Washington Post Execs Take Heat For Their Ethical Issues In The UK

New leaders of The Washington Post (WP) are being haunted by their pasts, with ethical questions raised about their actions as journalists in London that illustrate very different press traditions in the US and England, David Bauder reported for The Associated Press (AP).

Stories carried by The New York Times, NPR, and WP itself showed the involvement of WP publisher Will Lewis and Robert Winnett, his choice as a new editor, in wrongdoing involving London papers two decades ago. I Photo: Esther Vargas Flickr

Stories carried by The New York Times, NPR, and WP itself showed the involvement of WP publisher Will Lewis and Robert Winnett, his choice as a new editor, in wrongdoing involving London papers two decades ago.

Lewis took over as publisher earlier this year, with a mandate to turn around the financially troubled newspaper.

He announced a reorganization earlier this month when WP executive editor Sally Buzbee stepped down rather than accept a demotion. The coverage revealed Lewis’ sensitivity about questions involving his role in a phone hacking scandal that rocked the British press while he was working there.

He said that he was brought in by Rupert Murdoch to cooperate with authorities to clean up the paper. Plaintiffs in a civil case have charged him with destroying evidence.

The revelation of phone hacking in 2011 led to the closure of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid and sparked a public inquiry into press practices.

The UK press has long been considered freewheeling in its pursuit of scoops, willing to buy information and documents, which are frowned upon by US scribes. For example, when Lewis and Winnett worked at The Daily Telegraph in 2009, they cooperated on stories about politicians’ extravagant expense-account spending.

They paid for data that revealed the spending, a substantial ethical breach in the US.

The Times reported on Saturday that both Lewis and Winnett worked on stories in the 2000s that appeared to be based on fraudulently obtained phone and business records.