Winnett, hired by William Lewis, publisher of The Post, faced questions about his U.K. work, including stories based on stolen records.
Robert Winnett, the British journalist recently tapped to become editor of The Washington Post later this year, will not take the job and will remain at the Daily Telegraph in London, according to a memo obtained by The Post on Friday.
“I’m pleased to report that Rob Winnett has decided to stay with us,” Telegraph editor Chris Evans wrote to staff. “As you all know, he’s a talented chap and their loss is our gain.” Winnett, deputy editor of London’s Telegraph Media Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.from the position, relaying the news “with regret” in a note to Post staff. “Rob has my greatest respect and is an incredibly talented editor and journalist,” Lewis wrote. “The leadership at The Telegraph Media Group are reaffirming his continued role as deputy editor.”Lewis announced Winnett’s hiring just 2½ weeks ago. They previously worked together at both the Telegraph and the Sunday Times.In his staff email Friday morning, Lewis said The Post would immediately begin a search for a replacement. “We will soon announce both the recruiting firm and process we will utilize to ensure a timely but thorough search for this important leadership role,” he wrote. Winnett has spent his entire career in British journalism and was practically unknown in American media circles. Lewis had announced that Winnett would join The Post after the November U.S. presidential election, and oversee the traditional news division. Since then, reports have surfaced raising questions about the reporting methods used by Winnett, as well as by Lewis when he worked as a journalist in Britain. A Post investigation published Sunday revealed Winnett’s connections to a confessed con artist turned whistleblower who has admitted using illegal methods to gain information for stories in Britain’s Sunday Times, a paper where Winnett worked before joining the Telegraph. The New York Times also reported that Winnett and Lewis had based some stories on stolen records, and raised new questions about a payment made to obtain information that led to a 2009 investigation into government corruption that shook the British political establishment and led to several officials’ resignations. Paying sources for information is verboten in most American newsrooms. So is misrepresenting oneself as anything other than a journalist to obtain confidential information as part of newsgathering, a practice referred to as “blagging.” While blagging is illegal in the U.K., The Post reported that legal experts have said it is defensible if the information obtained is in the public’s interest.In a newsroom meeting earlier this month, Lewis called Winnett “a world class editor” and “a brilliant investigative journalist,” who he promised “will restore an even greater degree of investigative rigor to our organization.” The disruption at the top of The Post’s newsroom also delays Lewis’s plans to reorganize The Post this year. A new division of the newsroom - dubbed the “Third Newsroom” and focused on reaching audiences not already consuming Post content - will now launch sometime during the first three months of 2025, Lewis wrote in a note to staff. Former Wall Street Journal executive editor Matt Murray - another former Lewis associate - was recently hired to replace Buzbee temporarily, and run the Third Newsroom after the 2024 election. He will stay on as executive editor after the November races. Earlier this month, media reports described attempts by Lewis to dissuade journalists from covering his involvement in a long-running British phone-hacking lawsuit. Lewis has denied attempting to discourage Post journalists from covering the story. NPR journalist David Folkenflik also shared his account of Lewis trying to persuade him to drop a story about the case in exchange for an exclusive story about The Post’s plans; Lewis called Folkenflik “an activist, not a journalist.” “The Washington Post sets and models the highest ethical standards in journalism to which every Post employee is expected to adhere,” a Post spokesperson said. Lewis worked for Rupert Murdoch’s News International to help with the corporate cleanup in the wake of the phone-hacking and police bribery scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World tabloid. An ongoing civil case related to the cleanup does not name Lewis as a defendant, but a judge has allowed plaintiffs to air allegations that Lewis and others tried to suppress information about the hacking. He has denied wrongdoing, and has previously said that his role in the phone-hacking cleanup was to ensure journalistic values and practices, such as protecting sources, were protected. Lewis then went on to serve as the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and CEO of Dow Jones, also Murdoch-owned properties.
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