In the cloak-and-dagger world of British newspapers, editor Robert Winnett stands out for his lack of ostentation. Taciturn and discreet, more likely to be buried in documents at his desk than hobnobbing in a Mayfair club, Winnett, deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph, is known for his focus on breaking news, which once earned him the nickname “Rat Boy.” ”For his incessant search for firsts.
Now Winnett is stepping into a spotlight that will be hard to avoid: This fall, he will become editor of The Washington Post, taking on one of the most powerful and scrutinized jobs in American journalism at a crucial time for the news industry. news. .
His promotion stems from his long-standing ties to Will Lewis, CEO of The Post. Lewis, a Fleet Street star, mentored Winnett at The Sunday Times of London and later at The Telegraph, where Winnett spearheaded a groundbreaking investigation into fraudulent spending that led to the resignations of dozens of British politicians.
But Winnett remains an unknown quantity, both in elite American media circles and within the newsroom he will soon lead. He will join The Post after 17 years at The Telegraph, a center-right newspaper associated with Britain’s Conservative Party. Some of his past practices, including paying a six-figure sum to obtain documents crucial to the expenses investigation, run counter to the strictest journalistic ethics followed by American news organizations.
Representatives for The Post declined to make Winnett available for an interview.
But Monday’s interviews with former colleagues and Fleet Street veterans presented a portrait of a journalist obsessed with scoops, with a distaste for dinner parties and a passion for the Chelsea football team, whose unassuming exterior masks a stubborn hound who enjoys tough stories about politicians from around the world. stripes.
“He really believes in holding power to account, and he believes that’s the most important job journalism exists to do,” said Rosa Prince, Politico’s deputy UK editor, who worked with Winnett at The Telegraph. “He’s much more of a news person than someone who has particularly strong political opinions.”
Winnett was so eager to work in journalism that he took on freelance jobs during his holidays at Oxford University. He was still a student when he joined the Sunday Times of London in 1995 as a personal finance editor.
His ambition caught the attention of the business editor there, Mr Lewis, who left for The Telegraph and then brought Mr Winnett with him. Covering Parliament, Winnett earned a reputation as “a master at spotting the gem in the dust of heavy reporting,” as a colleague once told the Guardian.
In 2009, someone called the Telegraph offices with a tempting offer. The whistleblower was in possession of a small red hard drive containing thousands of documents revealing widespread abuse by lawmakers of their parliamentary expense accounts. Taxpayer money had been used for personal mortgage payments and home improvements like a ditch.
It was an explosive story with the potential to upset the British political establishment. But when the informant met Winnett at a London wine bar, he asked to be paid for the information, calling it a way to protect his source’s livelihood. The Times of London and The Sun rejected this offer; The Telegraph accepted it.
“We said: ‘Look, although The Telegraph doesn’t pay for stories like this – we’re not a tabloid, it’s not something we do – but this is sensational. These people need some insurance. They could lose their careers,’” Winnett said in “The Disk,” a documentary produced by The Telegraph in 2020 to mark the 10th anniversary of the investigation.
At the time, Mr Lewis was editor-in-chief of The Telegraph. According to the film, when Winnett and a colleague approached Lewis with the idea of paying for the documents, they thought they could convince him to offer £30,000. Instead, Lewis ruled out a higher figure: £100,000. (A different Telegraph editor later described the amount as £110,000.)
Mr. Lewis defended the payment as being in the public interest. “The payment thing is a red herring,” he said in the documentary. “This is one of the most important parts of journalism, if not the most important, in the post-war period. “I can’t think of more shocking journalism for Britain and British society, highlighting such deep wrongdoing and systematic abuse.”
Winnett coordinated all aspects of the investigation, which dominated British headlines for weeks, ending the careers of senior figures from several political parties and winning numerous awards. By 2014, he had been promoted to deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, eventually overseeing their 24-hour digital newsgathering operation.
Winnett was also the lead author of a 2010 Telegraph article that involved the use of undercover reporters posing as constituents of a cabinet member, Vince Cable, and surreptitiously recording his unvarnished comments about a pending media merger involving to Rupert Murdoch. The ensuing outcry forced Mr. Cable to refrain from awarding the merger.
Winnett himself did not go undercover, and Cable said Monday that he did not know if Winnett had commissioned the article and knew him as a “serious political reporter.” Articles involving undercover journalists were later reprimanded by a British press regulator.
At The Post, Winnett is expected to oversee all news coverage related to politics, business, technology, sports, reporting and investigations. He plans to move from London to Washington. In a memo distributed to The Telegraph newsroom, Winnett described his departure from the Post as “an emotional decision.”
“He is one hundred percent dedicated to the work; that’s what it is,” said Holly Watt, a London journalist who has worked closely with Winnett. “To people who knew him early on, it was very obvious that he was going to be a newspaper editor.”
Stephen’s Castle contributed reports. kitty bennett contributed to the research.