In 2011, Rupert Murdoch's media empire News Corporation faced a serious threat in the UK. One of his tabloid journalists was exposed for hacking the phones of celebrities, ordinary citizens, and in one case, even a murdered child to obtain information.
Other improprieties soon came to light, including reports that tabloid journalists had been paying police and government officials for years to obtain information.
In an effort to stem the scandal and appease prosecutors in Britain and abroad, News Corp hired former Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis to pick up the pieces.
He did so. He worked with authorities, uncovered wrongdoing and helped put the operation on a new path, he said. However, some former colleagues and victims of the hack have long argued that he helped News Corp. cover up the extent of the wrongdoing.
The allegations — nearly 15 years old and unproven — suddenly took on new substance and complicated Lewis’s new job as publisher of The Washington Post.
Last month, as Lewis prepared to reorganize The Washington Post's newsroom, a London judge ruled that phone-hacking victims could proceed with additional allegations in their wide-ranging lawsuit. Although Lewis is not a defendant, the lawsuit claims his shakeup was partly a cover-up to protect News Corp. leaders.
Lewis was blindsided this week when The Washington Post's executive editor resigned ahead of a reorganization, and the New York Times subsequently reported that Lewis had told her that reporting on legal developments in the hacking case was an error in judgment.
Later, an NPR reporter revealed that Lewis had offered him a scoop in exchange for him not pursuing coverage of the phone-hacking scandal.
Today, his overhaul of the newsroom appears far more complicated, with reporters questioning Lewis’s vision, his decision to hire two former subordinates as editor-in-chief of The Washington Post and whether he has the same work ethic.
In a statement, The Washington Post said William did just that: “As an experienced publisher and former editor-in-chief and managing editor, William knows exactly which lines should not be crossed, and he has the track record to prove it.”
Lewis was publisher of the Wall Street Journal before joining the Washington Post. But he first came to prominence in Britain, where journalists paid for scoops, wiretapped phones and secretly recorded politicians’ conversations. The biggest scoop at the Daily Telegraph during Lewis’ tenure came when his reporters paid more than $150,000 for confidential information about a politician’s expense claims.
Most American newsrooms considered the tactic unethical, including The Washington Post, a newspaper that changed the course of national journalism with its coverage of Watergate, CIA black prisons and other breaking stories.
Now, journalists there are wondering whether he will bring a new journalistic sensibility and ethical standards to Washington.
“It looks like that,” said Paul Farhi, who was a media reporter for The Washington Post until late last year. “Hiring his cronies to basically protect his interests by downplaying stories that made him look bad. That was all unknown at The Washington Post.”
Riots in Britain
The phone-hacking scandal began with reports of British tabloid journalists hacking into the phones of celebrities, sports stars and politicians, among others, to get exclusive news.
The fallout was so huge that a year-long public inquiry followed, and charges were laid in criminal and civil courts. One tabloid, News Corp’s News of the World, collapsed. Costs associated with the affair now exceed $1 billion, including damages to hundreds of victims.
Until 2010, Mr Lewis had nothing to do with these issues. He was editor of The Daily Telegraph, a major newspaper outside the Murdoch empire. During his tenure, the newspaper broke a scandal involving politicians using government expense accounts to fund lavish personal spending. Later admitted The newspaper paid about 150,000 pounds (about $190,000 today) for the documents.
He joined News Corp in 2010 and was tasked with dealing with the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal a year later.
“He's a good choice, actually,” Mr Fahri said. Reporting Scandal At the time, he said Mr Lewis was well respected in British media circles. “His professional ethics are beyond doubt.”
Lewis joins a small team called the Governance and Standards Committee, which seeks to identify those responsible for the problems, uncover other wrongdoings and certify that News Corp is committed to cleaning up its act.
As part of that effort, the commission has provided police with details of journalists who hacked into phones or bribed public officials. Some journalists have complained that they are being blamed for these accepted practices.
“For decades, he has overseen the persecution of journalists who were following standard procedure,” said Dan Evans, a former News of the World reporter who has been prosecuted, given evidence to authorities and called for reforms in journalism. “That’s how it’s done.”
Mr. Lewis rarely spoke about this period of his career, but when he did, he described himself as picking up the pieces.
“My job is to correct mistakes,” he said. He told the BBC. “It is exactly what I have done.”
“I do everything I can to maintain the integrity of my reporting,” he said. Tell the Post recent.
Allegations of a cover-up
In court documents, phone-hacking victims say Lewis allowed the deletion of numerous emails that could have implicated News Corp. executives in the scandal. The lawsuit says eight file cabinets filled with potential evidence disappeared during his tenure.
The plaintiffs say he ignored information that could have implicated executives rather than turning it over to authorities, and they claim he participated in a scheme to fabricate security threats to justify deleting the emails.
He has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit is one of many that have long raged over the wiretapping scandal. Many of the plaintiffs, including celebrities such as Elton John, Solved their Case. Others, such as Prince Harrycontinue to stick to your claims.
Soon after some of the allegations surfaced in 2020, Lewis was appointed director general of the BBC, arguably the most prestigious media job in the UK.
Mr Lewis's work on the Governance and Standards Committee brought him into Mr Murdoch's inner circle, and he was promoted to chief executive in 2014. Dow Jones Indexpublishes The Wall Street Journal.
But his work on the committee angered many employees at News Corp.’s U.K. newspapers. Some felt that lower-level journalists were being sacrificed, as Mr. Evans described it, “to keep his boss from having to wear an orange jumpsuit.”
Although Lewis was based in London as Dow Jones’s chief executive, he was rarely seen at the company’s headquarters, which shared office space with The Sun, a tabloid newspaper where some staffers went after the closure of the News of the World. Former employees recalled that Lewis worked in a building several miles away.
The future of The Washington Post
The phone-hacking scandal might already be old news if it weren't for changes within The Washington Post.
The newspaper's owner, Jeff Bezos Mr. Lewis He became publisher late last year and began developing plans to split the paper into three sections: core news, including business and political coverage; opinion; and a new, reader-friendly section focused on service news.
Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of The Washington Post, urged him not to make such a dramatic change before the November election. Mr. Lewis insisted and offered Ms. Buzbee a job in charge of a new section of the paper, an apparent demotion.
She resigned suddenly Last Sunday.
Soon after, The New York Times revealed that Lewis had rebuked Ms. Buzbee for the newspaper’s coverage of the hacker lawsuit. He disapproved of plans to report on the judge’s ruling — which The Washington Post ultimately cover — which cleared the way for the plaintiff to bring charges against him.
Later, David Folkenflik, a senior media reporter for NPR, revealed that Mr. Lewis had offered to strike a deal to retract an article.
“During several conversations, Lewis repeatedly and enthusiastically offered to give me an exclusive interview about the future of The Washington Post in exchange for me dropping my reporting on the allegations,” Falkenflik wrote. But he did not take the deal.
Mr. Lewis Tell the Post On Thursday, he said his conversations with Falkenflik, whom he called “an activist, not a journalist,” were private and took place before he joined The Washington Post.
Some politicians and press officials do offer to trade press access for favorable coverage. But accepting such a deal would violate the norms of most newsrooms. So the offer from The Washington Post’s incoming publisher was unusual and came as a surprise to reporters inside and outside the newsroom.
“He used his position to protect his public image,” Farhi said. “When journalists smell that, they think someone is hiding something.”
