 of the fired journalists worked on climate change stories.

There was sadness around DC that the entire sports department got slashed, but it hasn’t been very good over the last 10-15 years anyway. Besides, if you want good sports reporting, go to SI or ESPN, and if you want local sports stories, just go to any of the local TV stations’ sports sites or any of the local sports sites.

Newspapers are dinosaurs.

“As NPR has previously reported, the sports desk was eliminated; the local news staff reduced to about a dozen from more than 40; the international desk decimated”

…they can play video games and smoke doobies with the fat ass wastoid gov employees. Maybe start a softball team!!

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