Will Lewis has resigned as CEO and publisher of The Washington Post, days after the newspaper implemented sweeping layoffs that affected approximately one-third of its staff, including the elimination of its entire sports section.
The departure follows a prolonged period of significant financial and audience challenges for the 148-year-old institution. Internal data reported in early 2025 indicated the Post‘s daily active users plummeted from around 22.5 million in 2021 to between 2.5 and 3 million by mid-2024. Concurrently, advertising revenue declined from $190 million in 2023 to $174 million in 2024. In a message to staff, Lewis stated the recent “difficult decisions” were necessary to secure the outlet’s sustainable future, expressing confidence in its ability to continue producing high-quality, nonpartisan journalism.
The move was immediately welcomed by employee unions, which had fiercely opposed the layoffs. The Washington Post Guild characterized Lewis’s tenure as an “attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution” and called on owner Jeff Bezos to either reverse the staff reductions or sell the publication to an investor committed to its editorial mission. A union spokesperson added that Lewis’s exit was “long overdue.”
Lewis’s appointment in early 2024 was part of a series of strategic pivots aimed at stemming losses, but his leadership was also marked by decisions that alienated segments of the readership. Most notably, in October 2024, the Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in 36 years. Media reports attributed this reversal to an order from Bezos, who intervened to prevent an endorsement of Kamala Harris, breaking with the paper’s long-standing tradition of supporting Democratic nominees.
Former Post executive editor Martin Baron suggested the decision reflected Bezos’s political concerns, stating, “This is a newspaper that has prided itself on its independence, and the behavior of Jeff Bezos has suggested to the readers that he is not independent at all. Heβs actually dependent β dependent on Donald Trump.”
The turbulence at the Post mirrors a broader crisis across the global newspaper industry, where legacy publishers grapple with collapsing print advertising and intense digital competition from tech platforms and newer media outlets. The combination of severe audience contraction, revenue decline, and perceived owner interference in editorial matters has raised fundamental questions about the publication’s future direction and its capacity to fulfill its historic role in shaping public discourse. The search for Lewis’s successor now falls to Bezos, who must address profound internal and external skepticism regarding the newspaper’s path forward.
