Will Lewis, executive editor of The Washington Post, repeatedly offered an exclusive interview to an NPR journalist if he agreed not to write about allegations against Lewis in a wiretapping scandal in Britain, according to a published account by that journalist. Thursday.
David Folkenflik, a veteran NPR media reporter, wrote that a spokesman for Lewis confirmed the offer in December. That spokesperson declined to comment when approached again Thursday, according to NPR.
“In several conversations, Lewis repeatedly (and heatedly) offered to give me an exclusive interview about the future of the Post, as long as I stopped telling the story about the allegations,” Folkenflik wrote.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Lewis said that “when he was a private citizen before joining The Washington Post, he had off-the-record conversations with an NPR employee about a story the employee later published.” The spokeswoman said any interview requests with Lewis after joining The Post were “processed through normal corporate communications channels.”
In an interview Thursday, Folkenflik said he did not violate an unofficial agreement with Lewis to report Thursday’s story. He also said he decided to reveal the conversation with Lewis and his spokeswoman now in light of recent turmoil at The Washington Post, including the abrupt resignation of his executive editor on Sunday.
“I thought the audacity of the offer was remarkable,” Folkenflik said. “And given what’s going on right now at The Post, I thought it was worth mentioning publicly.”
On Sunday, Lewis announced that Sally Buzbee had resigned as executive editor and that Matt Murray, former senior editor of The Wall Street Journal, would be her temporary replacement. After the presidential election, Robert Winnett, a British editor, will oversee the main news operation and Murray will manage a new division focused on social media and service journalism.
Lewis, who was named CEO of The Post late last year, is accused in court documents of helping to cover up illegal wiretapping at British publications owned by Rupert Murdoch more than a decade ago. In May, in a case brought by Prince Harry and others, a judge ruled that plaintiffs could add Lewis’ name to a list of executives they said were involved in a scheme to hide evidence of hacking in newspapers. .
Lewis has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. Although he is named in the lawsuit, he is not a defendant.
Folkenflik, who has long chronicled Murdoch’s media empire, first reported on the allegations against Lewis in December 2023, after Lewis was named The Post’s next chief executive, and has covered the events since. in the case of Court.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Lewis clashed with Buzbee over the newspaper’s coverage of the wiretapping scandal in the weeks before his departure.
Ms. Buzbee informed Mr. Lewis in mid-May that the newsroom planned to cover the judge’s upcoming ruling. Lewis told Buzbee that the case involving him did not deserve coverage, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
When Ms. Buzbee said The Post would publish an article anyway, she said her decision represented an error in judgment. The interaction disturbed Ms. Buzbee, but the article was published and Mr. Lewis did not interfere with its publication.
A Post spokeswoman declined to comment on the Times article published Wednesday. On Thursday, a spokeswoman for Lewis said the Times’ “account of a meeting she had with the then-executive editor is inaccurate.”
Mrs. Buzbee resigned on Sunday. The interaction over the court ruling was not the main reason for her resignation. Buzbee, who was The Post’s first executive editor and led the newsroom that earned six Pulitzers during her three-year tenure, had already been mulling over her future because of a plan by Lewis to reorganize the newsroom that would have reduced your paper.