The editor of the Washington Post, Will Lewis, has announced his resignation following the announced wave of layoffs at the traditional US newspaper. After two years of change, “now is the right time for me to step aside,” Lewis wrote in an email to staff on Saturday. Former CFO Jeff D’Onofrio has been named acting editor and chief executive. He only joined the Post in June 2025 and previously worked at the digital media company Raptive, Google and the Major League Baseball sports association, among others.
The struggling newspaper recently announced that it would lay off a third of its workforce. In his email to employees, Lewis wrote that “difficult decisions have been made to ensure the sustainable future of The Washington Post.” At the same time, he praised billionaire Jeff Bezos and declared: “The institution could not have had a better owner.”
Neither Lewis nor Bezos showed up at the staff meeting this week where the clearcut was announced. Among other things, the renowned sports department is to be dissolved, foreign and local reporting is to be significantly reduced and photojournalists are to be laid off.
British-born Lewis was publisher of The Wall Street Journal before taking over as editor of The Washington Post in January 2024. According to observers, his time at the traditional paper was bumpy from the start and was of layoffs and a failed restructuring plan, which led to the resignation of then-editor-in-chief Sally Buzbee in June 2024. Lewis’ original preferred candidate to succeed her, Robert Winnett, withdrew when ethical questions arose about his and Lewis’ decisions while working in England. Shortly thereafter, current editor-in-chief Matt Murray took over.
The influence of Jeff Bezos
The “Post” has also lost tens of thousands of subscribers. The background is, for example, owner Bezos’ order to withdraw an expected election recommendation for Democrat Kamala Harris in the late phase of the 2024 US presidential election campaign. He also steered the liberal opinion pages in a more conservative direction.
The Washington Post Guild, the employee union, called Lewis’ departure long overdue. “His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great institution in American journalism,” the Guild said in a statement. “But it’s not too late to save the Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately reverse the layoffs or sell the newspaper to someone willing to invest in its future.”
Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement commenting on the leadership change. D’Onofrio and his team are well positioned to lead the newspaper into “an exciting and successful next chapter”. “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos added. “Every single day, our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data shows us what is valuable and what we should focus on.”
D’Onofrio wrote to the staff that they were ending “a tough week of change with even more change.” These are challenging times for all media companies, “and unfortunately the Post is no exception,” explained the new editor. In his career, he has already had the privilege of helping to determine the course of both pioneers and cultural institutions. All of them have been confronted with economic headwinds in changing industry landscapes – and we have faced these moments. I have no doubt that we will do so together this time too.