Washington Post Facing Restructure
Big changes are shaking up The Washington Post, as the newspaper navigates a challenging time marked by dwindling readership and financial losses. On Monday, the Post announced the abrupt departure of executive editor Sally Buzbee and introduced a restructuring plan aimed at reversing the decline in subscribers and readers over the past few years.
The restructuring plan was laid out by Post publisher Will Lewis and Matt Murray, a former Wall Street Journal editor who is temporarily replacing Buzbee. The new strategy divides the newsroom into three separate divisions: one focused on core news reporting, another on opinion pieces, and a third dedicated to attracting new readers through innovative approaches using social media, video, artificial intelligence, and sales.
Buzbee reportedly disagreed with this new plan and chose to leave rather than head one of the divisions. In a meeting with reporters and editors, Lewis, who has been with the Post for only five months, emphasized the urgency of the situation, saying, “I’m not interested in managing decline. I’m interested in growth.” He bluntly told staffers, “People are not reading your stuff. We need to take decisive action.”
This shake-up comes as the Post faces significant challenges. The newspaper’s website saw its unique visitors drop from 101 million per month in 2020 to just 50 million by the end of 2023, and the Post reportedly lost $77 million last year. Former Post columnist Margaret Sullivan noted that despite owner Jeff Bezos’s wealth, billionaires typically do not like to lose money.
The newly created “third newsroom” is designed to attract new consumers, but its exact structure and functionality remain somewhat mysterious. Historically, the Post had integrated digital and social media operations into the regular newsroom, but this new division suggests a shift back to a more segmented approach. As Sullivan remarked, “Maybe it’s brilliant and innovative, but it just strikes me as being odd.”
Critics worry that this division might fragment the Post’s news reporting and hinder the collaboration needed for seamless, multiplatform journalism. Jeff Jarvis, author of “The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and its Lessons for the Age of the Internet,” pointed out the risks, saying, “It feels so retro — reminiscent of search engine optimization, social media, and pivoting to video, just as AI and agents threaten to become a new web.”
Concerns about leadership diversity were also raised, especially after Buzbee’s departure, which made her the first woman to hold the editor-in-chief position at the Post. Lewis assured staff of his commitment to diversity, promising changes in the future. However, the leadership transition has sparked some apprehension, with two British-born editors soon set to lead the influential American newspaper.
In the interim, Murray will lead until the November presidential election, after which Robert Winnett, a longtime editor at the Telegraph in England and an associate of Lewis, will take over the core reporting functions.
Lewis has indicated that the Post will experiment with different pay tiers for digital subscriptions, aiming to appeal to readers interested in specific topics rather than the entire news package. This strategy mirrors approaches taken by other publications like Politico. During her tenure, Buzbee had already started enhancing the Post’s coverage in niche areas such as cooking and climate to attract specific reader segments.
These changes highlight the broader challenges facing major newspapers today, as they strive to balance attracting a national and international audience with the decline of local news coverage. As the Post embarks on this ambitious restructuring plan, all eyes will be on how these changes impact its readership and financial health in the coming months.