Why I left The Washington Post

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” — but what if the lights are going out from within?

My decision to leave The Washington Post after nearly three decades began with a quixotic mission — reinstate the ombudsman. That’s an in-house critic who responds to reader criticism, investigates how a story was reported and assesses whether the complaint is valid.

That quest earned me a one-hour meeting in April 2024 with Will Lewis, the then-new publisher of The Post. During our discussion, he asked me: “What should The Post do to appeal more to Fox News viewers?”

I used to cover diplomacy so I knew how to keep a poker face even as the hair on the back of my neck prickled. “We have to remain true to our journalistic principles,” I said. “We have to tell the truth.” I paused, and added, “They may not like that, because it would conflict with what they’ve been hearing.”

I’m not sure he appreciated that answer, because he asked me the same question two more times. Each time, I gave the same response, though I added that exclusive, compelling articles were the best way to attract readers.

In many ways, his question was a good one. But it seemed inappropriate to ask a reporter deep in the trenches, given the traditional journalistic guardrails between the news and business sides.

I don’t recall seeing a survey but I suspect the vast majority of Washington Post readers are left-leaning. Writing The Fact Checker since 2011, I often received a slew of angry emails whenever I harshly rated a Democratic politician for making a false claim. The more Pinocchios — our rating system for falsehoods — the more I would be dismissed as a right-wing hack.

“Why don’t you fact-check Donald Trump?” readers would ask — even though I did on a regular basis. By contrast, readers rarely said I was unfair when I fact-checked Republicans.

In other words, conservatives were an untapped market for growth, especially for a news organization where traffic was falling. But there’s a conundrum: if most of your readers are liberal, how do you attract conservatives without losing your existing base? Some features, of course, are beyond politics, such as sports or cooking. But the core of The Post’s brand — what allowed us to go toe to toe with the bigger New York Times — was a relentless, scoopy focus on politics and the federal government.

And The Washington Post readers who cared about politics and the federal government? Most of them are liberal and probably would never watch Fox News.

I certainly knew when Fox News viewers read my fact checks — if I gave Pinocchios to Democrats. Whenever I did, right-wing news organizations would rush to post articles saying I had determined Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi was a liar.

I’m not sure the world needs another article about the travails of The Washington Post — where many reporters work hard to produce excellent work — but I wanted to record, fairly and honestly, what I witnessed. I built and maintained one of the marquee brands of The Post and I fear it may be permitted to wither away.

Meeting with Lewis

Back to the meeting with Will Lewis. The lack of the ombudsman had been on my mind ever since I wrote a fact check in July 2022 that blew up in my face — scrutiny of a report about a ten-year-old rape victim who was forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana to get an abortion, just days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.

My article highlighted that the only evidence that this happened was the word of one doctor, who would not share more details about the anonymous girl—yet the story had ricocheted across the globe and had been mentioned by President Biden. “This is the account of a one-source story that quickly went viral around the world — and into the talking points of the president,” I wrote, adding I could not find additional confirmation.

Fox News, other conservative outlets, and Republican politicians cited my reporting to cast doubt on the story. Then, five days after my article appeared, the Columbus Dispatch reported that a 27-year-old Columbus man had been charged with impregnating the girl. So the story was confirmed, and I quickly updated the fact check.

But then I was slammed by social media on the left; there’s still a whole section on my Wikipedia page devoted to the controversy. I wanted to explain how and why the story came to be written and edited, but Post PR would only issue a one-sentence statement in response to dozens of media inquiries.

The Post had had an ombudsman for decades but the position was eliminated in a cost-saving measure before billionaire Jeff Bezos bought The Post in 2013. If an ombudsman still existed at The Post, I thought, we could have explained the rationale for writing the story. Most journalists who read the article understood my point about being cautious, but many readers (especially women) were furious. I also thought it would be appropriate to publicly apologize to the child and the doctor who conducted the abortion. Instead, the newspaper acted defensive and uncooperative. I felt muzzled.

Many reporters and editors dislike an ombudsman, viewing him or her as a nettlesome proctologist. I welcomed the scrutiny. I thought it was important to be transparent and admit mistakes.

I wrote an email to the executive editor and managing editor and made a pitch to bring back an ombudsman. My missive was ignored. When I followed up some weeks later with the managing editor during an elevator conversation, I was told: “That’s a decision for the publisher.” But then he resigned. It took a while to name a permanent replacement. But as soon as Lewis was installed, I raised the idea in an email and he scheduled a meeting with me.

In my decades of being in the newspaper business, I’d never spent more than five minutes speaking to a publisher. I figured I had five — maybe ten — minutes to make my case and then he would move on to another meeting.

Lewis is charming, with a roguish sense of humor and thick British accent. He welcomed me into his office. He complimented me on a recent article I had written — about a Fact Checker poll that Republicans increasingly embraced Trump’s falsehoods. Then he asked if I was traveling soon, and I mentioned I was headed to Norway to give a speech. That resulted in a long digression on the outrageous cost of Norwegian beer.

I don’t remember all of the myriad subjects we discussed, but when an hour had passed, we still had never circled back to my ombudsman proposal. He suggested I write a follow-up memo, and then we would discuss it again when I got back from Norway.

I wasn’t sure what was odder — the Fox News questions or the fact that the publisher could spend an hour just shooting the breeze with a reporter. Shouldn’t he be busy?

Shifting editors and priorities

We never had that second meeting because Lewis soon pushed out the executive editor, Sally Buzbee, and tried to install Robert Winnett, who had worked with him at two British papers. The Post newsroom investigated Lewis and his friend; Winnett withdrew and Lewis was barely seen again in the newsroom, except through emails. My follow-up meeting was canceled.

Then an edict was issued that The Post would no longer cover itself, shocking many in the newsroom because The Post ethos meant we reported on ourselves as critically as politicians. Under these circumstances, my hope of reinstating an ombudsman was ludicrous.

Still, the question about Fox News gnawed at me. I admire many Fox News reporters, but the network’s main impact comes from its opinionated, late-night conservative hosts who wholeheartedly support Republicans. The implication was that The Post website might need to lean right. I told my two immediate editors about my conversation with Lewis; they have since left The Post.

Moreover, while it would be great to get a more balanced mix of liberal and conservative readers, I didn’t understand how one could attract conservative readers (who have their choice of many right-wing news sites besides Fox) without alienating existing readers.

The Post opinion pages already had an array of liberal, conservative and libertarian voices, but that’s not the same as the news pages. The Washington Post news division prides itself on accountability journalism, scrutinizing whoever is in power.

Then, in October, Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the presidential election. I have no problem with an owner dictating what the opinion pages say; in fact, I had been surprised that Bezos had not moved earlier to put his stamp on the editorial pages. But the time to announce a no-endorsement policy was at the start of the election cycle, not weeks before a close election.

The Post’s liberal readers viewed it as a move to curry favor with Trump, and 300,000 canceled their subscriptions within days — 12 percent of total digital subscriptions. Another 75,000 people canceled when Bezos then announced in February that the opinion page would pivot to defending personal liberties and the free market. Not necessarily conservative but certainly libertarian. His announcement indicated liberal voices would not be welcome on the editorial pages, suggesting a squelching of rigorous debate.

That’s his prerogative. But, in terms of building readership, the new editorial policy didn’t make sense. The Post’s liberal columnists generated huge traffic — that’s because of the liberal slant of the readership — and now they’ve all quit. Every day, I checked the daily traffic numbers and, year over year, it was like being on a waterslide — with no bottom.

Meanwhile, Lewis, from his email perch, bombarded the staff with corporate lingo — “a significant reinvention journey” —that gave no sense of direction. A staff-wide meeting led by new executive editor Matt Murray didn’t provide much clarity. As far as I could understand, The Post was going to try to appeal to people who weren’t necessarily committed to news. Well, The New York Times figured that out ten years ago, expanding into games, sports, cooking and product recommendations. The Post was just eating its dust.

The sad irony is that even with the departure of so many talented colleagues after the endorsement debacle, this year Washington Post reporters broke scoop after scoop on Trump’s dismantling of government agencies. We had the hometown advantage and exploited it. The foreign and visual forensics desks produced heartbreaking coverage of the Israeli assault on Gaza that was a Pulitzer finalist. In other words, we delivered compelling reporting. But was that at odds with the new strategy?

The buyout offer

The last straw was a buyout offer to anyone with more than ten years of service or working in certain departments, such as video and copy editing. There was no strategy in how the buyout was structured, except that people were encouraged to leave if they did not align with the new vision — still undefined and vague. In his emails, Lewis seemed to want to push out as much of the old guard as possible — i.e., anyone who worked at The Post before the Bezos era.

I had never qualified for a buyout before, even though this was the fifth in 20 years. But when I crunched the numbers, I realized that at 66 I would be foolish not to seriously consider it, given the uncertain state of the paper. A senior editor told me and other reporters that this was the last buyout; if further staff reductions were needed in the future, there would be layoffs.

Shortly after Bezos bought The Post, he froze the traditional pension plan. I don’t believe he was trying to save money. It was massively overfunded, having been managed by Warren Buffett’s advisors. I suspect Bezos did not like the idea of older reporters and editors being unwilling to take another job — such as at The Times — because they were invested in increasing their Post pension. Without that incentive to stay, The Post could churn with fresh talent. (Never mind that in the news business, it takes time to build skills and expertise.)

When I did the calculations, I realized the buyout would restore much of the annual pension I had anticipated before Bezos froze the pension plan — and that I would gain hardly anything by working four more years at The Post. In other words, it would cost me financially to stay. Many other people with my experience had the same realization.

But, given that Washington now is flooded with so many falsehoods, I wanted to ensure The Fact Checker was in good hands after I left. After all, I ran one of the most popular features at The Post — an internationally recognized brand.

Continuing The Fact Checker

The editors always told me they considered The Fact Checker a public service, so there were no traffic goals to meet, allowing me to explore obscure topics at times. But my articles were often among the most read on the Post website. Readers flocked to read my fact checks, even if they vehemently disagreed with my findings.

So I offered to stay on the job until the editors could find a replacement I would train. Foolishly, I thought it was a no-brainer. The Post’s motto is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Why invite bad headlines if I left without a successor?

In a sign of how financially strapped The Post has become, this was considered a difficult request.

But it also may have gone deeper. I always had complete freedom to choose my targets and decide the Pinocchio rating. Yet a couple of editors suggested Murray had a vague, unarticulated concern about The Fact Checker — something he had never raised with me. He’s been on a push to eliminate anything opinionated in the news pages, but facts aren’t opinions. If some of my prose was too edgy, well, that could be solved in the editing. But again, he had never said a word to me. And in two meetings totaling more than an hour, he never mentioned any concern either.

I wrote a memo for Murray, showing my robust traffic numbers, the subscriber count for my popular newsletter and how often politicians cited Pinocchio ratings. Oddly, though many video producers were being pushed to take buyouts, Murray indicated he wanted to invest more in video. So I recounted how Fact Checker videos earned tens of millions of views in 2018 and 2019 before my video producers moved to Visual Forensics. With a new video team, The Fact Checker could do that again. We met on July 11 and discussed the memo for half an hour, and he asked for a follow-up memo with some more specific suggestions on updating The Fact Checker.

Late on July 13, a Sunday, Murray sent me an email saying I had made a good case and that he would see what he could do. We couldn’t schedule a follow-up meeting until July 22. After first suggesting a consulting arrangement, which I rejected as impractical, he offered a two-month extension of my employment. That seemed tight for a search and transition to a new reporter, but I was willing to give it the college try. I had an internal candidate in mind, though I wasn’t sure if they were interested.

But when I tried to confirm this two-month time frame the next day, I was told by an HR managing editor (copied on the email) that the extension of my employment could not be longer than one month. I received no response when I said this made no sense — especially in the dog days of August — and so I signed the voluntary buyout, which mandated a departure date of July 31.

One editor suggested I could have gone into Murray’s office and demanded that he make the two-month timeframe stick. But at that point, if he didn’t care enough to overrule HR, neither did I. After all, I only tried to extend my departure as a favor to The Post. When I drafted the staff notice that I was taking the buyout, I included a line about leaving shoes to fill — as a way to indicate The Fact Checker would continue. By the time the announcement emerged from Murray’s office, that sentence had been stricken.

To me, the episode demonstrated that there is no vision, no game plan, and no commitment to build on existing traffic. Instead, the buyouts have removed some of The Post’s biggest traffic generators — and I don’t see a strategy to replace what has been lost. Lewis invested time and resources in creating what he called “a third newsroom” — his one big idea — but the effort was abruptly dropped last month, and the manager who had led it also took the buyout.

I do not know a single person who left The Post because they did not embrace the organization’s “reinvention” as it was a chimera. Many more Post veterans would have taken the buyout if they could — but they couldn’t line up an equivalent job fast enough, or they were in that uncomfortable age zone of 56 to 64, where Medicare is not available and a potential employer might conclude you don’t have many productive years left.

I loved working at The Post. The newsroom culture is unique — collaborative, inventive, fun. And Bezos initially poured resources into the enterprise, doubling the size of the staff. I know he liked The Fact Checker and its Pinocchios. He even approved a “GlennKessler” app promoting The Fact Checker, designed by one of my sons, then 16 — after my son (without my permission) appealed to Bezos directly to overrule Post tech staff who had ordered it removed from the Apple app store.

But now, working at The Post feels like being on the Titanic after it struck an iceberg — drifting aimlessly as it sank, with not enough lifeboats for everyone. The Carpathia (i.e., Bezos) appears too far away and too distracted to help. And the captain is shouting commands that the solution is a different ship.

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