As the journalism industry has been rocked with financial ruination, the Washington Post has proven to not be insulated from the carnage. Over the years, this news institution has gone through management changes, dismal fortunes, and a loss of readership, all while its reputation has become sullied. Jeff Bezos took the recent step to bring in new CEO Will Lewis.
Hailing from Britain’s Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid sector, Lewis already came in with some hesitation and side-eye directed his way, and that has only ramped up this week. As covered in the latest Lie-Able Sources episode, the week began with the resignation/dismissal of Executive Editor Sally Buzbee. This was followed by a company meeting where Lewis announced dividing the newsroom into three components, and bringing in Matt Murray, former lead editor at the Wall Street Journal.
The meeting turned contentious as the staffers, when presented with hard numbers of how poorly the paper was operating, instead expressed concerns over the lack of diversity they saw in the new management. As Lewis explained, revenues have plummeted, traffic was down by 50 percent over the past few years, and last year alone, there was a $77 million loss. But the newsroom’s minds were focused on DEI issues.
Then, as the week wore on, things spun out of control. The New York Times reported that back in May, Lewis had discussed with Buzbee the issue of The Post publishing a story on the trial involving Prince Harry and phone hacking. This case involves the tabloids of Rupert Murdoch, where Lewis is accused of some direct involvement, and Lewis was said to have been pressuring Buzbee not to have this covered in The Post.
Then came word from David Folkenflik, the media correspondent for National Public Radio, that he had a similar discussion with Lewis. In exchange for an exclusive interview, Lewis pressured him to drop his story on the British court case and Lewis’s involvement.
Lewis had just been named publisher and CEO by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, but had not yet started. 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 allegations. NPR published the story nonetheless. On Thursday, the spokesperson declined comment about that offer.
Instead of Folkenflik getting that initial interview, Lewis spoke to Dylan Byers of Puck. In response to the Folkenflik revelation, the Post published a new update in which Lewis describes the NPR media guru as “an activist, not a journalist.” There is some validity to this charge, given Folkenflik’s particular media focus is almost exclusively on Fox News and, by extension, the Rupert Murdoch properties. (He can be described as a buttoned-down version of Brian Stelter.)
The Post writers Sarah Ellison and Elahe Izadi relayed an email from Lewis.
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.
Folkenflik countered that some elements of the discussion regarding the British case had been off the record, but the discussion regarding dropping the story in exchange for the exclusive interview was not included in that particular exchange. The irony is while there is this controversy roiling at WaPo about internal accountability, Folkenflik has been unwilling to behave in similar fashion with his own outlet.
During an NPR interview in 2022, Folkenflik was asked about the new validity of the Hunter Biden laptop – which his outlet infamously announced it would disregard as a news story — and he maintained that not reporting on it in 2020 was valid journalism.
I will go back to what I wrote at the time. None of the criticism from conservatives to do this seeming expose on Hunter Biden should force reporters to accept The New York Post’s claims as true without additional reporting and additional verification.
Recently, he was part of the NPR defense team defending the outlet’s honor after Uri Berliner, one of the longtime editors at the news portal, explained how the network displayed slanted news coverage. Folkenflik only repeated and backed corporate positions disputing the claims, while he displayed no curiosity and showed no exploration into the charges made by the now-deposed Berliner.
Meanwhile, in the newsroom at the Post headquarters, it is certain discontent is mushrooming. After an already contentious introduction with staffers it would seem these revelations are the type of details they were looking out for as a reason to sow distrust with the new management. The attitude is reflected by Jack Shafer at Politico, who suggests that “The team Lewis has assembled will Wall Street Journal-ify and Rupert Murdoch-ize the Washington Post.”
Apparently, following strategies seen from a successful publication and the man who built the #1 news channel is the wrong path for a sinking major news outlet.
