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Two former Washington Post Leaders Urge Bezos to Fire CEO Will Lewis

Business

Business Honor
21 March, 2025

Ex-Post executives wish Bezos to remove CEO Lewis to restore the newspaper's reputation.

Two legendary Washington Post employees advised owner Jeff Bezos to remove his boss in order to preserve the struggling newspaper. In a letter last month, 50-year Post veteran Bob Kaiser and former Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. asked the billionaire to get rid of CEO Will Lewis.

Since Bezos directed the paper's opinion sections to concentrate mostly on "free markets and personal liberties," which resulted in numerous staff departures and staff reorganization, Downie and Kaiser's note represents some of the most direct appeals to Bezos. Former owner and Post scion Don Graham, the son of publisher Katherine Graham, has been outspoken about Bezos's leadership. However, former Executive Editor Marty Baron has not been as vocal.

In an Atlantic essay earlier this month, Baron stated, "We now know that Bezos is no Katharine Graham." The Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Furthermore, a Bezos official said nothing. Nearly every month since October, the Post has been hit by fresh waves of disruption. Lewis has been compelled to follow Bezos' instructions, some of which he finds offensive, including breaking the Post's tradition of getting presidential approval.

The paper's staff has begged Bezos to provide some direction for the publication's future after more than 300,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions as a result of his decision to halt the publication's planned support of former Vice President Kamala Harris. In an interview with the Times at the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos made his only public statement about his plans to restructure. He expressed, "We're going to save the Washington Post again after we saved it once."