William Lewis was named publisher and CEO of The Washington Post

In an email to employees late Saturday, Post owner Jeff Bezos cited Lewis’ background as a journalist and executive in making him a “perfect fit” for the position.

“As I got to know Will, I was drawn to his love of journalism and passion for driving financial success,” Bezos wrote. “He will embody the perseverance, energy and vision needed for this role. He believes that together we will build the right future for the newspaper. I agree.”

After leaving Dow Jones, Lewis, 54, co-founded News Movement, which focuses on delivering nonpartisan news to younger audiences on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other social platforms.

Before that, he had a long career in England, working first as a reporter and business editor, and then as editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph.

In 2010, he joined Murdoch’s News Corp, and the following year was tasked with helping run a committee set up to address the company’s phone-hacking and police bribery scandal – the fallout of which led to criminal charges and the newspaper’s closure. Global tabloid news.

Lewis takes over The Post during a turbulent period, which has seen both audience and subscribers decline. Executives are offering buyouts across the company in an effort to reduce its 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 resigned earlier this year after overseeing most of the rapid growth The Post has seen over the decade since Bezos, the Amazon founder, bought it.

During Ryan’s tenure, The Post’s audience and newsroom expanded — a period that largely coincided with the Trump administration’s fraught news cycle.

But like much of the media industry, The Post saw its business decline after Trump left office and the pandemic eased.

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

In 2011, he was accused of playing a role in the leak of an audio recording obtained by his former colleagues at The Telegraph but handed to the BBC, which then managed to deliver a shocking story revealing a Cabinet Secretary’s private comments about Robert. Murdoch.

Lewis denied the accusations but refused to answer questions about the scoop during the judicial investigation, citing the need to protect sources. In 2020, he denied accusations that he played a role in hiding emails related to the hacking scandal, calling the charges leveled in the lawsuit “completely untrue.”

The search for Ryan’s replacement was led by interim CEO Patty Stonecipher, founding CEO of the Gates Foundation and a former high-ranking Microsoft executive and Amazon board member.

Emily Bell, who heads the Tao Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and who competed with Lewis when she led the Guardian’s digital news operation, described it as “a very journalism-focused publisher.”

Lewis’s years working for Murdoch “meant that a certain amount of steel gets into your soul,” she said. She added – referring to his dealings with Murdoch as well as his future relationship with Bezos – that “Louis’s superpower is that he is incredibly good with very wealthy people.”

Lewis starts work on January 2nd. He divides his time between New York and London, and will move to Washington, where The Post is headquartered.

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

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