NEW YORK — New leaders of The Washington Post are being haunted by their pasts, with moral questions raised about their actions as journalists in London that illustrate very totally different press traditions within the United States and England.
An extraordinary trio of tales over the weekend by The New York Times, NPR and the Post itself define alleged involvement by Post writer Will Lewis and Robert Winnett, his alternative as a brand new editor, in wrongdoing involving London publications as a lot as twenty years in the past.
The Post stated on Monday that it had introduced again its former senior managing editor to supervise the newspaper’s protection of the matter.
Lewis took over as writer earlier this yr, with a mandate to show across the financially-troubled newspaper. He introduced a reorganization earlier this month the place the Post’s govt editor, Sally Buzbee, stepped down quite than settle for a demotion.
The protection revealed Lewis’ sensitivity about questions involving his function in a cellphone hacking scandal that rocked the British press whereas he was working there. Lewis has maintained that he was introduced in by Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers to cooperate with authorities to scrub up after the scandal. Plaintiffs in a civil case have charged him with destroying proof, which he has denied.
The public revelation of cellphone hacking in 2011 led to the closure of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid and sparked a public inquiry into press practices that curbed among the worst excesses.
The British press has lengthy been thought-about freewheeling in its pursuit of scoops, prepared to tolerate habits frowned upon by its American counterparts. For instance, when Lewis and Winnett labored at The Daily Telegraph in 2009, they cooperated on tales about politicians’ extravagant expense-account spending. They paid for knowledge that exposed the spending, a reporting follow that may be thought-about a considerable moral breach within the U.S.
The Times reported on Saturday that each Lewis and Winnett labored on tales within the 2000s that gave the impression to be based mostly on fraudulently obtained cellphone and business data.
Both the Times and Post reported on a 2002 story article about British politicians who had sought to purchase a Mercedes-Benz car described because the “Nazi’s favorite limousine,” based mostly on data obtained by an actor who had faked a German accent to name a producer who gave it to him.
The Post story delved into Winnett’s relationship with John Ford, the actor whose “clandestine efforts” helped uncover tales that included personal monetary dealings by former Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was allegedly adept in “blagging,” through which an individual misrepresents themselves to steer others to disclose confidential data. That’s unlawful underneath British regulation except it may be proven the actions profit the general public.
Headlined “Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting,” it was among the many newspaper’s hottest tales on Monday. Winnett was chosen by Lewis to take over the Post’s most important newsroom after the presidential election.
It was an unusually harsh story for a news group to write down about its personal management. In asserting that Cameron Barr, who left his place final yr, would supervise the reporting, the Post stated that “the publisher has no involvement or influence on our reporting.” Other editors, together with Buzbee’s momentary substitute Matt Murray, will even look over tales produced by the media staff.
NPR’s story particulars a number of of those points, together with Winnett’s supervision — when he labored on the Sunday Times in London — of a reporter, Claire Newell, who was employed as a short lived secretary within the U.Okay. Cabinet workplace, giving her entry to delicate paperwork that made their method again to the newspaper.
The Post stated Lewis declined touch upon the tales. Winnett, a deputy editor on the Telegraph in London, didn’t touch upon the three most up-to-date tales, and a message to the newspaper by The Associated Press was not instantly returned on Monday.
Similarly silent: Jeff Bezos, the billionaire proprietor of the Post, who will in the end determine whether or not it is a public relations and inner morale storm that he and the establishment can climate.
Not everybody is certain that he can, or ought to.
“The Washington Post is a great, great, great paper, and its greatness pushes the rest of us in the media world to do a better job,” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on X Monday. “Yet its leadership is now tainted in ways that are unrecoverable; time won’t heal the injury but let it fester.”
Lewis, a former writer of The Wall Street Journal who can be vice chairman of the board at The Associated Press, has spent the previous week making an attempt to guarantee Post employees members that he understands and can reside as much as the moral requirements of American journalism.
Associated Press correspondent Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.
This article was generated from an automatic news company feed with out modifications to textual content.
Source: www.hindustantimes.com
