The Washington Post has announced the immediate departure of CEO Will Lewis following a week of significant organizational turmoil that included massive layoffs affecting one-third of its workforce. Lewis, who assumed leadership in 2023, described his exit as timely after implementing what he termed ‘difficult decisions’ essential for the newspaper’s future viability.
The announcement comes just days after the prestigious publication revealed drastic cuts eliminating entire departments, including sports and international news coverage. The restructuring resulted in the dismissal of the Post’s complete Middle East bureau and its Ukraine correspondent based in Kyiv, triggering protests outside the newspaper’s Washington DC headquarters.
Jeff D’Onofrio, who joined as chief financial officer in 2023, will assume the roles of acting publisher and CEO during this transition period. Lewis, formerly chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, faced mounting criticism from both staff and subscribers during his tenure as he attempted to reverse the newspaper’s financial decline.
The layoffs prompted strong condemnation from media professionals, including Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor until 2021, who characterized the cuts as ‘among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.’
This leadership change represents the latest instability for the renowned publication, which has experienced multiple controversial decisions under the ownership of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos since his 2013 acquisition. Notably, the Post broke with decades of tradition by declining to endorse any presidential candidate in the 2024 election, a decision that resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of subscribers. Further controversy emerged when the opinion editor resigned in February 2023 after Bezos directed the commentary section to focus exclusively on ‘personal liberties and free markets,’ explicitly excluding opposing viewpoints.