Robert Winnett, deputy editor of the British newspaper The Telegraph, will not join The Washington Post as editor-in-chief.
“We are pleased that Rob Winnett has decided to stay with us. As we all know, he is a talented guy and their loss is our gain,” The Telegraph’s editor-in-chief Chris Evans said in an email to staff.
Washington Post CEO William Lewis confirmed the change in a memo to employees, adding that the paper would launch a formal search for a new editor-in-chief.
“I am sad to announce that Robert Winett has stepped down as editor in chief of The Washington Post,” Lewis wrote. “Rob is someone I have the utmost respect for and an incredibly talented editor and journalist.”
news The Wall Street Journal reported earlier. The paper has reached out to The Washington Post for comment.
Winnett was set to become editor-in-chief of The Washington Post after this fall’s presidential election.
He was selected for the job by a Briton named Lewis, who was recently appointed UK chief executive and publisher. Jeff BezosThe publication is owned by, but has seen a loss of funds in recent years.
Lewis’ appointment has sparked outrage within the paper, with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters publicly calling on Bezos to reverse course and fire Lewis, citing questionable integrity and ethics.
More than a decade ago, Mr Lewis was a senior executive at News International, parent of the now-defunct News of the World, whose journalists were accused of hacking into the phones of senior British officials.
Lewis has denied any wrongdoing in the phone-tapping scandal.
News International was subsequently renamed News UK and became co-owned with the New York Post.
last weekend, The Washington Post published an investigative article. Digging into Winnett’s journalistic past.
The article said Winnett had close ties to a trained actor who used subterfuge and illegal means to obtain information, including one attempt to steal former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s soon-to-be-published memoirs.
a New York Times article Last week it was reported that both Lewis and Winnett had used illegally obtained telephone and company records in newspaper articles while working as journalists in the UK 20 years ago.
Lewis reportedly wrote the article based on information he stole while he was business editor of the Sunday Times.
Winnett’s byline also appeared on other articles that were allegedly based on illegally obtained information, according to the New York Times.
At the time Lewis and Winnett worked at The Sunday Times, the paper relied on the services of a private investigator who later admitted to obtaining information through deceptive means.
But the Sunday Times, which is owned by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation, the Post’s parent company, denies having ever paid anyone to break the law.
The New York Times also reported last week that Lewis, while editor of the Daily Telegraph, paid sources more than £100,000 (equivalent to about $160,000) in exchange for information.
Most American newspapers maintain policies that prohibit paying sources.
News of the appointments of Messrs. Lewis and Winnett has infuriated editorial staff at The Washington Post, who say alleged ethical breaches by the two British journalists make them unfit to hold leadership positions at the venerable newspaper.
Bezos sent a memo to The Washington Post’s top editors on Tuesday saying he was “committed to upholding the quality, ethics and standards we all believe in.”
David Maraniss, the Washington Post’s deputy managing editor and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote a Facebook post calling on Bezos to fire Lewis.
“I don’t think anyone at The Washington Post believes that the current situation with the publisher and new editor in chief is sustainable,” Maraniss wrote.
“There may be a few, but they are very few.”
Scott Higham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Post, echoed Maraniss’s arguments, replying on Facebook that “Will Lewis needs to step down for the good of The Washington Post and for the good of the American people.”
“He’s lost his newsroom and he’s never going to get it back.”
