Washington Post Staffer Announces Exit in Fiery Post: Faith In Leadership ‘Broken Beyond Repair’

(Photo by Mehmet Eser / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Jeff Stein, chief economics correspondent for The Washington Post, has become the latest journalist to announce he’s leaving the troubled Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper for greener pastures.

“Some personal news: This is my last week at The Washington Post,” Stein wrote Monday. “I’ve loved so much of the last 9 years here, but my faith in the paper’s current leadership is broken beyond repair.”

WaPo’s publisher and CEO Will Lewis abruptly stepped down in February, shortly after at least 300 journalists had been laid off. Jeff D’Onofrio, The Post’s CFO and Tumblr’s former CEO, immediately took the reins.

CNN’s Brian Stelter reported, “Post journalists, who believed Lewis had failed to turn around the publication’s fortunes, openly celebrated the news,” adding, “Lewis had lost the confidence of the Post newsroom long ago, and during this week’s layoffs, some staffers said the situation had become increasingly untenable.”

Stein continued, “Incredibly excited to get to work with the newsroom below (I start in June) & join the extraordinarily talented kickass reporters such as @anna_c_kramer, @OrianaBeLike, @reesejgorman & many more.”

Stein linked to a post by Dana Milbank, The Post’s Futures columnist, who also announced Monday that he’s leaving to join “a new journalistic venture.”

“I am leaving the Washington Post to join a new journalistic venture backed by Politico founder Robert Allbritton that will be both the hometown publication the D.C. region sorely needs and a scrappy and fearless national news organization,” Milbank wrote.

In a follow-up post, Stein wrote, “there’s going to be so much to cover and I can’t wait to get to it.”

Bezos released a statement shortly after the mass layoffs, saying, “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”

Bezos added that D’Onofrio, along with executive editor Matt Murray, and Opinion editor Adam O’Neal, “are positioned to lead The Post into an exciting and thriving next chapter.”

Since the layoffs, more than 60,000 customers have canceled their digital subscriptions, according to a report from The New York Times on Saturday.

The story, titled “How Jeff Bezos Upended the Washington Post,” took a deep dive into the billionaire Amazon founder’s role at the paper in recent years.

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