Days after big layoffs at The Washington Post, publisher Will Lewis says he's stepping down
#Washington Post #Will Lewis #Jeff Bezos #layoffs #Jeff D'Onofrio #media industry #newspaper management
📌 Key Takeaways
- Publisher Will Lewis resigned days after The Washington Post laid off 33% of its staff.
- Chief Financial Officer Jeff D'Onofrio has been named as the interim publisher.
- The paper has faced a massive subscriber exodus and internal turmoil following recent editorial and business decisions.
- The Washington Post Guild criticized Lewis's legacy and called for Jeff Bezos to reverse recent job cuts.
📖 Full Retelling
Washington Post publisher Will Lewis resigned from his position on Saturday, February 7, 2026, following a tumultuous tenure that culminated in the layoff of one-third of the newspaper's workforce earlier in the week. The departure was announced in an email to staff just three days after the organization implemented drastic cuts aimed at ensuring financial sustainability, a move that drew sharp criticism from employees and journalism experts alike. Lewis, a former Wall Street Journal executive who took the helm in January 2024, characterized his exit as the right time to step aside after two years of organizational transformation. Jeff D'Onofrio, the paper’s chief financial officer, has been appointed to serve as the temporary publisher.
The resignation follows a period of intense internal and external pressure for the storried publication. The recent layoffs were significantly deeper than anticipated, resulting in the total shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of the photography department, and substantial staff reductions in metropolitan and international bureaus. These cuts followed a massive loss of subscribers in 2024 after billionaire owner Jeff Bezos blocked a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, leading to accusations that the paper was sacrificing its editorial independence to avoid political friction. Former editor Martin Baron famously described the era as a "case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction."
Lewis's leadership was also plagued by ethical controversies and cultural clashes. His tenure saw the sudden departure of executive editor Sally Buzbee and the withdrawal of his hand-picked successor, Robert Winnett, amid allegations regarding their past journalistic practices in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Lewis often sparred with his own reporters, at one point bluntly telling them that not enough people were reading their work to justify current operations. While Bezos praised the new interim leadership as being positioned for a "thriving next chapter," the Washington Post Guild responded to the news by calling Lewis’s exit long overdue, urging the owner to either rescind the layoffs or sell the institution to a more committed investor.
🏷️ Themes
Media Leadership, Corporate Restructuring, Journalism Ethics
📚 Related People & Topics
The Washington Post
American daily newspaper
The Washington Post (locally known as The Post and, informally, WaPo or WP) is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area. In 2023, the Post had 130,000 print subscribers and 2.5 million digital subscriber...
Jeff Bezos
American businessman (born 1964)
Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( BAY-zohss; né Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American businessman best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. According to Forbes, as of December 2025, Bezos's esti...
William Lewis
Topics referred to by the same term
# William Lewis **William Lewis** or **Willie Lewis** may refer to: ### Politics and Law * **William Lewis (judge) (1752–1819):** U.S. federal judge and legal scholar from Pennsylvania. * **William J. Lewis (1766–1828):** U.S. Representative from Virginia. * **William Lewis (Welsh politician...
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Connections for The Washington Post:
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- 👤 William Lewis (4 shared articles)
- 🌐 Layoff (4 shared articles)
- 🌐 Mass media (2 shared articles)
- 🌐 Journalism (2 shared articles)
- 👤 Sally Buzbee (1 shared articles)
- 🌐 Amazon (1 shared articles)
- 👤 Silicon Valley (1 shared articles)
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📄 Original Source Content
By — David Bauder, Associated Press David Bauder, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Days after big layoffs at The Washington Post, publisher Will Lewis says he's stepping down Nation Feb 8, 2026 11:53 AM EST Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he's stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said that it was laying off one-third of its staff. Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper's staff, saying that after two years of transformation, "now is the right time for me to step aside." The Post's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher. WATCH: Sweeping layoffs at The Washington Post will do 'enormous damage,' former editor says Neither Lewis nor the newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. While anticipated, the cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of its photography staff and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas. They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos' order late in the 2024 presidential campaign pulling back from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and a subsequent reorienting of its opinion section in a more conservative direction. Martin Baron, the Post's first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Donald Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper "a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction." READ MORE: FBI searched home of Washington Post reporter, newspaper says The British-born Lewis was a former top executive at The Wall Street Journal ...