Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee to leave role in a sudden move
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The Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee celebrating with the staff after the Pulitzer Prizes were announced in 2024.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – The executive editor of The Washington Post, Ms Sally Buzbee, will step down from her role, a major and sudden change at one of America’s pre-eminent news organisations.
Mr Matt Murray, former editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, will take her place until the end of the US presidential election, the company said on June 2. Mr Robert Winnett, a deputy editor of the Telegraph Media Group, will take over after the US election.
Mr Murray will then transition to a new role after the US election, the company said in a news release, building a new newsroom within The Washington Post focused on service and social media journalism.
At that point, Mr Winnett, Mr Murray and Mr David Shipley, who oversees the opinion section at the Post, will each report independently to Mr Will Lewis, the chief executive officer (CEO) and publisher of the Post.
Ms Buzbee, 58, has steered the newspaper for the past three years, a turbulent period that resulted in award-winning journalism, as well as a drop in audience numbers and an exodus of some top talent from the newsroom.
The Post has greatly expanded its editing ranks under Ms Buzbee, announcing the addition of roughly 41 positions in 2021, and revamping its vaunted Styles section.
It has received six Pulitzer Prize awards since she joined, three of them in 2024
“Sally is an incredible leader and a supremely talented media executive who will be sorely missed,” Mr Lewis said in a statement. “I wish her all the best going forward.”
The new appointments are the biggest moves that Mr Lewis has made since he was appointed in 2023
In April, the Post announced the addition of Ms Suzi Watford, a former top executive at Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, as its chief strategy editor.
In January, the Post named Mr Karl Wells as its chief growth officer, a position responsible for subscription strategy, partnerships, licensing and data analytics.
Plan to reverse fall
At a town hall in May, Mr Lewis updated employees on his strategy for reviving the business and revealed the extent of the Post’s financial woes, including that it lost more than US$70 million (S$94 million) in 2023 and suffered a substantial decline in audience.
On June 2, Mr Lewis unveiled more of his plan to save the Post, including the new division of the newsroom focused on service, which will target non-traditional news consumers. The core news division will soon include premium subscription products, similar to Politico Pro.
Mr Murray, 58, had led the Journal for four years, a job he was appointed to by Mr Lewis, who was then CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of the Journal. Mr Murray was replaced in 2023 by British editor Emma Tucker. He has since served as a consultant to News Corp, which owns the Journal, and has worked as a contributing editor to News Items, an e-mail newsletter publication.
When Mr Winnett takes over the core newsroom after the election, he will oversee coverage areas such as politics, investigations and business. For the past decade, he has run news operations at The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.
A habitue of Fleet Street or British journalism circles, Mr Winnett is relatively unknown in the top echelons of the US news industry. He was one of Mr Lewis’ most prominent hires at The Daily Telegraph, having been nominated multiple times for Scoop of the Year.
Ms Buzbee joined the Post in June 2021 after serving as executive editor of The Associated Press, where she spent her whole career. She took over the Post from Mr Marty Baron, a legendary newspaper editor who had run the Post for eight years and oversaw its transition to ownership by Mr Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, who bought the paper for US$250 million in 2013
Mr Fred Ryan, the former CEO of the company, stepped down in June 2023, and was replaced in the interim by Ms Patty Stonesifer, an Amazon board member.
Ms Stonesifer, a confidant of Mr Bezos, assessed the company and soon determined that it needed to cut about 240 jobs in order to become economically sustainable. She led the search for her successor, and recruited Mr Lewis to the Post in 2023. NYTIMES
