OPINION - The perilous position of the Brit in charge at the Washington Post

PRESUMABLY, Will Lewis possesses a rock-solid employment contract.

For close now, it would beryllium hard betting connected however agelong helium volition past arsenic main enforcement of the Washington Post. Ever since Lewis, a Brit, erstwhile exertion of the Telegraph, elder enforcement nether Rupert Murdoch and created a ‘Sir’ by Boris Johnson, took the occupation helium has been mired successful struggle with the US paper’s journalists.

There had been a lull but hostilities person resumed with the determination by the Post not to endorse a US statesmanlike candidate. The signs were pointing to coming retired for Kamala Harris, which would beryllium successful keeping with the Post’s contented of leaning towards the Democrats. An editorial was being prepared to that effect. Then came the announcement that it would beryllium staying neutral – a determination that was interpreted arsenic siding with Donald Trump.

Cue outrage from subscribers who cancelled their orders, existent staffers and renowned ex-Post stars. Lewis and his boss, Amazon laminitis Jeff Bezos, are accused of selling out, of ignoring the Post’s arrogant past arsenic the rubric that exposed the Watergate break-in and felled President Richard Nixon and overmuch more, and putting concern earlier belief, nett up of principle.

There’s nary uncertainty Trump would question revenge for an editorial backing Harris. That’s however helium is, helium takes these things personally and helium ne'er forgets. He’s done it before, including to Bezos, and helium would person nary compunction successful striking astatine 1 of Bezos’s myriad concern interests. Plenty of crushed then, accidental Bezos and Lewis’s critics, for holding firm, for eyeing him down. Maintaining idiosyncratic grudges is nary mode for a President to behave.

But you’re Bezos and your empire is enormous. Within that, the Post, for each its power and history, is small. So, you sacrifice its reputation.

That’s 1 of the astir telling aspects of this affair, that 1 of the world’s large newspapers is nary longer owned by a paper man, by idiosyncratic who eats, sleeps and breathes editorial, the vulnerability of wrongdoing and the telling of stories. This is what happens erstwhile that rubric is owned by a hard-headed tech multi-billionaire.

There is thing untoward astir a paper sitting connected the electoral fence. Plenty bash so, so the Post itself has done truthful successful the past. The mistake was to let the enactment to persist that it would beryllium declaring for Harris. If early-on, the insubstantial had said it would not beryllium endorsing either campaigner for perfectly valid reasons, past truthful beryllium it. There mightiness person been a enactment but thing similar the contiguous fury.

There is dependable logic to a insubstantial staying supra the fray. Why should it archer radical however to vote? You don’t archer your ellipse however to vote, wherefore is simply a paper immoderate different? It’s insulting to the readers’ quality to instruct them. Let them marque up their ain minds. Set retired the pros and cons of each campaigner and permission them to it.

By going with 1 and not the other, you tally the hazard of making it hard erstwhile your enactment wins. Yes, you tin indulge successful immoderate self-congratulation but erstwhile they commencement messing up, what then? Surely, the relation of the paper is decently to scrutinise authorities – hard erstwhile you nailed your colours truthful publically to their mast.

It’s imaginable to say, arsenic others have, that the Post was intelligibly a Democrat-supporting institution, but determination is simply a satellite of quality betwixt moving reports and editorials captious of Trump and formally declaring your opposition. Likewise, endorsing the Democrat prime successful a authorities election, arsenic the Post has, is not the aforesaid arsenic the large one.

Where this leaves Lewis is anyone’s guess. He’s damned if helium does and damned if helium doesn’t. If he’d refused to spell on with Bezos’s reasoning and enactment the Post first, helium mightiness good person been fired. From his constituent of view, too, helium was protecting the Post – immoderate his critics whitethorn accidental he’s warring for the insubstantial and its resources, a tiny cog successful a overmuch greater machine.

By agreeing with Bezos, though, helium has undermined his ain credibility and that of the Post. The unit and erstwhile illustrious staffers had already attacked him, this lone fuels their loathing.

Lewis ever was a people arsenic acold arsenic they were concerned. To transplant a palmy quality writer from the UK to the US is to hide that journalistic morals implicit determination are precise different. To parachute successful Lewis successful peculiar was bound to beryllium provocative.

He made his sanction editing the Telegraph erstwhile the insubstantial broke the ungraded of MPs’ expenses. To get the information, Lewis paid for a stolen machine disk. In the US, paying a root is ethically strictly disconnected limits. The information that was the lone mode the communicative was going to scope the British public, that they had the close to cognize however overmuch their elected representatives were claiming and what for, cuts small crystal successful the US.

It was a instrumentality with which to deed Lewis. As was his enactment for Murdoch successful clearing up the telephone hacking fallout, by turning implicit the names of journalists who had hacked to Scotland Yard successful instrumentality for the constabulary not pursuing Murdoch’s institution and preserving its quality to proceed doing concern worldwide, especially, ironically, successful the US.

That, positive his knighthood from Johnson, made him casual nutrient for the sometimes holier-than-though US journalistic community. Lewis past made things worse by attempting to bring successful his ain person, Rob Winnett, a erstwhile workfellow from Telegraph days, arsenic Editor successful spot of a fashionable Post veteran. When the Post’s newsroom erupted, Winnett preferred to stay astatine the Telegraph, further weakening Lewis’s authority.

Since then, helium has received the backing of Bezos. How agelong that continues indispensable beryllium unfastened to doubt. At immoderate point, the proprietor is going to person scope an accord with the Post’s journalists. Or helium volition let the mayhem to last, for Lewis to enactment successful the CEO chair, lone reducing the paper’s lasting and making Lewis and the Post the communicative erstwhile it should beryllium reporting others.

Bezos, arsenic has been vividly shown, is simply a pragmatist. Place your bets.