Washington Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan announced Monday he will leave the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” paper, as it grapples with staff turnover and declining online subscribers.
Ryan, who served as the chief executive of billionaire Jeff Bezos‘ Post for the past nine years, will exit to lead the Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the paper announced on Monday.
“I want to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to Fred for his dedicated service to The Washington Post,” Bezos wrote in an internal memo obtained by Fox News Digital. “Fred has led The Post through a period of innovation, journalism excellence and growth.”
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Ryan also sent a memo to Post staffers, chalking his exit up to leaving in order to help society with a new foundation that Bezos is bankrolling.
“I have a deep and growing concern about the decline in civility and respectful dialogue in our political process, on social media platforms and more broadly across our society. Many of us can recall an era when people could disagree without being disagreeable… Today, the decline in civility has become a toxic and corrosive force that threatens our social interactions and weakens the underpinnings of our democracy. I feel a strong sense of urgency about this issue,” he wrote.
“As a result, I have decided to leave my position at The Post to lead the nonpartisan Center on Public Civility that is being launched by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute,” Ryan continued. “Jeff is personally providing support for the planning and design phase of this new initiative and supports my decision to make this move.”
It is unclear how much Bezos paid for the “planning and design phase” of the new initiative.
Meanwhile, the Post is dealing with a significant decline in its online subscriber base since the end of the Trump administration. According to its own report on Ryan’s departure, it’s lost about one-third of its 3 million digital subscribers it had in January 2021.
A Post insider said Ryan’s news came as a surprise, and it was possible Bezos pushed him out to bring in younger leadership.
“Hard to say whether he was pushed or jumped… We’re still hiring, still expanding. But Fred is 68. So… if I had to guess—and it’s strictly that—I’d say Bezos is getting impatient and wanted to get fresh blood,” they said, adding the subscriber loss was substantial. “Pretty clear Bezos is worried.”
There has been an unprecedented exodus of talent from the Post in recent months. Fox News Digital first reported in March that Cameron Barr, the senior managing editor of the Post, was looking to leave by the end of summer. His exit is now official.
Barr, who joined the Post in 2004, was among the finalists being considered for Sally Buzbee’s executive editor job, as well as Steven Ginsburg, a fellow managing editor at the time who began working for the paper back in 1994. Ultimately, both were passed over by Ryan, who chose Buzbee, an outsider who at the time was the executive editor of The Associated Press.
Ginsburg left the Post in late 2022 to become the executive editor of The Athletic.
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Sources have previously pointed fingers towards Ryan and Buzbee as the source of discontent in the Post newsroom. Patty Stonesifer, the director of the Amazon board and close friend of Bezos, was named the interim CEO of the Washington Post and will lead a search for Ryan’s replacement.
The Post’s senior culture editor David Malitz also recently left the paper. In recent memory, the Post has also lost reporters David Fahrenthold, Eli Saslow, Dave Weigel, Steven Mufson, Karoun Demirjian, Paul Sonne, Robert Samuels and Max Bearak; media columnist Margaret Sullivan; veteran editors Tracy Grant, Barbara Vobejda, Mitch Rubin and Matt Vita; and book critic Carlos Lozada.
Several C-suite executives have recently parted ways with the Post, including chief revenue officer Joy Robins, chief information officer Shailesh Prakash, chief product officer Kat Downs Mulder, communications chief Kristine Coratti Kelly, communications VP Shani George and audience development chief Beth Diaz.
A current staffer recently told Fox News Digital the Post “feels lost at sea.”
Last year, Washington Post staffers were outraged when Ryan refused to take questions after announcing layoffs during an internal town hall event. “We’re not going to turn the town hall into a grievance session with the Guild,” Ryan was heard telling upset staffers seeking answers after he announced layoffs in a video shared by Post reporter Annie Gowen.
The paper’s layoffs wound up being less than expected, although the lead-up to them caused strife within the ranks.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn and David Rutz contributed to this report.
