I’m going to continue to express my amazement that Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s British media arm has led to utter chaos in an American newsroom. Harry is suing the Sun and basically everyone who worked for News UK from 2000 through 2012. That included Will Lewis, the newly-installed CEO of the Washington Post, who came up through the sleazy ranks of News UK and then the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal. It’s endlessly fascinating to me that Lewis’s problem started not when he spent years doing crime in the name of “journalism,” but when he refused to apply ethical journalism to himself. If he had come into the Post and said “full disclosure, I was up to my ass in shenanigans at the Times of London more than a decade ago and you guys need to report on it thoroughly,” things wouldn’t have gotten this bad. Instead, he’s spent much of the past two months in ass-covering mode, trying to kill any and all American reporting about his criminal past.
So, with Will Lewis fully committed to the Streisand Effect, the American media is now fully engaged with the story and they’re horrified by Lewis’s past. Even funnier, the British media is still dog-eat-dog and they love nothing more than tossing one of their former colleagues under the bus. All of which means that the American media AND the British media are doing deep dives on Lewis and the British man he’s appointed as the Post’s new managing editor, Robert Winnett. You know how I just said that Lewis should have done full disclosure when he came into the Post and he should have made the argument that this went down a decade ago? Well, funny story. Will Lewis was up to his balls in shenanigans as of 2022. From The Guardian:
Will Lewis, the Washington Post publisher, advised Boris Johnson and senior officials at 10 Downing Street to “clean up” their phones in the midst of a Covid-era political scandal, according to claims by three people familiar with the operations inside No 10 at the time.
The advice is alleged to have been given in December 2021 and January 2022 as top officials were under scrutiny for potential violations of pandemic restrictions, a scandal which was known as “Partygate”.
The claims suggest Lewis’s advice contradicted an email sent to staff at No 10 in December 2021 which instructed them not to destroy any material that could be relevant to an investigation into the flagrant breaking of Covid lockdown rules by Johnson and officials who worked for him. Sources said they understood they were being advised to remove photos and messages from their phones that could be damaging in any investigations.
Lewis, the sources alleged, made some of the requests personally as he was carrying out work as an informal adviser to Johnson from late 2021 to July 2022. Lewis was a member of a so-called “brain trust” of Johnson’s close political allies who were leading an effort – codenamed Operation Save Big Dog – that tried but ultimately failed to salvage Johnson’s premiership. Lewis was awarded a knighthood in 2023 for his political service to the conservative prime minister.
The allegations regarding Lewis’s advice relate to a period covered by a civil service investigation and before the Partygate scandal became a police matter. The Metropolitan police launched its investigation on 25 January 2022.
A spokesperson for Lewis said: “This story is categorically untrue.”
A spokesperson for Johnson told the Guardian: “This story is untrue.”
Lewis’s decision to join Johnson as an informal adviser followed his April 2020 departure from Dow Jones, where he served as publisher of the Wall Street Journal. The adviser role was unpaid, according to reports, and came at an increasingly desperate political moment for Johnson.
The more I learn about Will Lewis, the more shocked I am that Jeff Bezos even selected him as CEO of the Post. I was reading through Lewis’s Wiki – no journalist or editor should have a Wiki that detailed and so full of alleged crime – and there is truly a blank time period between 2020 and 2024 where his career was seemingly in the toilet and he was doing pretend journalism work (“combating fake news”) as a cover for his real job as “advisor” to Boris Johnson and Operation Save Big Dog (a code name I’m hearing for the first time and made me bark with laughter). So, the guy who worked for six years in America for WSJ/Dow Jones then returned to the UK to advise the Johnson government to cover up their crimes, and then magically his name is selected out of a hat (???) to become the Post’s new CEO?
So, what is Jeff Bezos really doing here? Bezos issued a statement of vague support to the Post’s newsroom this week. Hilariously, Bezos is on a yacht, on vacation right now. His statement was basically like: journalists and editors need to do their thing but I brought in Lewis so WaPo will grow and make money. I think Bezos needs to answer some questions as to how he even decided to appoint Lewis to the CEO position though. Did anyone do a cursory background check? Did anyone think “hey, this guy has thirty years worth of skeletons across two countries?”
Photos courtesy of Getty, Puck’s IG.
Wow, I have no words. The guy was tasked with crime coverups everywhere he went.
That’s why I suspect Bezos did his homework and made this hire intentionally, and the only possible reasons I can foresee (fellow readers, chime in with more of course!) are:
1) Bezos has something big and bad himself he needs/will need covered up;
2) Bezos has some professional enemy/enemies (competitors? Government officials getting in the way of his business strategies? An ex-wife everyone adores?) he wants to take down via scandal
3) Bezos wants to turn one of the most famous and major American news outlets – and the biggest one within the beltway – into a sneaky, British-style tabloid rag bc he understands that controlling the media in many ways controls how people think, and this allows him to perform left-ish politics in public to keep him in good graces with customers and the rich and famous he and his wife like to hobnob with, but ultimately work behind the scenes to undermine American democracy for a more MAGA-future that serves his business- and billionaire- goals.
In sum, I think this was a carefully considered choice and his motives need investigating
DK, ITA
🎯
I watched and read the phone hacking scandal in 2011/12. As someone who hated the red tops and latterly Heat magazine and their ilk (the recent book Toxic, called the 00s the upskirts decade which seems fitting). These guys, and was nearly always guys were untouchable. Sure Andy Coulson (PM Cameron’s press advisor) went to prison for a bit as did the private investigator. When they shut down the 2nd Levenson which was going to focus on police and politicians. I knew these guys had got away with it. I do hope Harry holds course, and exposes this stuff. But I’d love a whistleblower from the power side of things rather than the celebs. I’m watching this Washington post stuff with interest. Bezos is so rich and powerful he has nothing to lose either way.
Jeff must have something to lose, or he wouldn’t be making this play. A huge tax break? Protecting his mammoth wealth from estate horrors? I mean, he seems to have gone MAGA but we don’t know why.
We all thought he bought the Post to save it, so this feels like a big betrayal. Sure, it loses money but he’s up to his ears
Off topic but weird that he hasn’t married his fiancée after all this time. He’s cagier than I thought.
This guy needs to go. But will Bezos be a coward or will he do the right thing? Just the fact that he tried to suppress the story is enough for him to be fired. Is unethical journalism gonna be wasps new brand? Wow.
Wapo not wasps 🙄
Wasps works just as well. Irritating insects that can cause a lot of problems for people who come in contact with them.
Big Dogs everywhere wish to be excluded from this narrative.
I hope the flood gates open on this man’s past until he is finally dismissed along with his other corrupt cronies. I’m glad to see this story seems to have something new and worse coming out daily. Bezos is a fool to keep him employees, journalists and editors should never be the story at any reputable paper or news agency.
It makes one wonder what sort of criminality or sleaze Jeff Bezos is wanting to cover up by hiring these revolting British hacks and non-journalists into the Washington Post. It is bad enough that the New York Times has turned into a right-wing both-siderist rag, but must the WaPo be destroyed, too?
I’ve read about that Big Dog stuff before, what with the levels of crap surrounding Johnson getting ousted by his own party, Then trying to run for PM again after Truss the Disaster, which fell flat. Somewhere amongst all those articles… last year, year before? Also, Sunak was one of the first to get fined for Partygate in 22, and Murdoch told him not to resign. Plans for him?
Jeff Bezos does not care about doing the right thing, ethical journalism, or anything else that doesn’t turn a profit. My BIL worked at Amazon for a bit. They hire more people than they need so they can hold firing them over their heads to make them work excessive hours. And this is the corporate side of things so just imagine how shippers and package carriers are treated. Bezos will only get rid of him if he doesn’t deliver on the bottom line. That’s it.
Lewis is learning that the American media reports on each other, quite gleefully. The British media is a protection racket and they protect themselves from things like this because 1) they were all doing it and 2) because public uproar will lead to government regulation. Without the fear of 2, American media has less need for the protection racket.
Apparently many a cross the pond who were screwed by him are celebrating. There are many many terrible stories of his bad behavior in England.
Let’s have some fun with statement analysis**!
A spokesperson for Lewis said: “This story is categorically untrue.”
This 👆🏻statement is both vague and distancing. Saying “untrue” is vague. Saying “not true” is more declarative, common usage, and carries more weight. “Untrue” is awkward and a word most people don’t use.
Secondly, adding an unnecessary and long word between “story” and “untrue” creates distance between those two concepts. That distance can indicate an awareness of guilt and/or omission of information.
An awful example of this is when a person rambles about how not guilty they are when accused of a heinous crime instead of just saying “I did not rape Name.” or “I did not kill Name.”
Also, adding a word like “categorically” calls into question what categories the speaker is thinking of and why they are relevant to the situation.
A spokesperson for Johnson told the Guardian: “This story is untrue.”
This 👆🏻 statement is also vague due to the awkward “untrue” AND using that word brings into question whether the two parties colluded on how to give an answer. Again, “untrue” is used but not as much as “not true”. So the two statements sound like they are mimicking each other. Why would they feel the need to do that?
While this statement isn’t great at least it doesn’t have that distancing word added to it which makes me wonder if the statement is semi-true. Maybe something happened/was said but not the specific words “clean your phone” so the Johnson spokesperson was able to tell a partial truth with regard to that specific accusation.
**Anyhoo, statement analysis isn’t an exact science and a lot of people misuse it by not including things like human behavior, cultural differences, extreme stress by the speaker, education type and level of the speaker, neuro differences, speech issues, etc to form their opinion.
But official statements from government officials usually are carefully crafted, and as such, are fairly easy to dissect.
Bottom line: Lewis is lying and Johnson is telling at least a partial truth or is just really good at lying.
You guys didn’t know about Operation Save Big Dog ? What’s even funnier than its stupid name is the fact that it failed and tories started to turn against Johnson from that point, it was great to witness.
Exactly, I’m enjoying that a wider audience is now getting to enjoy it too!
Fourth Estate, my a—.