Two prominent former Washington Post editors pushed owner Jeff Bezos to fire CEO Will Lewis last month, The New York Times reported Thursday. The news came amid ongoing internal strife at the Post as staffers have chafed at — and in some cases resigned over — a number of recent newsroom changes made by Bezos.
“Replacing [Lewis] is a crucial first step in saving The Washington Post,” Leonard Downie and Bob Kaiser wrote in a February email to the tech billionaire.
Downie was the paper’s executive editor from 1991 to 2008, and Kaiser spent decades at the Post, where he was managing editor from ’91 to 1998, before retiring in 2014. Bezos has not responded to their email, according to the Times.
Lewis was named chief executive of the Post in 2023, after having previously served as the CEO of Dow Jones.
A rep for the Washington Post did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Downie and Kaiser’s email was sent after a number of WaPo staffers ditched the paper for jobs at outlets like The New York Times and The Atlantic. It also came a few months after Bezos canceled the editorial board’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election; Bezos later said it was the “right decision” to not endorse a candidate because it would have added a “perception of bias” to the paper’s coverage.
The scrapped Harris endorsement was criticized by former top editor Marty Baron, who called it “cowardice.”
“Donald Trump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner Jeff Bezos (and others),” Baron said. “Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
The turmoil has continued into 2025, with more than 400 journalists in January sending Bezos an open letter, saying they were “deeply alarmed” by the paper’s recent trajectory. The signees asked Bezos to meet with WaPo staffers, but that meeting never occurred.
And in February — the same month Kaiser and Downie emailed Bezos — the Amazon founder announced his paper’s opinion section would be focused on “two pillars” moving forward, free markets and personal liberties. That decision led to former Opinion editor David Shipley quitting, as well as longtime columnist Ruth Marcus.
Last month’s overhauling of the opinion section was criticized by many journalists, but it has been lauded by others: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and President Trump have both commended the paper for its recent changes.
“I’ve gotten to know him, and I think he’s trying to do a real job,” Trump said about Bezos’ handling of the paper in recent months. “Jeff Bezos is trying to do a real job with The Washington Post, and that wasn’t happening before.”
The president also mentioned that he had dinner with Bezos on the day he announced his revamp of the opinion section.
