BRIT IMPORT THIRST FOR POWER

Some people are brought into the worlds where they can wear$ 1, 100 leather and suede Zegna shoes. People have to waste, hurry and elegance their way into them. Everything was disclosed about Will Lewis’s rise to the top of the Washington Post, who wears his Zegnas in military orange with the white leather strap.

Lewis, 55, is not a solution of the playing fields of Eton, or any of England’s great corporations. He was transported to Whitefield, a post-war public school constructed on the site of a worn-out waterfront. It was next to a large shopping plaza and the pulsating ten- street bridge that cuts through London’s northern cities.

Another American men who run American newsrooms, including John Micklethwait from CNBC and John Micklethwait from Bloomberg, received private education in arid climate before “up” to Oxford. Lewis’s parents could have sent him to a private school ( his father ran a packaging firm ) but they were opposed to them, and Lewis’s many older brother had gone from Whitefield to Oxford. Lewis did n’t enter. He went to Bristol, a half- level school. He had no choice but to follow. He had to get one.

From London’s cities to the level of British media, he has found that way. He has gotten close to strength time and again, convincing three billionaire donors to equip him. The most significant was Rupert Murdoch, his supporter throughout the 2010s. Jeff Bezos, who is rumored to had handed Lewis a seven- month contract, is the most current. Bezos is reportedly paying Lewis$ 5 million to resurrect the Post, according to media professionals in London. ( Lewis’s spokesperson called this “inaccurate”. ) In Georgetown, Washington’s area for the wealthy, he purchased a$ 7 million home in May.

How did Lewis would it? He quickly rose to prominence at the Financial Times in the 1990s, first in London and then in New York, where his DealBook-style puffs helped create the paper in the United States. ” He was a beautifully fine analytical columnist”, says a blogger who has known him for 30 years. He would call up 25 citizens and dig up puffs because he was “over energized, likeable.” He has more courage than another citizens”.

Two powerful girls who have worked with him personally rate him as attractive. ” When he walks into a place he creates an enthusiasm. He has this upbeat, anxious power,” claims one. ” He’s interesting and quite confident”, says another. You want to socialize with him. Some have taken to his gracious wisecracking manner. A friend claims that “he is more louche than most advertising directors.”

But there are concerns haunting Lewis. They concentrate on his day between 2010 and 2012 while working for Murdoch. Those times are a dark box in an otherwise empty and evidently illustrious career. Lewis asserts that there is nothing to them. A court situation in London suggests otherwise.

Seven years have passed and the event is scheduled to start test in January. It is being brought by Prince Harry against Murdoch’s English newspapers, which Harry and around 40 other defendants are suing for mobile hackers. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges a scheme to suppress and destroy data. Lewis, who is running the report that identified Watergate, is described in the complaint as being at the middle of that protect- up.

Lewis, according to a Washington Post spokesman, declined to comment on the claims or any other element of his career.

” He truly wants power and success”, says the journalist who has long known him. I do n’t find it surprising that he is alleged to have been involved in phone hacking to be a covert person.

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A Journalist’s Rising

In 2006, aged 37, Lewis convinced the businessman Barclay twins to render him director of the Daily Telegraph, the U. K.’s 150- year- ancient correct- wing paper. A colleague recalls that he” shook up a lot of women’s jobs, giving many opportunities while making others redundant.”

Within three times the report broke what became known as the MPs ‘ costs incident, presenting common abuse by Britain’s social group. Lewis has received criticism in the United States for paying the person responsible for it £110, 000 ( or$ 175, 000 then ) for a disk containing leaked data ( which the Telegraph spent months verifying ).

He has said the tale was as effective as anyone published in Britain since the Second World War. Actually, it was a decadent tale. It made his name as an writer. However, he was gone a year later.

Most readers would possess luxuriated in such a shovel. Lewis had previously left by the time the charges account absorbed Britain throughout the summer of 2009 was complete. He was on a two- quarter journey, studying for a “mini MBA” at Harvard paid for by the Barclays. Restless, he returned to the papers after the boys agreed to finance a brand-new” R&amp, D” business that he led as CEO. He remained writer- in- commander of Telegraph Media.

The Telegraph‘s redesign was intended for the modern era. The implicit consequence was that Lewis’s success—and coming pay—would be due to his program’s P&amp, L. He ton-project” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:briefed;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link”>briefed that the future of papers lay in Euston, where he had taken dish offices across town away from the newsroom. When Lewis left three months after the company was established, the future was quickly in hand. The Telegraph‘s actual chief executive had soured on his plan. He might have helped it first, by first kicking Lewis upstairs before leaving. Company accounts show Lewis’s dalliance cost the Barclays £3m in 2010.

The former coworker claims that “he entered a rather grandiose phase.” ” I’m not sure anyone knew what it was. He squandered a lot of money. In the end that was too much for the owners”.

Lewis was 41. Only weeks earlier he had been named journalist of the year at the British Press Awards. He was suddenly unemployed. His overreach appeared to have cost him his paper.

Murdoch swooped, and Lewis was appointed group general manager at News International, the business behind his UK papers, at his low ebb. Lewis had impressed as business editor at the Murdoch- owned Sunday Times in the early 2000s. Lewis was” the best business editor of his generation,” according to a critic. ( That reputation may be wearing away. This weekend, Lewis allegedly used stolen phone records as the basis for a Sunday Times story, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Lewis also had a good relationship with Robert Thomson, one of Murdoch’s best loved lieutenants. They had gotten close at the FT, where Lewis had broken the news of the ExxonMobil merger from New York in 1999 while Thomson was holding the title in the United States.” It was a rare if not unheard moment where the FT beat Wall Street on a significant U.S. business story,” a colleague recalls. It greatly accelerated Lewis ‘ rise at the paper and enamored him to Thomson.

Lewis impressed in London and New York for 20 years with his breaking news reporting. Now he was being brought inside, where he could prove himself only to Murdoch. But if he did that, there would be a lot of rewards. He had no clear remit. He would soon acquire one.

Serving Murdoch

Lewis almost immediately demonstrated his worth to Murdoch. He joined News International in September 2010. ( The business later changed to News UK. ) At the time, Murdoch was bidding to take control of BSkyB, the British broadcaster. He held a significant significance for the transaction. It was also in peril: the U. K. cabinet minister in charge of approving the bid privately opposed it. Murdoch’s camp had this suspicion, but they were unable to prove it. Lewis, it seems, soon found something that did.

An unpublished recording of Vince Cable, the cabinet minister, was taken from the Telegraph‘s servers and leaked to the BBC in December 2010. Cable could be heard describing himself as “at war with the Murdochs”, revealing quite how antagonistic he was. He was forced to recuse himself from the offer by the revelation. A more pliable minister took over, increasing Murdoch’s odds of approval.

Seven months later, a” strong suspicion” that Lewis was “involved in the leak,” or theft, from the Telegraph‘s servers was revealed by private investigators hired by the Telegraph. The recording had been leaked to the BBC’s Robert Peston, an ally of Lewis at the FT and friend to this day. Later, Lewis claimed source protection and later declined to address the claim.

If the PIs were right, Lewis had acted as a corporate spy, blindsiding the very paper he had just stopped editing—through which he had made his name as an editor only a year earlier.

He soon discovered a different way to support Murdoch. The phone hacking scandal had broken by chance as Lewis arrived in September 2010. He had nothing to do with hacking, but the fallout had already ruined his life by January 2011. He earned Murdoch’s trust by working directly for him on the response.

In June 2011, it was discovered that Murdoch’s now-defunct tabloid News of the World had in 2002 hacked the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, delete messages and mislead the police and her parents. The news turned the slow- burning hacking story into a national outrage. Lewis was taken when Murdoch made an apology to the family.

The allegations against Lewis date from this time, he did more than accompany Murdoch on visits. He was the man who helped [News] International ] clear up the phone hacking mess, claims a friend who also worked with him at the time. Court documents present Lewis as being a key executive responsible for preserving all the evidence the company held relevant to any hacking its journalists had committed. The claimants claim that his watch disappeared a lot of it.

These claims of a corporate cover up, and any part Lewis played in it, were not known at the time. They have slowly started to appear as Prince Harry’s Murdoch case has slog through the courts in London. Lewis was named only in 2020.

The allegations are esoteric and unfounded. It is alleged that Lewis took part in the destruction of 30 million company emails on three occasions over six months, deliberately wiping out evidence that could have incriminated senior executives. Despite being told to preserve evidence by News International’s lawyers who worked for hacker victims and later by the police, it is claimed that this was done.

Eight filing cabinets full of documents, taken from the offices of the News of the World, are also alleged to have disappeared after being entrusted to Lewis’s care.

In the early 2010s, no such accusations haunted Lewis. But a second of his Murdoch appearances came as a surprise. In 2011—after allegedly perverting the course of justice by failing to preserve evidence relevant to hacking, according to court documents —a company committee run by Lewis voluntarily turned over a different set of records that showed journalists at Murdoch’s tabloids had paid police and prison officers.

These journalists were detained and forced to appear in court after their reports of leaked information. None of them were convicted, but they took the heat ( their sources were sent to prison ). Lewis was enraged by Murdoch’s rank-and-file in the episode. He had to work off- site, and at one point deployed a bodyguard. According to an informed observer,” the journalists thought he was there to give them up and save management,” adding that” which he was.”

The police had no knowledge of such payments to police before News International alerted them. Murdoch later criticized Lewis for his actions when he met with Sun journalists in 2013. But Lewis’s approach had an inevitable upside for Murdoch. It drew attention away from hacking, which Murdoch has since settled for$ 1.5 billion in legal costs, losses, and damages. Lewis’s friends say that he was simply draining the swamp. One of them says,” I know that Will felt at the time 100 % morally justified in playing the part that he did.”

For two years Lewis served Murdoch at every turn, even at the cost of his own relationships or reputation. He transitioned from being Britain’s most renowned journalist to an untouchable executive in a tabloid newsroom during that time.

Searching for Relevance

Lewis finally let himself free from the stresses of Murdoch’s black box in the summer of 2012. The suit brought by Harry’s lawyers casts him as a real- life Tom Wambsgans, serving corporate time in the hope of higher office, praying past deeds stay past.

He was appointed to the position of” totally made up job” at News Corp, as an executive might put it. After two years of service, he spent the next two in relative obscurity, his time split between London and New York. In 2014, he was given the honor of serving as the CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, one of Murdoch’s most prestigious media positions. Crucially the job was not in London. He had a voice in a city where his storied two-year tenure at News International was irrelevant.

Subscriptions tripled over his tenure, with Trump’s rise fueling demand for quality media. He left in 2020 because he had no room to rise. The only role bigger at News Corp was Thomson’s. By the end of his decade with Murdoch, an executive believes he was being paid in excess of$ 3 million all-in.

His standing had been transformed. He had been picked up by Murdoch as an abandoned editor. After Dow Jones he was in a new weight category. He made a four-person shortlist of candidates for the BBC’s next director general within a month, a thankless but prestigious position. Days later he was named in Harry’s suit for the first time.

In response to the accusations, he told the BBC,” My role was to put things right, and that is what I did. Right for whom? Lewis did n’t say anything. The director generalship went to a BBC insider. The allegations may have become the subject of significant media interest in Britain if it had been addressed to Lewis.

Lewis struck out on his own, returning to the grooves of the ill- fated Euston project he had left the Telegraph with a decade earlier. He created a new publication, The News Movement, by raising money for it with Dow Jones co-founders and by appointing a deposed BBC News executive as editor-in-chief. It targeted younger viewers with short explainer videos. Lewis made his second attempt to start a business. It has struggled to make an impact.

An ex-colleague claims that Lewis was also doing crisis PR on the side. His company remains active. Although Lewis has left, he continues to send clients a weekly private newsletter. ( He has been making light of the past fortnight, ignoring it and writing about his mother’s missing cat. ) ” You know, something that actually generated revenue.” He took on one client pro bono in February 2022: Boris Johnson.

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The Johnson Deal

The then-prime minister of Britain was about to lose control. His standing had collapsed after he lied repeatedly over whether he and his staff had partied at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s offices and residence, through a national lockdown imposed by his own government.

Lewis claimed to have been a forever friend of Johnson and wanted to help. He had paid Johnson$ 250, 000- a- year as a columnist for the Telegraph during his editorship. In an effort to save Johnson, Lewis put together a new team, known as” Operation Save Big Dog” in the British press, after Johnson’s altitude began to decline. ” Boris would have made Will chief of staff in No 10 if he wanted”, a member of that team tells me.

Lewis remained unaffected. Johnson resigned in July. Two days later, Lewis, the prime minister’s country retreat, bedecked in sunglasses, jeans, a T-shirt, a watch, and a wearable, “looking like a tech bro, walking like he owned the place,” says a witness. Lewis was there for a consolatory lunch for the team he had put together.

Johnson then presented Lewis with the knighthood on his honors list for resignation. Only five other men were handed knighthoods by Johnson: four were loyal Members of Parliament, a fifth was co- chair of the Tory Party. What Lewis did between February and July to support such a reward from Johnson, whose patronage has typically been transactional and not generous? ” There is a theme of rewards in Lewis ‘ career”, says someone who worked with him in the 2010s.

Lewis ‘ wife Rebecca, with whom he has four children, became” Lady Lewis,” and his son, Lewis, became” Sir.” But Johnson was finished and he was stuck. He put together a bid for the Telegraph that went nowhere, and he briefed it during a photo shoot at the News Movement headquarters. Those photos reveal a man remade.

As an editor, Lewis preferred to be seen sporting a shirt and tie and no jacket, the typical British business editor’s attire, smart but at work and with unkempt hair. When he joined Murdoch he cut his hair, lost weight, wore blue suits, and started telling executives at News International they needed to be” corporate athletes”. When he was at Harvard in 2010, Lewis ran a quick half-marathon, which was revealed to the media, and led the soccer team for his university. ( He still plays the sport today, at 6: 30 a. m. on Friday mornings in D. C. ) His new executive edict was literal. One of them recalls that they had to wear a heart monitor and perform various exercises. ” I put mine on my dog”.

This was Lewis 2.0. As a journalist he had been mocked in Private Eye, Britain’s satirical magazine, for his tendency to decamp to the pub and “drink among the troops”, as a colleague puts it. Unprompted, a source who spoke with him said,” I have n’t been following what Thirsty’s up to.” He was an archetypal British hack, able to drink and work from scratch the next day, often after a night of karaoke—he would invariably sing Queen’s” Do n’t Stop Me Now”, says another former co- worker. However, that persona did n’t go with his style in the 2010s.

After Murdoch, Lewis evolved again, softening the severity of his look, and shedding suits for jeans and a blazer, stubble and sneakers: a variant of the “tech bro” who greeted Johnson at Chequers in 2022. Jeff Bezos saved that person from a fading sense of insignificance.

The Post appointment vindicated all. Working for Murdoch had come to appear to be Lewis’s career’s pinnacle. Then Bezos, a man 10 times as rich, picked him. Lewis had reached the height he had always desired. ” He was a business editor at a young age”, says a former colleague,” and had a chance to hang around power. The height at which moguls work was really what delighted him, really. Editing a national paper—the summit of many journalists ‘ ambitions—was “always a stepping- stone to something bigger for him”.

Lewis may never be able to fulfill his Post prescriptions. He is now rapidly losing altitude. People will give credit to him for running the Journal and the Telegraph ( “he loves ideas, and he does n’t mind from which corner ideas come” ).

But others think less of his journalistic past. Sam Leith, a British journalist whose tenure as the Telegraph literary editor ended under Lewis, recalls being asked by him to make an article about a book written by someone Lewis knew better. He refused. The review, which Lewis had requested, was omitted. ” I do n’t think”, Leith wrote on X, “editorial integrity is his strongest area of interest”.

When questioned by the Post‘s reporters in November, Lewis said,” I took a position that I’m never going to talk about it. I refused to address the allegations against me.” It’s a convenient stance. However, it wo n’t stay in contact with a court, and it might no longer be tenable at the newspaper he runs.

A contentious town hall held earlier this month as part of Lewis ‘” Say It, Fix It, Build It” strategy has been followed by a so- called forgiveness tour. According to a source close to the sessions, Lewis has stated that his job as publisher is to foster and support great journalism. The source added that Lewis will never interfere in journalism and is very clear about the lines that should not be crossed.

However, as he settles into life in his brand-new Georgetown townhouse, which Katharine Graham developed throughout the Watergate administration, the pressure is mounting. Reporters at his own paper and others are now actively investigating his past.

Jeff Bezos requested that the Post‘s business model be revised. He did not want him to break the brand.

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