The Ghosts of The Washington Post’s Past

will lewis
In many latent ways, Lewis’s change is already afoot: Instead of staffing up ahead of a new Trump administration, or even working to retain talent, the Post is actively cutting costs and contemplating acquisitions. Photo: Carlotta Cardana/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
December 27, 2024

In the two months since the presidential election, as it’s become apparent to an already disillusioned Washington Post staff that Will Lewis’s grand plan for pulling the the paper out of its extended malaise amounts to a convoluted newsroom restructuring led by the existing masthead, several of the company’s most notable journalists have decided that it’s finally time to consider their options. The coup de grâce for these folks—after years of diminished influence, ennui, and recurring bouts of antipathy toward Lewis, himself—appears to have been the surprise news that their beloved colleague Matea Gold would be decamping to The New York Times upon being passed over for the top editor job.