Washington Post employees ask Jeff Bezos to meet

Hundreds of employees of The Washington Post sent a letter to Jeff Bezos on Tuesday evening, requesting a meeting with the Amazon founder amid widespread concern about the newspaper’s future.

The letter, signed by more than 400 employees, including many prominent journalists and editors, does not criticize anyone by name. But he says the signatories are deeply concerned about the direction of The Post.

“We are deeply shocked by the recent decision of the leadership that made readers question the integrity of this institution, broke with the tradition of transparency and pushed some of the colleagues who have it is important for us to leave, with more departures coming soon,” the letter said.

A spokesman for The Washington Post declined to comment. A spokesman for Mr. Bezos, owner of The Post, did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter, previously reported by NPR, said the concern was unrelated to Mr. Bezos’s latest decision, which the signatories acknowledged as “proprietary.”

Instead, according to the letter, the concern is about “maintaining our competitive ability, restoring the trust that has been lost and reestablishing the relationship with the leadership based on open communication.”

The company’s chief executive, Will Lewis, has been the focus of growing discontent at The Post for months. The newsroom’s senior editor, Sally Buzbee, left in June when she decided to reorganize the newsroom. Mr Lewis’s choice to replace him, Robert Winnett, has withdrawn from consideration following a staff strike. Several members of The Post’s opinion staff resigned from the editorial board after the decision to end the president’s endorsement, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist of The Post left after a cartoon showed Mr. Bezos looking toward a statue of President-elect Donald J. Trump. killed. The Post also saw a significant loss in subscriptions.

In recent weeks, several journalists, including political reporters Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer, have left or are leaving for publications including The Atlantic and The Wall. Street Journal.

The letter concluded by asking Mr. Bezos to visit The Post office to meet with the newspaper’s staff. He made a similar trip in 2023, in displeasure with former Post publisher Fred Ryan. Mr. Ryan left that year.