Tag: Will Lewis

Arc was supposed to be a key to The Washington Post’s future. It became a problem instead.

Shailesh Prakash, former chief technologist at The Washington Post. Photo (cc) 2017 by Nordiske Mediedager.

Several months ago, Brian Stelter wrote an article (gift link) for The Atlantic exploring how The Washington Post had lost its way. During the Trump years, the Post thrived under the ownership of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, adding audience and staff as well as turning a profit. Since then, all three of those metrics have nose-dived. Bezos’ choice to turn things around, publisher Will Lewis, is beset by ethical problems that no one seems to want to deal with.

All those issues are explored in detail by Stelter, but there was one fact that stood out to me: The Post’s content-management system, Arc, which was supposed to be a money-maker, had instead turned out to be a drag on the bottom line. Stelter wrote:

In 2021, the Post’s total profit was about $60 million. In 2022, the paper began to dip into the red. [Then-publisher Fred] Ryan reassured people that the loss was expected because of the investments in the Post’s journalism and continued losses at Arc XP, the in-house content-management system that the Post expanded during Bezos’s and Ryan’s tenure (the software is now licensed to other companies). Arc needed to spend a lot of money to have a chance to make money in the future, the argument went, and according to two sources, it accounted for the majority of the Post’s losses in 2022 and 2023.

If Ryan was right, then there was nothing wrong with the Post that getting Arc under control wouldn’t fix. I was surprised, and I filed that factoid away for future use. Well, the future arrived this week, as the Post announced it was laying off about 25% of Arc’s staff — more than 50 people — in order to stem those losses.

What happened? Stories about the layoffs in The Wall Street Journal (gift link) and Axios don’t really make it clear. But it seems that what at one time had looked like a smart bet on the future went south in a serious way.

CMS’s are universally loathed, but Arc was billed as something different and better — simple and built in a modular manner to made it easier to add features. It’s fast. To this day, the Post’s mobile apps load much more quickly than The New York Times’. The Boston Globe is an Arc customer, and if you use its Arc-based apps (look for a white “B” against a black background), content loads more or less instantly.

When I was reporting on the Post for my 2018 book “The Return of the Moguls,” then-chief technologist Shailesh Prakash touted Arc as a key to the Post’s future success. Internally, the Post’s iteration of Arc featured the infamous “MartyBot” — an image of then-executive editor Marty Baron that popped up on a journalist’s screen as a reminder that a deadline was approaching. One of Arc’s customers was Mark Zusman, the editor and publisher of Willamette Week in Oregon. He told me by email:

They flew a team out here and within three months we were up and running. I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly it happened. Arc creates enormous functionality under the hood. I have a happy news team (talk about unusual) and the Post is rolling out improvements on a regular basis.

Prakash told me that he hoped Arc might help the Post become the hub of a news ecosystem that would benefit both the Post and news organizations that licensed the CMS:

I would love it if the platform we built for the Post was powering a lot of other media organizations. That would definitely break down the silos for content sharing, a lot of the silos for analytics, for personalization. The larger the scale the better you can do in some of those scenarios. But those are still aspirational at this point.

Well, Prakash is long gone, and is now vice president of news at Google. Baron has retired. And Arc has failed to deliver on its promise of becoming a revenue-generator for the Post as well as a way for the paper to establish itself as the center of a network of Arc-using news organizations.

I hope we find out what happened. I know that Arc is expensive — probably too expensive for it to be adopted by more than a handful of news clients. Still Axios reports that the CMS has more than 2,500 customers. Maybe the layoffs will allow for a reset that will lead to future growth. But the story of Arc sounds like one of opportunity that slipped away.

Your morning reads: The Evan Gershkovich talks, Will Lewis’ folly and changes at CBS

I’m heading out on vacation, though I may post from the road if there’s any big news to catch up on. Meanwhile, here are three morning reads, including gift links for those of you who aren’t subscribers to The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times.

  • The Journal has published a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the negotiations that led to the release of journalist Evan Gershkovich and others, including U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. Be sure to read the last paragraph.
  • Back before he came under the scrutiny of Scotland Yard, Will Lewis was hired as publisher of The Washington Post because of his supposed skill in attracting a younger audience. Now The New York Times reports that his side hustle aimed at doing just that is an embarrassing failure.
  • Norah O’Donnell, who’s stepping down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” later this year, will be replaced by two anchors: John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who will be based in New York. Margaret Brennan, in Washington, will be a third anchor, sort of. The Hollywood Reporter has the story.

Will Lewis is back in the news. And once again, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis. 2019 public domain photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Few media executives have benefited from the political chaos of the past month more than Washington Post publisher Will Lewis.

Before the presidential debate of June 27, Lewis seemed to be hanging by a thread over revelations that he was involved in covering up the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids back in 2011. He’s also come under fire for approving payments to a source while he was working at another paper and, more recently, demanding that journalists — including Post executive editor Sally Buzbee, who later left the paper — not report on his transgressions.

Since the debate, which led to weeks of frenzied coverage regarding President Biden’s age and fitness, his subsequent withdrawal from the race, and the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris (not to mention an assassination attempt against Donald Trump), Lewis’ fate had been forgotten.

Until now.

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, who earlier revealed that Lewis promised him an exclusive interview if Folkenflik would give Lewis’ ethical problems a good leaving-alone, reported on Tuesday that new documents show Lewis has been accused of making up a story 13 years ago “to shield evidence from police of possible crimes at Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids.” The accusations were leveled as part of a lawsuit brought against Murdoch’s tabloids by Prince Harry and other prominent political figures in the U.K.

Folkenflik’s story is filled with names and details, but essentially Lewis is accused of faking a security threat “to justify the deletion of millions of emails dating from the start of 2008 through the end of 2010.” Here’s the heart of Folkenflik’s report:

In July 2011, when police first learned of the deleted emails, Lewis explained that Murdoch’s company was compelled to get rid of them because of a tip that he and a senior executive received nearly six months earlier: an “outside source” told them that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was conspiring with a News UK employee and another person to steal the emails of the CEO. That unnamed person was said to be Tom Watson, then a leading member of parliament and critic of the Murdochs. The IT person was later alleged to have been a former News UK staffer.

Brown has denounced the claim as false and outrageous. He’s asked Scotland Yard for a criminal investigation of the episode involving Lewis. Watson, who is among scores of litigants suing News UK alleging illegal invasions of privacy, has denied it. In court, the lead trial attorney for Watson, Harry and the others called the story “a ruse.”

Writing in The Guardian, Caroline Davies goes into detail about minutes of a meeting between police officials and Lewis in July 2011. In the excerpt below, “Rebekah” is Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of Murdoch’s News International company, and “BCL” is the law firm that was representing Murdoch’s interests. Here’s what Lewis reportedly told detectives:

We got a warning from a source that a current member of staff had got access to Rebekah’s emails and had passed them to Tom Watson MP.

This came to Rebekah. I was asked to meet the source. I will consult with BCL as to whether I can tell you the identity of the source. The source repeated the threat. Then the source came back and said it was a former member of staff and the emails had definitely been passed and that it was controlled by Gordon Brown. This added to our anxieties. We took steps to try and be more specific around her emails.

Folkenflik and Davies report that Lewis is also accused of leaking an audio recording aimed at harming a critic of Murdoch’s proposed acquisition of the Sky broadcasting service. That acquisition was nixed after the phone-hacking schedule came to light.

Lewis has denied any wrongdoing, though he would not speak with Folkenflik.

The Post, along with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, is one of our three great daily newspapers. We all have an interest in its surviving and thriving after several years of losing circulation and money. It’s been clear for some time that Lewis lacks the ethical compass needed to lead the Post.

Owner Jeff Bezos might have hoped that Lewis had survived the worst of it. But as the most recent developments show, this saga is not done playing out. It’s hard to see how it will end well for Lewis.

Earlier coverage.

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Why Lewis’ checkbook journalism in the U.K. will taint The Washington Post

Roy Moore. Video clip (cc) 2017 by Folsom Natural.

Everything you need to know about why Will Lewis can’t stay as publisher of The Washington Post. And this is about one of his lesser scandals: his paying £110,000 to a source in return for information about a parliamentary spending scandal. The Atlantic’s Stephanie McCrummen writes (free link):

Hours after my Washington Post colleagues and I published the first of several articles in 2017 about the Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore’s history of pursuing teenage girls, the Republican nominee’s powerful allies launched an elaborate campaign seeking to discredit the story.

The best-known of these efforts was an attempt carried out by the far-right activist group Project Veritas to dupe us into publishing a false story, an operation we exposed. But there were others, perhaps none more insidious than the spreading of false rumors across Alabama that The Washington Post had paid Moore’s accusers to come forward, and were offering thousands of dollars to other women for salacious stories about him.

So now Robert Winnett is out and Lewis, his enabler in the pay-to-play scheme, remains in his job, at least for the moment. This will not stand.

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Washington Post update: Winnett withdraws while Lewis hangs on — for now

Robert Winnett (via LinkedIn)

Robert Winnett will not be joining The Washington Post as executive editor this fall. The announcement (free link) was made by publisher Will Lewis, who is still at his job even though Winnett pulled out after his and Lewis’ gross breaches of journalistic ethics in the U.K. were revealed by several news outlets, including the Post itself.

I continue to believe Lewis isn’t long for his position, either. Two Pulitzer Prize-winning Post journalists, David Maraniss and Scott Higham, have called on Lewis to leave, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more in a few days.

Under Lewis’ absurd scheme for reorganizing the newsroom, the current interim executive editor, Matt Murray, who was brought in when Sally Buzbee quit rather than accept a demotion, is supposed to move over to run a “third newsroom” this fall that will comprise social media and, well, stuff, none of which Lewis has clearly defined. Murray, in turn, would be replaced by Winnett.

Instead, Winnett will remain as deputy editor of the Telegraph Media Group in the U.K. Murray, who had been editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, has made a good first impression, according to Poynter’s Tom Jones and other accounts I’ve seen, so perhaps he’ll remain as executive editor. But owner Jeff Bezos needs to do something soon — like maybe today — about the Lewis disaster.

Earlier coverage.

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Drip, drip, drip

Three new data points in the ongoing implosion of Washington Post publisher Will Lewis:

• While working for then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Lewis reportedly urged Johnson and other senior officials to “clean up” their phones — that is, to remove photos and other incriminating information that could be used against them in an investigation into violations of COVID-19 lockdown rules. Spokespeople for Lewis and Johnson deny it (The Guardian).

• We’ve been waiting for a Post legend to weigh in. Neither Bob Woodward nor Marty Baron has been heard from yet, but Pulitzer Prize-winning associate editor David Maraniss has broken his silence. In a post on Facebook, Maraniss wrote: “I don’t know a single person at the Post who thinks the current situation with the publisher and supposed new editor can stand. There might be a few, but very very few. Jeff Bezos owns the Post but he is not of and for the Post or he would understand. The issue is one of integrity not resistance to change.” The “new editor” is Robert Winnett, a longtime associate of Lewis’ who is supposed to become executive editor of the Post this fall (Facebook).

• Post owner Jeff Bezos has written a message to the newsroom assuring the staff that “the journalistic standards and ethics at The Post will not change” and offering his support for Lewis — “though not explicitly,” as CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy observes. It sounds like Bezos wants to buck up Lewis while leaving open the possibility that he’ll have to go. Frankly, that point was reached days ago (CNN.com).

Earlier coverage.

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Subscription woes, public media challenges and the Post’s staff bites back

Public domain photo by cweyant

Here’s a round-up of media links for your Monday morning.

• With print dollars giving way to digital dimes and platform pennies, newspapers have been looking to online subscriptions for revenue and growth. Nationally, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have all done well, though the Post, as we know, has hit some bumps. Regional papers like The Boston Globe and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis have succeeded, too. But Poynter business analyst Rick Edmonds has been reading the new Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and finds that, among digital subscribers, “at least 60% pay less than full price.” Full-price conversion at renewal time isn’t easy, either. Keep that in mind the next time you see an email from a newspaper offering six months for $1.

• Public broadcasting this year has been slammed with layoffs both nationally and in Boston, with both WBUR and GBH News suffering significant cuts. At Editor & Publisher, nonprofit consultant Tom Davidson writes that public media outlets face three challenges: audience fragmentation, a glut in podcasts and a decline in underwriting, as advertising is known in the nonprofit world. Davidson writes: “The good old days are not coming back. Drive-time audiences are never going to return to their late-2010 peak…. Engaging different audiences requires a deep, humble understanding of their wants, needs and desires.”

• I was heartened to see a four-byline story in The Washington Post, published Sunday night, about the latest scandal involving the paper’s new executive team. The story documents a close working relationship (free link) between John Ford, “a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper,” and Robert Winnett, who publisher Will Lewis, up to his neck in ethical challenges of his own, has named to become the Post’s executive editor later this year. The article, based on draft chapters of a book Ford wrote, includes this delicious package:

Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post.

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The Will Lewis scandal at The Washington Post is spinning out of control

Will Sally Buzbee return? Photo (cc) 2018 by Collision Conf.

Saturday was the first time I thought that Washington Post publisher Will Lewis might survive the scandal that had erupted over his role in the Murdoch phone-hacking schedule and his subsequent attempts at intimidating people into not reporting on it. By Saturday evening, though, it was clear that not only will he have to go but so will his hand-picked executive editor, Robert Winnett.

In case you missed it, here’s the lead of the latest New York Times report (free link), this one by Justin Scheck and Jo Becker:

The publisher and the incoming editor of The Washington Post, when they worked as journalists in London two decades ago, used fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles, according to a former colleague, a published account of a private investigator and an analysis of newspaper archives.

Will Lewis, The Post’s publisher, assigned one of the articles in 2004 as business editor of The Sunday Times. Another was written by Robert Winnett, whom Mr. Lewis recently announced as The Post’s next executive editor.

What a disaster. And it gets worse, as Scheck and Becker recount the ways that Lewis has tried to play down his role in the scandal, including telling the BBC in 2020, “My role was to put things right, and that is what I did.” Now we know he was up to his neck in it. The Times story also reports that Lewis has been less than honest about how he handled a £110,000 payoff to a source.

Just a reminder: executive editor Sally Buzbee, who left the Post a week ago, was not fired; rather, she quit rather than accept a demotion to a new role overseeing social media and new editorial products. What are the odds of her returning triumphantly to the newsroom on Monday? No doubt that would require an apology by owner Jeff Bezos as well as some guaranteed job security. But that would seem to be Bezos’ best option at this point.

Earlier coverage.

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An insightful Times report on Jeff Bezos, Will Lewis and The Washington Post

Portrait of Jeff Bezos (cc) 2017 by thierry ehrmann

Some worthwhile insights in this New York Times story (free link) on Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post. According to Times reporters Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson, interim publisher Patty Stonesifer last fall did a thorough scrub of Will Lewis’ involvement in the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal and, according to an anonymous source, “came away satisfied with his explanation and confident that he was the right executive to run The Post.”

Lewis’ miserable attempts to manage the fallout from that scandal, which include reports that he tried to intimidate then-executive editor Sally Buzbee from reporting on it in the Post and that he told NPR media reporter David Folkenflik he could have an interview if he’d agree not to write about it, were apparently not enough to overcome Bezos’ belief that Lewis could be an effective publisher.

Bezos seems especially intrigued by Lewis’ proposal to create a “third newsroom” to include social media and new products, and the Times reports that Bezos pressed Buzbee to accept Lewis’ offer of running that shop. Buzbee declined and left the paper.

I’m intrigued by the third newsroom as well, since the Post desperately needs to find a strategy that involves more than being just like the Times only not as comprehensive. I still wonder if Lewis can overcome his self-inflicted wounds, but he has reportedly adopted a more contrite attitude in dealings with his employees. So we’ll see.

Earlier coverage.

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