The message was the most public comments by the owner since William Lewis, who had been the company’s publisher and CEO for five months, announced two weeks ago the departure of editor-in-chief Sally Busby and a dramatic restructuring of the newsroom.
Since then, several recent reports, including in the Washington Post, have highlighted allegations that Lewis and Robert Winnett, the British editor who will take over as head of the news division in November, engaged in journalistic practices that go against the standards of most American newsrooms.
“We need to change as a business,” Bezos wrote to editors, but he added, “As editor-in-chief, who has shaped and guided our reporting, you also know that The Post’s standards have always been very high. That cannot and will not change.”
Amazon’s billionaire founder bought The Washington Post in 2013 and hired Mr. Lewis in November to oversee operations at the paper, which was facing a $77 million cash shortfall and declining readership, company executives said.
Bezos is rarely in the newsroom, but he typically stays in closer contact with the company’s executive team than he does with the editorial department, which has been in turmoil since Buzbee’s sudden departure, announced to staff in an email on Sunday night.
In his Tuesday memo, he directly addressed Lewis, who told staff in a small meeting last week that as publisher, he would never interfere with the journalism produced in the newsroom.
“I know you’ve already heard from Will,” Bezos wrote, “but I also want to speak directly: The Washington Post’s journalistic standards and ethics will not change.”
Bezos could not be reached for additional comment.
Bezos has worked closely with Lewis to plan a “third newsroom,” separate from traditional news and opinion, that would focus on serving readers who don’t currently read The Post, though details of how it would operate are unclear, according to people familiar with the matter. Winnett will take over the traditional news division after the 2024 election.
The New York Times reported Saturday that Messrs. Winnett and Lewis relied on stolen phone records from their reporting while working as journalists in Britain. The report also raised questions about payments made to obtain information leading to a government corruption investigation that rocked Britain’s political system in 2009 and led to the resignations of several government officials.
On Sunday, The Washington Post, citing unpublished book chapters and other documents, revealed new details about Winnett’s conspiracy with self-described “thieves” who obtained classified information published in news articles through illegal means.
Neither Winnett nor Lewis responded to requests for interviews by The Washington Post or The New York Times for this report.
Amid these new reports, The Washington Post canceled a dinner it had planned to host on Monday night at the Cannes Lions Film Festival, an annual advertising and media gathering in the south of France.
Previous reports have said Lewis tried to discourage journalists from reporting on his involvement in a long-running British wiretapping case. Lewis has denied trying to stop Post journalists from covering the case. Lewis called an NPR journalist who described a similar encounter “an activist, not a journalist.”
“The Washington Post sets and models the highest ethical standards in journalism and all Post employees are expected to live up to them,” a Post spokesman said.
On Tuesday, Bezos paid tribute to the journalism coming out of The Post’s newsroom, saying he was “so grateful to you for continuing the work that we can all be so proud of and that makes this institution so important.”
