Nothing to see here.
June 5, 2024 9:27 PM Subscribe
Clash Over Phone Hacking Article Preceded Exit of Washington Post Editor. In mid-May, the newsroom editor, Sally Buzbee, clashed over whether to publish an article about a British hacking scandal with some ties to the chief executive, Will Lewis. Buzbee informed Lewis that the newsroom planned to cover a judge’s scheduled ruling in a long-running British legal case brought by Prince Harry and others against some of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids. Lewis stated that the case involving him did not merit coverage.
When Buzbee said The Post would publish an article anyway, he said her decision represented a lapse in judgment and abruptly ended the conversation.
The judge ruled several days later, that Mr. Lewis could be added to the case. The Post published an article about the decision.
More about the recent shake-up @ the Post & Sally Buzbee, the first woman to lead the newsroom:
Washington Post editor and CEO clashed on reorganization before her exit
Sally Buzbee steps down as Executive Editor of The Washington Post. Matt Murray and Robert Winnett take editorial leadership roles in new newsroom structure.
The judge ruled several days later, that Mr. Lewis could be added to the case. The Post published an article about the decision.
More about the recent shake-up @ the Post & Sally Buzbee, the first woman to lead the newsroom:
Washington Post editor and CEO clashed on reorganization before her exit
Sally Buzbee steps down as Executive Editor of The Washington Post. Matt Murray and Robert Winnett take editorial leadership roles in new newsroom structure.
"Sally is an incredible leader and a supremely talented media executive who will be sorely missed. I wish her all the best going forward," said William Lewis, CEO and Publisher of The Washington Post. - from last link.
Lewis was the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Murray worked there for nearly 30 years. Murray's only running the show until the election in November, after which Winnett, the Deputy Editor of The Telegraph Media Group, takes over. Years ago, Lewis worked as a business reporter and editor and then as chief editor of The Daily Telegraph.
Lewis was editor of the Telegraph when Boris Johnson wrote for the paper and reportedly served as an informal adviser to the former prime minister. Last month, he was knighted at Johnson’s recommendation. Asked in September about his relationship with Johnson, who resigned from Parliament in June, Lewis told Bloomberg News he’s not a “fair-weather friend.”
“If I’m your friend, and even if you make mistakes, even if you end up doing things that I fundamentally disagree with, I don’t walk away.” -- William Lewis named publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, WaPo, Nov. 4, 2023.
Inside the Buzbee "steps down" article: "The Washington Post also announced today its intention to launch a new division of the newsroom dedicated to better serving audiences who want to consume and pay for news differently from traditional offerings. This third newsroom will be comprised of service and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation. The aim is to give the millions of Americans – who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed –compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want."
May need "USpolitics" tag. There's plenty to see here, and the eye-watering reek isn't helping any.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:37 PM on June 5 [11 favorites]
Lewis was the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Murray worked there for nearly 30 years. Murray's only running the show until the election in November, after which Winnett, the Deputy Editor of The Telegraph Media Group, takes over. Years ago, Lewis worked as a business reporter and editor and then as chief editor of The Daily Telegraph.
Lewis was editor of the Telegraph when Boris Johnson wrote for the paper and reportedly served as an informal adviser to the former prime minister. Last month, he was knighted at Johnson’s recommendation. Asked in September about his relationship with Johnson, who resigned from Parliament in June, Lewis told Bloomberg News he’s not a “fair-weather friend.”
“If I’m your friend, and even if you make mistakes, even if you end up doing things that I fundamentally disagree with, I don’t walk away.” -- William Lewis named publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, WaPo, Nov. 4, 2023.
Inside the Buzbee "steps down" article: "The Washington Post also announced today its intention to launch a new division of the newsroom dedicated to better serving audiences who want to consume and pay for news differently from traditional offerings. This third newsroom will be comprised of service and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation. The aim is to give the millions of Americans – who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed –compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want."
May need "USpolitics" tag. There's plenty to see here, and the eye-watering reek isn't helping any.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:37 PM on June 5 [11 favorites]
It seems like Buzbee was for sure getting a demotion, from overseeing news and editorial to "service journalism:" social media, like video storytelling, as well as service journalism, including wellness and lifestyle coverage. This seems like it would be a serious blow to anyone interested in working in, y'know, journalism, versus thinly-veiled product placement and clickbait.
Here's an interesting background story about the Post's new publisher, Sir William Lewis, which is skeptical but actually fairly laudatory about his prior tenure at the Wall Street Journal, and the NYT's previous coverage of Buzbee's exit, with the same bylines but a lot more tea:
the executives were grilled by reporters at The Post on the lack of diversity in the hires replacing Ms. Buzbee [...] “When you were here before, you talked very movingly about how you care about diversity — and people talk about diversity — but then when push comes to shove, they say, ‘Well, I looked around and I couldn’t find anyone’”.
Vanity Fair's got their own piece up, also mentioning the diversity angle: The reporter suggested that “the most cynical interpretation sort of feels like you chose two of your buddies to come in and help run the Post, and we now have four white men running three newsrooms.”
...and Margaret Sullivan, onetime "public editor" for the NYT in the wake of its Iraq War disasters and subsequent media columnist at the Post, weighs in in the Guardian: If Lewis is going to be successful in his quest to make the Post soar again, he’ll need to have the journalists with him all the way. Right now, they’re not. And that means a course correction is in order.
posted by whir at 10:43 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]
Here's an interesting background story about the Post's new publisher, Sir William Lewis, which is skeptical but actually fairly laudatory about his prior tenure at the Wall Street Journal, and the NYT's previous coverage of Buzbee's exit, with the same bylines but a lot more tea:
the executives were grilled by reporters at The Post on the lack of diversity in the hires replacing Ms. Buzbee [...] “When you were here before, you talked very movingly about how you care about diversity — and people talk about diversity — but then when push comes to shove, they say, ‘Well, I looked around and I couldn’t find anyone’”.
Vanity Fair's got their own piece up, also mentioning the diversity angle: The reporter suggested that “the most cynical interpretation sort of feels like you chose two of your buddies to come in and help run the Post, and we now have four white men running three newsrooms.”
...and Margaret Sullivan, onetime "public editor" for the NYT in the wake of its Iraq War disasters and subsequent media columnist at the Post, weighs in in the Guardian: If Lewis is going to be successful in his quest to make the Post soar again, he’ll need to have the journalists with him all the way. Right now, they’re not. And that means a course correction is in order.
posted by whir at 10:43 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]
Dan Froomkin at Press Watch says its an opportunity to really fix some problems, with no sign the new leadership will actually do that and plenty of reason to worry they'll make it worse.
I've subscribed to the Post since 2016, and have been watching this trying to figure out if/when to bail and explain why. I was thinking about cancelling since the AI comment and it's gotten progressively less appealing. (FWIW I'm not even that negative on AI by MeFi standards.)
My problem is there are three national papers that do good, substantial, general reporting: The NYT, the Post, and (maybe) still the WSJ. People bag on them all deservedly for their editorial decisions (I cancelled the NYT in 2016 for a reason and won't go back), but good reporting takes money and they have it and spend it. You need the people doing the reporting that shows up on page A7 to have a chance of being informed.
I still subscribe to the LAT, but they don't have the resources to cover the range of national stories. It's really tragic what's happened to print journalism in this country.
posted by mark k at 11:09 PM on June 5 [22 favorites]
I've subscribed to the Post since 2016, and have been watching this trying to figure out if/when to bail and explain why. I was thinking about cancelling since the AI comment and it's gotten progressively less appealing. (FWIW I'm not even that negative on AI by MeFi standards.)
My problem is there are three national papers that do good, substantial, general reporting: The NYT, the Post, and (maybe) still the WSJ. People bag on them all deservedly for their editorial decisions (I cancelled the NYT in 2016 for a reason and won't go back), but good reporting takes money and they have it and spend it. You need the people doing the reporting that shows up on page A7 to have a chance of being informed.
I still subscribe to the LAT, but they don't have the resources to cover the range of national stories. It's really tragic what's happened to print journalism in this country.
posted by mark k at 11:09 PM on June 5 [22 favorites]
Boy, the post title really sums it up. Nothing to See Here indeed:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272790/circulation-of-the-biggest-daily-newspapers-in-the-us/
Note those numbers are in "thousands" not "millions".
vs
https://socialblade.com/youtube/top/100/mostviewed
Having a legacy newspaper must be like finding out you are technically the earl of 2 acres of swamp. Only, you know, its as expensive as owning a sports team and much less influential and entertaining. The only utility left to running these fossils is to use them as a free undercover campaign contributions on behalf of conservative interests. Hence WSJ being the boarding school for these PMCs.
Waiting for corporate status quo media to produce good journalism without a corporatist status quo bias is like waiting for social media to become less impulsive and click-baity. Or like thinking the scorpion won't sting the frog as it rides across the flood waters. Sorry to be a downer.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:03 AM on June 6 [9 favorites]
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272790/circulation-of-the-biggest-daily-newspapers-in-the-us/
Note those numbers are in "thousands" not "millions".
vs
https://socialblade.com/youtube/top/100/mostviewed
Having a legacy newspaper must be like finding out you are technically the earl of 2 acres of swamp. Only, you know, its as expensive as owning a sports team and much less influential and entertaining. The only utility left to running these fossils is to use them as a free undercover campaign contributions on behalf of conservative interests. Hence WSJ being the boarding school for these PMCs.
Waiting for corporate status quo media to produce good journalism without a corporatist status quo bias is like waiting for social media to become less impulsive and click-baity. Or like thinking the scorpion won't sting the frog as it rides across the flood waters. Sorry to be a downer.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:03 AM on June 6 [9 favorites]
It seems like Buzbee was for sure getting a demotion, from overseeing news and editorial to "service journalism:" social media, like video storytelling, as well as service journalism, including wellness and lifestyle coverage.
Back in the old days, the latter two were in the section of the paper called the "Women's Pages". Not only was this a demotion, it was clearly a misogynist one.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:02 AM on June 6 [18 favorites]
Back in the old days, the latter two were in the section of the paper called the "Women's Pages". Not only was this a demotion, it was clearly a misogynist one.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:02 AM on June 6 [18 favorites]
On moving Buzbee to the "Women's Pages" -- Not only was this a demotion, it was clearly a misogynist one.
Exactly what I came here to say.
posted by NotLost at 5:54 AM on June 6 [3 favorites]
Exactly what I came here to say.
posted by NotLost at 5:54 AM on June 6 [3 favorites]
Worth noting that the newly appointed editor in chief has been heavily involved in the UK press war on transpeople.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:21 AM on June 6 [5 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 7:21 AM on June 6 [5 favorites]
Ugh. I'd switched from NYT to WaPo because WaPo was relatively better about trans issues... Running out of ideas for news other than listening to more Well There's Your Problem and TrashFuture.
posted by constraint at 9:32 AM on June 6 [2 favorites]
posted by constraint at 9:32 AM on June 6 [2 favorites]
Daily Beast has also just been taken over by an editor known for being involved in the UK press war on transpeople.
posted by rednikki at 10:43 AM on June 6 [2 favorites]
posted by rednikki at 10:43 AM on June 6 [2 favorites]
I appreciate the information provided in a couple of comments above but could we please say "trans people" and not "transpeople"? Others might disagree but I find it super alienating. Thank you!
posted by an octopus IRL at 11:23 AM on June 6 [3 favorites]
posted by an octopus IRL at 11:23 AM on June 6 [3 favorites]
Not that I required or wanted further evidence that people who are knighted are generally the worst sort of people here we are. And l’m reaching the point where I simply don’t recognize any honorific. No sirs, no reverend, no officer and not even doctor.
posted by zenon at 1:33 PM on June 6
posted by zenon at 1:33 PM on June 6
Fun fact: back in the day, the Post was one of the first papers to de-gender what other papers called the Women's or Ladies' Interest section. They renamed it the Style section, and it flourished.
I grew up in DC reading this paper. When I left the country, I read it on the big chunky off-white desktops in the college computer room (remember those?). When I finally got home internet, I'd read it online with my breakfast cereal. I still read it now.
Being in the UK, knowing the societal rot of the Murdoch ownership network and the Telegraph group, I am horribly worried for the paper which (for all its problems, gaffes and crank-ass columnists) I loved.
What I say everywhere online is: DC is a progressive town. It needs a progressive paper.
DC is a multiracial town which was majority-Black for much of its recent history. It needs a paper not run by old white guys.
Solve those two things, and the decline solves itself.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:14 PM on June 6 [6 favorites]
I grew up in DC reading this paper. When I left the country, I read it on the big chunky off-white desktops in the college computer room (remember those?). When I finally got home internet, I'd read it online with my breakfast cereal. I still read it now.
Being in the UK, knowing the societal rot of the Murdoch ownership network and the Telegraph group, I am horribly worried for the paper which (for all its problems, gaffes and crank-ass columnists) I loved.
What I say everywhere online is: DC is a progressive town. It needs a progressive paper.
DC is a multiracial town which was majority-Black for much of its recent history. It needs a paper not run by old white guys.
Solve those two things, and the decline solves itself.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:14 PM on June 6 [6 favorites]
Also a WaPo subscriber wondering whether it's time to jump. I already supplement with news sources focusing on labor and unions, and the connections to UK media with its trans issues seem like a real problem. I appreciate all the comments.
posted by mersen at 6:24 PM on June 6 [1 favorite]
posted by mersen at 6:24 PM on June 6 [1 favorite]
More online comments on this:
Josh Marshall reprints a reader pointing out the difference between buying a paper to keep it open and boost your ego (Citizen Kane style, though he mentions non-fictional examples) and buying a paper to prove that you are a genius billionaire and will figure out the business model for journalism in the 21st century. Bezos is now in the "bored billionaire" phase where no one thinks he knows the business model and he has no more commitment to the paper.
Josh Marshall again, on what the savvy crowd (a term of contempt, btw) is saying about this.
Bluesky comment:
Josh Marshall reprints a reader pointing out the difference between buying a paper to keep it open and boost your ego (Citizen Kane style, though he mentions non-fictional examples) and buying a paper to prove that you are a genius billionaire and will figure out the business model for journalism in the 21st century. Bezos is now in the "bored billionaire" phase where no one thinks he knows the business model and he has no more commitment to the paper.
Josh Marshall again, on what the savvy crowd (a term of contempt, btw) is saying about this.
Bluesky comment:
one of the funnier things about wapo hiring a british tabloid guy is that they'll probably regret it, and very likely un-hire him, because american reporters are quite happy to shiv a bad editor here versus in the UK where they all went to high school together and would never betray each otherand (in the reply chain)
we've got like 3 "he tried to bury a story about him doing crimes" stories *today*posted by mark k at 7:26 PM on June 6 [8 favorites]
in england, you'd never write that story, but here every other outlet and maybe even his *own* outlet will gleefully make that A1 news
Boy, the post title really sums it up. Nothing to See Here indeed:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272790/circulation-of-the-biggest-daily-newspapers-in-the-us/
Note those numbers are in "thousands" not "millions".
Those numbers are also "paid print subscriptions," not "total paid subscriptions" (which are about one and a half orders of magnitude higher) and definitely not "views." Might as well figure out youtube influence based on VHS tape distribution if you want apples-to-apples comparisons.
OK, obviously. But the influence of reports at the top print papers remains enormous. A big story will drive coverage; small stories are the raw material processed by the cable news blowhards (and youtube pontificators). It's often the actual way stories enter the media environment, even if more people consume them via TV news, NPR, or TikTok.
posted by mark k at 7:36 PM on June 6 [5 favorites]
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272790/circulation-of-the-biggest-daily-newspapers-in-the-us/
Note those numbers are in "thousands" not "millions".
Those numbers are also "paid print subscriptions," not "total paid subscriptions" (which are about one and a half orders of magnitude higher) and definitely not "views." Might as well figure out youtube influence based on VHS tape distribution if you want apples-to-apples comparisons.
OK, obviously. But the influence of reports at the top print papers remains enormous. A big story will drive coverage; small stories are the raw material processed by the cable news blowhards (and youtube pontificators). It's often the actual way stories enter the media environment, even if more people consume them via TV news, NPR, or TikTok.
posted by mark k at 7:36 PM on June 6 [5 favorites]
I was going to say, the NYT for example has ~10m digital subscribers.
posted by atoxyl at 9:19 PM on June 6 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 9:19 PM on June 6 [1 favorite]
Huh, I’ve been trying to decide who to switch to from NYT. Apparently not the WashPoo. Maybe the Christian Science Monitor, which I just found out is still in busines (thanks to a MF post).
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 9:40 PM on June 6
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 9:40 PM on June 6
WaPo: Post publisher draws more scrutiny after newsroom shake-up
In a statement Thursday, William Lewis pushes back at media outlets’ accounts of events leading up to Post editor Sally Buzbee’s abrupt departure on Sunday.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:12 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
In a statement Thursday, William Lewis pushes back at media outlets’ accounts of events leading up to Post editor Sally Buzbee’s abrupt departure on Sunday.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:12 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
The real and surprising story behind Sally Buzbee’s departure from The Washington Post.
More chaos at The Washington Post as the publisher’s ethics are questioned
A credibility crisis rocks the WaPo CEO
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:05 PM on June 7
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:05 PM on June 7
I switched to the Guardian and cancelled my WP subscription in January 2024 after a particularly bad George Will column. Am supporting Pro Publica and to my amazement have started to subscribe to The Defector even though I hate sports. The Defector team is calling things right.
posted by andreap at 8:29 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
posted by andreap at 8:29 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
Washington Post Self-Reports on Its Incoming Top Editor’s Involvement With Admitted Information ‘Thief’ (The Wrap)
I know it's confusing, but this story is about incoming Executive Editor Robert Winnett collaborating with someone who stole data for use in "journalism", not Will Lewis doing the same thing. It's hard to keep up.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:23 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
I know it's confusing, but this story is about incoming Executive Editor Robert Winnett collaborating with someone who stole data for use in "journalism", not Will Lewis doing the same thing. It's hard to keep up.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:23 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
Robert Winnett, the editor selected to run The Washington Post, will not take up that position, after reports raised questions about his ties to unethical news gathering practices in Britain (NYT)
posted by whir at 7:22 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
posted by whir at 7:22 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
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Glass cliff, anyone?
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:13 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]