Newly named Washington Post editor bows out after backlash

In the past few weeks, several media reports raised concerns about the incoming editor’s journalistic ethics.

The Washington Post says newly named editor Robert Winnett has decided not to take the job and will remain in Britain instead, creating another upheaval at a news outlet where a reorganisation plan has gone disastrously wrong.

The Post’s CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, announced Winnett’s decision to withdraw in a note to staff on Friday and said a recruitment firm would be hired to launch a search for a replacement immediately.

The financially struggling Post had announced Winnett would take over as editor of the core newsroom functions after the United States elections in November and had said it was setting up a “third newsroom” devoted to finding new ways for its journalism to make money.

Three weeks ago, then-Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said she would quit rather than take a demotion to head this revenue-enhancement effort. Former Wall Street Journal editor Matt Murray was brought on as her interim replacement and future leader of the “third newsroom”.

Since then, several published reports have raised questions about the journalistic ethics of Lewis and Winnett stemming from their work in England. For example, both men worked together on a series of scoops about extravagant spending by British politicians that was fed by information they had paid a data information company for — a practice frowned upon in American journalism.