Will Lewis has stepped down as the publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post just days after layoffs struck a third of the paper’s newsroom.
Advertising executive Jeff D’Onofrio, formerly chief executive at art and fandom site Tumblr, has been appointed as acting publisher and CEO and will assume the role immediately, the publication said.
In a brief email to the newspaper’s staff on Saturday, Lewis said it was “the right time for me to step aside” and thanked owner Jeff Bezos.
“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,” Lewis wrote in the email.
Lewis, a veteran British media executive, was hired to run the Post in late 2023 by Bezos, who acquired the newspaper in 2013 for roughly $250 million. Lewis was tasked partly with reversing a precipitous decline in readership and annual losses in the tens of millions.
Lewis had become a target of criticism over his leadership of the paper and his apparent absence during the layoffs, appearing on the red carpet at an NFL event during the run-up to the Super Bowl at a time when staffers were losing their jobs.
On Thursday, Post economics reporter Jeff Stein highlighted on X what he called the “contrast” between the image of Lewis in California and laid-off Post reporter Lizzie Johnson covering the war in Ukraine with dispatches in pencil because ink can freeze in winter there.
D’Onofrio takes the reins as an institution known for its influential investigative and beat coverage of the federal government has been shaken by this week’s mass layoffs. The publication and its journalists have won 53 Pulitzer Prizes, including multiple staff awards and one shared with competitors. Its coverage of the Watergate scandal was instrumental in the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
In his first public statement since the Post’s layoffs, Bezos said the newspaper “has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success.”
“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,” Bezos said in a statement. Lewis was not mentioned in it.
In early June 2024, Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of the newspaper, abruptly resigned after Lewis announced that the Post would be restructuring the newsroom.
Daniel Arkin and Sarah Mimms contributed.
