In recent weeks, several media reports have raised concerns about the incoming editor's journalistic ethics.
The Washington Post says newly appointed editor Robert Winnett has decided not to accept the job and will remain in Britain, creating another turmoil at a media outlet where a reorganization plan has gone disastrously wrong.
Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis announced Winnett's decision to retire in a memo to staff Friday and said a recruiting firm would be hired to begin the search for a replacement immediately.
The financially struggling Post had announced that Winnett would take over as top newsroom editor after the November U.S. election and said he was creating a “third newsroom” dedicated to finding new ways for their journalism to make money.
Three weeks ago, then-executive editor Sally Buzbee said she would resign rather than be demoted to lead this revenue improvement effort. Former Wall Street Journal editor Matt Murray was hired as his interim replacement and future leader of the “third newsroom.”
Since then, several published reports have raised questions about Lewis and Winnett's journalistic ethics arising from their work in England. For example, the two men worked together on a series of scoops about extravagant spending by British politicians who fed on information for which they had paid a data company, a practice frowned upon in American journalism.
The New York Times wrote that both Winnett and Lewis were involved in stories that appeared to be based on fraudulently obtained telephone and business records.
This sparked a revolt in the Post editorial office. David Maraniss, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who has worked at the paper for four decades, said this week that he didn't know anyone there who thought the situation with the editor and the “supposed new editor” could stand.
“The body rejects the transfusion,” Maraniss wrote on Facebook.
Lewis, a former Wall Street Journal editor and vice chairman of The Associated Press, started at the Post this year, hired by its billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, to stem a costly exodus of readers. The Post had said it had lost $77 million last year.
In a memo to key staff members this week, Bezos assured them that journalistic standards and ethics at the newspaper would not change. “I know you've already heard this from Will, but I also wanted to weigh in directly,” he wrote.
“It certainly cannot be business as usual at The Post,” Bezos wrote. “The world is evolving rapidly and we need to change as a company.”
In his Facebook note, Maraniss said the issue for staff members was integrity, not resistance to change.
Lewis said Friday that the hiring firm and process to replace Winnett would be announced soon. The sudden hiring of Winnett without any indication of a thorough search had also irritated staff members.
Lewis also said reorganization efforts would continue.
Winnett is staying at The Daily Telegraph in London. Telegraph editor Chris Evans said: “He's a talented guy and his loss is our gain,” according to The Guardian.
