Jeff Bezos is under fire at the Washington Post as patience wears thin among staffers

When will Jeff Bezos actually address the upheaval roiling his newsroom?

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here. When will Jeff Bezos actually address the upheaval roiling his newsroom? The Washington Post owner and Amazon billionaire has yet to take any real action to quell concerns at his newspaper, which remains engulfed in disarray as explosive reports are published day after day throwing the ethical integrity of the outlet’s new publisher, Will Lewis, into serious question. Staffers at The Post are losing their patience with Bezos, whose only action thus far responding to the Lewis calamity has been to fire off a paltry, 138-word, single-paragraph memo from his Mediterranean yachting vacation to a handful of leaders at The Post, assuring them that he wants standards to remain “very high.” In the eyes of staffers at The Post, that is the very issue. They too want standards to remain “very high” and fear that Lewis poses an active danger to that shared goal. More drama unfolded Friday after the Lewis announced Robert Winnett, who Lewis named as the paper’s incoming editor, would not to come to lead the Post. That follows a 3,000-word front page expose this week, in which The Post reported that Winnett had previously used materials from a self-described “thief” for reporting. Frustrations and concerns are so high at the outlet that two of the institution’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists have chosen to speak out on the record, calling for a change in leadership, an unheard of step at the storied newspaper. David Maraniss, an associate editor who has worked at The Post for nearly five decades, said he doesn’t “know a single person at the Post who thinks the current situation with the publisher and supposed new editor can stand.” And Scott Higham, who has worked at The Post for more than two decades, agreed and called for Lewis’ head.