Former Staffer Margaret Sullivan Calls on Jeff Bezos to ‘Save’ Washington Post By ‘Firing’ CEO Will Lewis

 (Screengrab via YouTube)”

Former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan called on the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, to “save the Post from his own mistake” in appointing British media executive Will Lewis as CEO.

In a column for the Guardian published Friday, Sullivan went so far as to say that “firing” Lewis would be “the cleanest, best move” and insists that, now, the publication under Lewis’ leadership faces an “existential threat.”

Sullivan pointed to the Post’s historical achievements, the Watergate story, and the Pentagon Papers as benchmarks of its reputation while also acknowledging its need to “reinvent” its business model. The newspaper reported losses last year of $77 million, all covered by Bezos.

Lewis’s tenure has been marked by attempts to drastically reorganize the editorial operations, which Sullivan flatly blasted as a “mess.” In her article, she slammed the sudden ousting of executive editor Sally Buzbee and ripped Lewis’ plan to “launch a ‘third newsroom’ to do social media and service journalism.”

Sullivan then rounded on the reputational damage that come of the new CEO’s reported attempts to squelch coverage of his alleged role in a UK phone hacking scandal and attacks on those covering it.

“His disparagement of NPR’s well-respected media reporter, David Folkenflik, was particularly appalling,” she wrote of Lewis.

Sullivan wrote: “All of this taints Lewis badly. Plenty of people, including many on the Post’s talented staff, think Bezos should dump him now… But, at the moment, Bezos probably has no plan B.”

Short of “firing” the executive, however, she asked: “What can Bezos do?”

Sullivan said that Bezos must “instruct Lewis to publicly commit to giving the newsroom true editorial independence, pledging not only to the staff but to the public that there is a clear line between the business side and the journalists.”