Thread by @WatermanReports

The kids are asleep and I finally have time to share some important context about tonight's @nytimes revelations re the departure of @SallyBuzbee from the @washingtonpost -- and in particular the role of former @WSJ publisher and Post CEO Will Lewis.
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nytimes.com/2024/06/05/bus…

When Rupert Murdoch bought The Times & Sunday Times in 1981, the British newspaper landscape was one in which tabloid news values, exemplified by Murdoch's Sun and News of the World, often set the agenda for the news media as a whole. Their front page stories often led TV news 2/

But w the purchase of the Times, Murdoch began to transform that landscape. Tabloid values were no longer just setting the agenda, they were increasingly infecting the institutions themselves. The Times didn't start paying for stories in '81, but I bet it paid a lot more after 3/

That was the landscape that birthed Will Lewis. The @FT, where he came up, prob resisted the tabloid infection as well as any other British newspaper, but that's a low bar. And besides, like many other British institutions, the FT already had a much older, deeper infection. 4/

@FT That infection was the Old Boys' Network. It's what made Fleet Street #newspapers, even amid the destructive churn of media markets in Thatcherite Britain, one of the most nepotistic and clique-ridden employment markets in modern history -- up there with banking and insurance. 5/

@FT One of the core principles of the Old Boys Network was: Don't sh*t where you eat. With a few honorable exceptions, the British press turned a blind-eye to the deep culture of #corruption in its own ranks: The envelopes of cash, dodgy private eyes, and manufactured stories. 6/

That terrible failure of the press' watchdog role in relation to its own institutions created space/need for @HackedOffHugh and @hackinginquiry -- it was their work that finally lanced the boil, making the lawless and manipulative behavior of UK tabloids into a national issue 7/

Which brings us back to tonight's @nytimes revelations about the row in mid-May between @SallyBuzbee and Post CEO Will Lewis over the paper's coverage of the continuing legal campaign against the Murdoch tabloids by @hackinginquiry and #PrinceHarry.
nytimes.com/2024/06/05/bus…

When Will Lewis was made general manager of News International, the Murdoch holding company that owned The Sun and News of the World, in the wake of the first big phone hacking scandal in 2010, the spin was that he was brought in to clean up the mess. But what was the mess? 9/

As alleged in the lawsuit which Buzbee wanted The Post to cover, Lewis' real role was to limit the damage; to shore up the News International line that the phone hacking, despite awareness and approvals all the way to the top, was somehow the work of a few rogue employees 10/

Leave aside all that. The current CEO of the Post, in a past professional role, is named in a lawsuit whose plaintiffs include *members of the British Royal Family* Only a certified member of the Old Boys' Network wd have the brass balls to say that "did not merit coverage!" 11/

I'm not reporting on any of this ☹️ and despite all the excellent stories out there, including the Post's own
take Monday (which raises a host of other qstns about the newsroom reorg), it would be foolish to try and parse timelines to divine motive 12/
wapo.st/3xfZYO2

But I will say this: Another central tenet of the Old Boys' Network is "Mates help mates." Frankly, I can understand why, going into the most consequential and bitterly contested US election in living memory, Will Lewis would want lieutenants he can trust. 13/

But then the question becomes: Why couldn't Sally Buzbee be the foremost amongst those lieutenants? By threatening her with demotion, Lewis effectively forced her out? Why? Again I don't have answers, but here's a question: 14/

What are the values of a newsroom where the CEO can tell a subordinate that the fact he's getting sued by Prince Harry for helping cover up one of the most egregious corruption scandals in British post-war history "doesn't merit coverage"? 15/

Kudos to @SallyBuzbee for doing the right thing. And she's not alone. I've had the privilege of getting to know a handful of people who do or did work @washingtonpost and I know all of them would do the right thing, too. But they, & all post staffers, need to look sharp rn 16/

Because another cardinal principle of the Old Boys Network is "Staff ain't mates."
Listen to the exact words Lewis used addressing the newsroom: “*We* are losing large amounts of money. *Your* audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading *your* stuff." See? 17/

One final observation: The Italians, who let's face it, know a thing or two about corruption and have a great way with words, like to say "the fish rots from the head down." Who knows which trusted mates Lewis' new appointees might want to bring aboard? 18/

Like I said, the Post newsroom has done a good job covering this story -- the hardest and least rewarding kind of journalism there is. And that's not an outlier. They covered the phone hacking case. I think their coverage of @amazon has been appropriately aggressive. 19/

@amazon There's other things to say, but not tonight.
For more on the phone hacking scandal, read "Dial M for Murdoch: News Corp and the Corruption of Britain by Tom Watson & Martin Hickman" or "The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial" ed Richard Lance Keeble & John Mair End🧵20/

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