‘People Don’t Trust Him’: Morale Plummets at Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post After Latest CEO Scandal, Sudden Exit of Editor in Chief
The morale at Jeff Bezos’ already embattled Washington Post continued to plummet this week following a fresh scandal involving the outlet’s new publisher and CEO.
The morale at Jeff Bezos’ already embattled Washington Post continued to plummet this week following a fresh scandal involving the outlet’s new publisher and CEO Will Lewis, RadarOnline.com can report.
In a sudden development to come just days after Lewis abruptly fired the paper’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, on Sunday, it was revealed that Lewis was ensnared in an alleged and “inappropriate” quid pro quo arrangement with veteran NPR media reporter David Folkenlik.
"It is with regret that I share with you that Robert Winnett has withdrawn from the position of Editor at The Washington Post," the paper’s embattled CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, told staffers.
According to Folkenlik, Lewis offered him an “exclusive interview about the Post’s future” if the NPR writer dropped a story he was writing about Lewis’ suspected involvement in the infamous U.K. phone hacking scandal.
Lewis was working as a senior executive at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation when the phone hacking scandal first exploded back in 2005.
Employees at the now-defunct News of the World, which was published by Murdoch’s News Corporation, were accused of targeting and hacking the phones of U.K. celebrities, politicians, and several members of the British royal family in the 2000s.
“In several conversations, Lewis repeatedly – and heatedly – offered to give me an exclusive interview about the Post’s future, as long as I dropped the story about the [phone hacking] allegations,” Folkenlik reported this week regarding several conversations he shared with Lewis back in December.
Lewis was working as a senior executive at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation when the UK phone hacking scandal first exploded back in 2005.
Folkenlik added that a spokesperson “who works directly for Lewis from the U.K. and has advised him since his days at the Wall Street Journal” confirmed to Folkenlik “that an explicit offer was on the table: drop the story, get the interview.”
Meanwhile, Lewis did not deny the allegations that he offered Folkenlik a quid pro quo arrangement to drop the phone hacking story in exchange for an exclusive interview about the Bezos-owned paper’s future.
Instead, Lewis claimed that his conversations with Folkenlik were “off the record.” He also derided the NPR reporter and called Folkenlik “an activist, not a journalist.”
“I had an off the record conversation with him before I joined you at The Post and some six months later he has dusted it down, and made up some excuse to make a story of a non-story,” Lewis told the Post this week.
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Lewis, who just became CEO and publisher of The Post in January, had appointed Winnett to lead the newsroom and replace executive editor Sally Buzbee following her abrupt departure amidst the restructuring.
Even more shocking were additional reports that Lewis fired the Post’s editor in chief, Sally Buzbee, on Sunday after Buzbee also refused to drop a story about Lewis’s involvement in the U.K. phone hacking scandal.
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According to several insiders working at the Post, Buzbee’s sudden departure on Sunday and the unfolding scandal regarding Lewis has caused morale at the Washington, D.C. outlet to plummet.
“It's as bad as I've ever seen it, truly,” one staffer told CNN’s Oliver Darcy on Thursday.
The Washington Post published a bombshell report exposing its incoming editor for his alleged involvement in unethical reporting practices.
“He’s really losing the newsroom on a large scale,” another staffer said. “People don’t trust him, don’t believe he has the same values and ethics as our journalists, and there are major concerns of how far he would go to censor or shut down coverage.”
It should be noted that Lewis only joined the Washington Post as publisher and CEO in January of this year.
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