William Lewis Named Publisher And CEO Of The Washington Post

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William Lewis, a reporter-turned-executive who worked for years in British media and for companies owned by Rupert Murdoch, has been named the new CEO and publisher of The Washington Post.

As CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal from 2014 to 2020, Lewis was credited with growing the Journal’s digital subscriber base.

In an email to staff late Saturday, Post owner Jeff Bezos noted that Lewis’ background as both a journalist and an executive made him a “strong fit” for the job.

“When I met Will, I was drawn to his love of journalism and his passion for driving financial success,” Bezos wrote. “Will embodies the tenacity, energy and vision required for this role. He believes that together we will build the right future for The Post. I agree.”

Lewis, 54, also founded a startup, News Movement, focused on delivering nonpartisan news to younger audiences on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other social platforms.

He previously had a long career in England, where he worked first as a business reporter and editor and then as editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph.

In 2010, he joined Murdoch-owned News Corp. and the following year was appointed to head a committee to look into the company’s phone hacking and police bribery scandal – the fallout from which led to criminal charges and the closure of the tabloid News of the World.

Lewis takes over at a tumultuous time for The Post, which has seen declines in both viewership and subscribers. Executives are offering buyouts across the company to reduce headcount by about 10 percent. The newsroom is expected to shrink to about 940 journalists and the Post is expected to end the year with a loss of $100 million.

He replaces Fred Ryan, who stepped down earlier this year after leading most of the Post’s decade of rapid growth since it was taken over by Amazon founder Bezos.

During Ryan’s tenure, the Post’s audience and newsroom grew – a period that largely coincided with the Trump administration’s accelerated news cycle.

But like much of the media industry, The Post experienced a decline in business after Trump left office and the pandemic subsided.

Around the same time, Lewis left the Dow Jones. During his tenure, the Journal tripled its digital subscribers to 1.93 million and the company increased revenue through premium business offerings, the newspaper reported at the time.

In 2011 he was accused of playing a role in leaking an audio recording that had been obtained from his former colleagues at the Telegraph but was leaked to the BBC, which then managed to first publish a bombshell story involving a private secretary The Cabinet revealed comments about Rupert Murdoch. Lewis denied the allegations but refused to answer questions about the revelation during a judicial inquiry, citing the need to protect sources. In 2020, he denied allegations that he played a role in covering up emails about the hacking scandal, calling the allegations made in a lawsuit “completely untrue.”

The search for Ryan’s successor was led by interim CEO Patty Stonesifer, the founding executive director of the Gates Foundation and a former senior Microsoft executive who sits on Amazon’s board.

Emily Bell, who directs the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and competed with Lewis when she ran the Guardian’s digital news division, described him as “a very journalism-focused publisher”.

She said the years Lewis worked for Murdoch “means a certain amount of steel enters the soul.” She added – regarding his dealings with Murdoch as well as his future relationship with Bezos – that Lewis’ “superpower, however, is being incredibly good with very, very rich people.”

Lewis will take up his position on January 2nd. He currently commutes between New York and London and will move to Washington, where the post office is headquartered.

Lewis was editor of the Telegraph when Boris Johnson wrote for the paper and reportedly served as an informal adviser to the former prime minister. Last month he was knighted on Johnson’s recommendation. When asked in September about his relationship with Johnson, who resigned from Parliament in June, Lewis told Bloomberg he was not a “fair-weather friend.”

“If I’m your friend, even if you make mistakes, even if you end up doing things that I fundamentally disagree with, I won’t let up.”