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The crisis hitting the Washington Post has intensified after Robert Winnett said he would no longer take up the role of editor after weeks of scrutiny over his appointment by chief executive Sir Will Lewis.
Lewis told staff on Friday that Winnett had “withdrawn” from the job of editor and that the company would “immediately” begin searching for a replacement.
“Rob has my greatest respect and is an incredibly talented editor and journalist,” Lewis said in an internal email seen by the Financial Times.
Winnett was due to join the Washington Post after the US election in November, replacing editor Sally Buzbee who stepped down following a controversial overhaul by Lewis that has spiralled into a newsroom revolt against the British executive.
Buzbee’s role has been temporarily taken by Matt Murray, the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal. He was expected to hand over the title when Winnett arrived. Winnett at present runs the newsroom of the Daily Telegraph in London, where Lewis was once editor.
Lewis’s plans to restructure The Post newsroom to stem mounting financial losses and a falling readership has sparked widespread discontent among the newspaper’s staff, who have been digging into the past of both Lewis and Winnett.
The pair worked closely together at the Telegraph, revealing an expenses scandal that led to scores of MPs resigning. They based their reporting on payments made to sources for the information. This caused concern among some US media commentators who have argued that the practice of payments for sources is unethical.
The Post then published earlier this week an investigation into whether Winnett used material provided by a paid “blagger” when at the Sunday Times.
“[The Post’s] leadership is now tainted in ways that are unrecoverable,” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said on Monday.
Winnett’s appointment was regarded by the newsroom as Lewis bringing in his friends, with concerns aired about the lack of women among their number. Lewis is also a former FT journalist.
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who owns The Post, on Wednesday emailed senior editors assuring them of his “full commitment on maintaining the quality, ethics, and standards we all believe in”.
“I know you’ve already heard this from Will, but I wanted to also weigh in directly: the journalistic standards and ethics at The Post will not change,” he wrote in an internal memo seen by the FT.
The editor of the Telegraph, Chris Evans, told staff on Friday that Winnett had “decided” to stay with the newspaper as deputy editor, adding: “As you know, he is a talented chap and their loss is our gain.”
