New York:

The prestigious Washington Post is in crisis, with pressure on from owner Jeff Bezos to change its money-losing ways.

The Post’s managing editor abruptly resigned; a chosen successor withdrew under fire, and a boss has been targeted in the newspaper’s columns.

At the heart of the storm is “WaPo”‘s new CEO, Briton William Lewis, who was given a mission by Amazon founder Bezos when he appointed him last autumn.

Lewis was asked to turn around a newspaper that continues to pile up Pulitzer Prizes half a century after the Watergate scandal it instigated, but which has lost $77 million in 2023 despite job cuts and the disappearance of its Sunday supplement.

However, the former journalist, who made history in the late 2000s with a scoop on the expenses of British MPs when he was editor of the Daily Telegraph, is finding his position increasingly vulnerable.

For weeks now, revelations have multiplied about his role, when he was working for the Murdoch family’s conservative media group about 12 years ago, in a scandal of illegal phone tapping by the tabloid The News of the World.

On Friday, Lewis was at the center of an investigation by his own journalists.

According to the Washington Post, he gave the go-ahead in 2011 for the destruction of thousands of emails, fueling suspicions that he was destroying evidence, which he denies.

“Trump Bump”

As the US presidential election approaches, the affair is poisoning the atmosphere at a long-vaunted newspaper that is “not doing well economically,” Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy tells AFP.

The Post was among trusted news outlets that benefited from the upheaval that marked Trump’s four years in the White House which ended with his loss to President Joe Biden.

The Post “was seen as a place that offered really tough, truth-telling coverage” of Trump, according to the professor.

Trump’s departure from the White House meant fewer attention-grabbing stories to keep readers engaged.

“When Donald Trump left the White House, the Trump bump that helped a lot of newspapers disappeared,” Kennedy said.

“And the Post was hit especially hard.”

By the end of 2022, the Post would have 2.5 million subscribers compared with 3 million subscribers when Biden took office in early 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, rival New York Times has grown to more than 10 million subscribers, the fruit of a strategy to diversify into fun topics such as games, food, and lifestyle while still serving up hard news.

US media quoted Lewis as telling editorial staff in early June that he “can’t sugarcoat it anymore” — the paper has lost a lot of money and people’s interest in its articles.

Third News Team

The day before that editorial meeting, Post journalists learned of the resignation of editor-in-chief Sally Buzbee.

Buzbee is said to have disagreed with Lewis’s strategy to split the editorial department into three divisions: news, opinion, and a new third unit devoted to social media and service journalism.

The contours of this “third newsroom” remain unclear, but it seems aimed at reviving readership in a leap into the unknown for the newspaper.

Within the Murdoch family group, Lewis was the boss of the Wall Street Journal (2014-2020), another flagship of the US press.

However, articles in the New York Times and the Post pointed to questionable methods employed under his watch and that of former colleague Robert Winnett, whom Lewis chose to replace Buzbee.

Published allegations include paying informants, using data from hacked phones, or intermediaries using phony identification to get information.

Winnett withdrew from consideration for the post following those revelations.

Professor Kennedy believes Lewis has no choice but to leave the Post because he has lost the confidence of the team there.

“The body is rejecting the transfusion,” Post veteran David Maraniss wrote on his Facebook page, adding he didn’t know anyone who thinks the situation can stand as it is.

“If he can’t inspire the staff (…) the Post will sail without direction and its best people will leave,” Kennedy said of Lewis.

For many observers, the outcome of the crisis lies in the hands of billionaire Bezos, who bought the Post for $250 million in 2013.

So far, Bezos has backed his CEO.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

That’s beary suspicious.

Washington officials were left scratching their heads this week when they found a mammal indigenous to the rainforest crawling along a stretch of desert.

The kinkajou — also known as a honey bear — was discovered Sunday darting up a tall wooden post at a rest stop along Interstate 82 southeast of Yakima, the state Department of Transportation said on X.

“Hello from our friendly Kinkajou! What’s that you say? It’s a nocturnal rainforest animal,” the DOT wrote.

“Why was it at our east Selah Creek Rest Area over the wknd? We have no idea, but our friends with Dept. of Fish & Wildlife rescued him. We don’t know if it was dropped off or escaped.”

Animal experts suspect that the weasel-like critter was obtained through the illegal pet trade before being abandoned and left to fend for itself in the arid climate.

At the time of its rescue, it was “very thin” and weighed only 2.5 pounds — about four pounds less than the average weight of a kinkajou, according to The Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

While the full results of the young animal are still pending, officials said the kinkajou — which looks like a cross between a monkey and a tiny bear — was in fair overall health.

He is recuperating at the zoo as officials look for a permanent home for the tiny beast.

Kinkajous, which have prehensile tails, are carnivores that live in tropical rainforests from southern Mexico through Brazil.

With sandy yellow fur, round ears and big dark eyes, they are capable of grasping objects and are often mistakenly called primates, the zoo said.

“Despite their cuteness, kinkajous do not make good pets,” the zoo said.

Kinkajous are not endangered but are hunted for their fur, and the illegal exotic pet trade threatens their population, according to the zoo.