Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he is stepping down, ending what he described as a troubled tenure that followed the newspaper’s decision this week to lay off one-third of its staff. In a two-paragraph email to employees, Lewis said that after two years of transformation, “now is the right time for me to step aside.”
Lewis’ departure comes three days after the Washington Post said it was laying off one-third of its staff. The changes were deeper than expected, the report said, and they resulted in the shutdown of the paper’s sports section, the elimination of its photography staff, and sharp reductions in personnel covering metropolitan Washington and overseas.
The announcement of the layoffs reached staff on Wednesday, and neither Lewis nor the paper’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in meetings with employees about the job cuts, the report said. Lewis’ email also named Jeff D’Onofrio as the person appointed to serve as temporary publisher, with D’Onofrio also informing staff that the organization would continue to make changes.
The Associated Press reported that the layoffs followed other instability at the paper, including talent departures in recent years and a shift after Bezos ordered a withdrawal from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the late stages of the 2024 presidential campaign. The report said the paper subsequently reoriented its opinion section in a more conservative direction and experienced “tens of thousands of subscribers” lost in the period after Bezos’ order.
Martin Baron, the Washington Post’s first editor under Bezos, condemned what he described as self-inflicted damage in a statement this week. Baron called the situation “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction” and criticized his former boss for trying to curry favor with President Donald Trump.
Lewis took over as publisher in January 2024 after departing the Wall Street Journal, according to the report. His tenure, the report said, was marked by layoffs and a failed reorganization plan that contributed to the departure of former top editor Sally Buzbee, and by further leadership changes early on, including the withdrawal of Robert Winnett after ethical questions about both Winnett and Lewis’ actions while they worked in England.
The report said Matt Murray, the paper’s current executive editor, took over after the leadership shakeup. It also noted that Lewis had used blunt language with journalists about readership, including a staff meeting in which he said the paper needed to make changes because not enough people were reading its work.
After the layoffs, some employees and outside observers called on Bezos to either increase investment in the Post or sell the paper to a new owner. In his note to staff, Lewis praised Bezos, writing, “The institution could not have had a better owner,” and said that during his tenure difficult decisions were taken to ensure the paper’s “sustainable future” so it could publish “high-quality nonpartisan news” to millions.
Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement, and instead said D’Onofrio and his team are positioned to lead the Post into “an exciting and thriving next chapter.” Bezos added, “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” and said readers provide “a roadmap to success,” with “the data” indicating “what is valuable and where to focus.”
D’Onofrio, who joined the Post last June after jobs at Raptive, Google, Zagat and Major League Baseball, told staff that the paper was ending “a hard week of change with more change.” In the note, D’Onofrio wrote that “This is a challenging time across all media organizations, and The Post is unfortunately no exception,” and said he had helped chart the course of organizations “faced economic headwinds” while they changed and that he was confident the paper would meet those moments “together.”
The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, said Lewis’ exit was “long overdue.” In a statement, the Guild said, “His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution,” and argued, “But it’s not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.”
The Associated Press’ report was written by David Bauder.