Jeff Bezos stresses commitment to ‘quality, ethics and standards’ in Washington Post memo

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has sent a memo to staff saying he is committed to “maintaining the quality, ethics, and standards” of the newspaper amid an internal dispute that touches on executive hires and ongoing financial losses.

The Amazon multibillionaire, who purchased the paper for $250m in 2013 and initially saw it return to profitability before a post-Covid readership and revenue collapse, addressed the staff in a communication that shores up the position of the Post’s publisher and chief executive Will Lewis. Lewis, who joined the Post in early January, has come under pressure over his alleged involvement in Britain’s long running press telephone hacking scandal.

“Team – I know you’ve already heard this from Will, but I wanted to also weigh in directly: the journalistic standards and ethics at The Post will not change,” Bezos wrote.

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“To be sure, it can’t be business as usual at The Post,” Bezos continued. “The world is evolving rapidly and we do need to change as a business. With your support, we’ll do that and lead this great institution into the future”.

In recent days, there has been widespread press speculation that Lewis’ tenure, and that of his incoming hand-picked editor Robert Winnett, could be cut short. The drama erupted after the paper’s editor Sally Buzbee resigned as part of a newsroom shake-up.

Bezos shouldered a $77m loss over the last year and has seen a 50% decrease in the Post’s audience since 2020. But the drama soon shifted to Lewis who had allegedly tried to squash the Post’s reporting of the hacking scandal. Lewis has denied those claims as well as any involvement in hacking while he was at London’s Sunday Times.

The controversy continued to heat up on Saturday when the New York Times reported that Lewis and Winnett “used fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles” when both worked at the London paper.

At its peak in 2012, News International, owner of the Sunday Times, the Sun and now defunct News of the World, estimated that the parent company had lost at least $250m in one year in costs related to hacking. The company, and other UK publishers, paid out hundreds of millions more to celebrities and other personalities to settle hacking claims – with more likely to come.

With aspects of the controversy now roiling the Washington Post, press ethics are under increased scrutiny.

Last month, jurors that returned a guilty verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money case heard details of a “catch-and-kill” scheme orchestrated by the National Enquirer to satisfy demands for payments from two women who had affairs with the former president, which both had at least initially denied.

Trump, who continues to deny a brief sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels, was found guilty of falsifying business records in an effort to cover-up the payments ahead of the 2016 election that he won.

In Bezos’ memo to Washington Post staff, first reported by Puck, he said that “as the newsroom leaders who’ve been shaping and guiding our coverage, you also know our standards at The Post have always been very high”.

“That can’t change, and it won’t,” Bezos wrote. “You have my full commitment on maintaining the quality, ethics, and standards we all believe in.”

Bezos’s memo – which was signed “Jeff” – added “a huge thank you for continuing to do the work that makes us all proud, and makes this institution so important”.