Will Lewis, The Washington Post’s publisher and chief executive, announced Saturday that he is leaving after two turbulent years leading the paper. Lewis described his tenure as “two years of transformation” in a short resignation note. Chief financial officer Jeff D’Onofrio will take over as acting CEO.
The departure comes after a severe round of cuts this week that pared more than a third of the newsroom and drastically reshaped coverage. The reductions eliminated the sports desk, shrank local news staff from more than 40 reporters to roughly a dozen, and gutted the international operation — including the entire Middle East team, the Ukraine bureau chief and another war correspondent. One reporter says she received the layoff email while reporting from a war zone.
Lewis was not on the mandatory Zoom call where newsroom leaders delivered the layoff news and did not make a public statement to readers about the cuts. He was photographed the following day on a red carpet at a Super Bowl event in Northern California, a sight that further inflamed newsroom anger. In recent weeks, journalists had appealed directly to owner Jeff Bezos for alternatives to the cuts; staff members say those letters went unanswered.
Executive Editor Matt Murray told employees the paper intends to maintain a presence in roughly a dozen global locations, likely leaning more on local stringers, and to concentrate coverage on U.S. politics, national security, health and other high-interest beats. He said the newsroom will total about 500 people overall; people familiar with internal plans said specifics are still being finalized.
In a public statement, Bezos stressed The Post’s “essential journalistic mission” and called the future an opportunity. D’Onofrio framed his interim role as focused on protecting both the paper’s legacy and its business, pledging to help chart a sustainable path forward.
Bezos bought The Post from the Graham family in 2013 and pledged to treat it as a long-term investment while generally avoiding editorial influence. Under earlier leadership the paper had periods of profitability, but losses mounted in recent years; Lewis told staff in mid-2024 that the paper had faced shortfalls as high as $100 million. Bezos removed former publisher Fred Ryan in 2023 after that approach failed to halt continued losses.
Lewis, a British executive with a background on Fleet Street and experience running the publisher unit at the Wall Street Journal, was recruited for his record of stabilizing news businesses and managing conservative figures. His tenure at The Post, however, was shadowed by controversy. Plaintiffs in lawsuits against Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids alleged Lewis was involved in efforts to conceal wrongdoing at those papers; Lewis pressed NPR to drop reporting about the allegations and later sought to influence The Post’s own reporting on the matter, triggering internal friction.
Tensions grew after owner interventions in editorial decisions. In one noted instance, Bezos stopped an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris days before an election, and he later directed changes to the paper’s editorial page to emphasize “personal liberties and free markets.” That editorship revamp prompted the editorial page editor to resign and coincided with a wave of cancellations — more than 375,000 digital subscribers, roughly 15% of the digital base — worsening the financial strain cited by Lewis.
Journalists protested outside the newsroom after the layoffs. Former executive editor Marty Baron, who led the newsroom in more profitable years, issued a sharp critique blaming misjudgments from the top for making the paper’s situation worse.
Lewis’s resignation note was brief and upbeat. He said it was the right time for him to step aside, praised Bezos as owner and wrote that difficult decisions had been taken to ensure The Post’s sustainable future so it can continue publishing high-quality, nonpartisan news.
As D’Onofrio assumes interim leadership, editors and remaining staff face the challenge of sustaining core coverage with a much smaller newsroom and repairing relationships with readers and journalists alike. How the paper balances its mission and business needs will shape its newsroom and reach in the months ahead.