Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Resigns After Major Layoffs
Lewis resigned on Feb. 7 after Feb. 4 cuts eliminated about one-third of the newsroom, roughly 300 employees.
Overview
Will Lewis resigned as CEO and publisher of The Washington Post on Feb. 7, and Chief Financial Officer Jeff D'Onofrio was named acting publisher, according to internal staff messages and a company statement.
The resignation followed layoffs announced on Feb. 4 that cut about one-third of the paper's workforce—roughly 300 employees—and shuttered the sports desk, eliminated the photography staff and reduced overseas and metropolitan coverage, staff posts show.
The Washington Post Guild said Lewis's tenure amounted to "the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution" and demanded that owner Jeff Bezos rescind the layoffs or sell the paper, the union said in a statement.
Records and industry analysis show The Washington Post lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers and about $100 million in revenue in 2024 after editorial changes tied to owner Jeff Bezos, according to staff accounts and media analysis.
Financial Times reported that newsroom insiders said Jeff Bezos grew angry after Lewis attended Super Bowl–related events during the layoff announcement period, a development those insiders described as accelerating his departure, the Financial Times reported.
Analysis
Center-leaning sources frame Lewis’s exit as managerial failure and institutional decline, emphasizing layoffs, section shutdowns and ethical controversies. They foreground critical voices (the Guild, Martin Baron), use loaded descriptors ("embattled," "troubled tenure") and highlight Lewis’s absence during layoff announcements while giving his and Bezos’s conciliatory statements less prominence.
FAQ
Chief Financial Officer Jeff D'Onofrio was named acting publisher.