Washington Post publisher Will Lewis retains links to PR firm that bears his initials

Washington Post publisher Sir Will Lewis is facing a PR crisis, with his own newspaper and rivals investigating his past as a senior executive at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

It is the sort of problem that Lewis has, until recently, tried to solve for clients of his communications and consultancy firm, WJL Partners, named from his initials.

Founded in 2020, WJLP has hosted dinners and other events for high- powered industry bosses, investors such as Sequoia Capital and politicians, as well as providing services such as preparing clients for media interviews, according to those familiar with its business.

On its website, WJLP says it sits “by the side of leaders who want a safe space, wise counsel and someone at the end of the phone”. 

The firm has continued to operate even after Lewis was hired late last year to run The Washington Post by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who acquired the title in 2013.

In January it invited contacts to an event at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, two weeks after Lewis took up his new position at the newspaper, with Lewis and the chief executive of Drax, the UK power company.

“The dinner will be an intimate gathering, convening a select group of senior guests from business, media and policy to discuss what role climate change will play in the 2024 elections,” the invitation promised.

According to a person close to the executive, Lewis no longer has any commercial interest or involvement in WJLP, having passed on the ownership to his business partners.

But as well as retaining his initials, the PR firm has continued to distribute regular emails from Lewis, offering his thoughts on global business and political events.

The emails and unchanged branding have caused confusion among people in contact with the agency, according to industry sources.

The firm does not charge a fee for the distribution of Lewis’s newsletter, which clearly states that Lewis is chief executive and publisher of The Washington Post, according to a person close to the situation. 

According to filings in the UK’s Companies House, Lewis relinquished his controlling stake in the business to Victoria Davies, a director at the company, at the end of last year after Lewis was appointed by Bezos.

Davies now holds a stake of between 50-75 per cent of the business, according to the filings, which would match the stake that Lewis had held. Lewis declined to comment. 

The firm said: “WJLP is a high-level advisory firm based in London. William Lewis has had no financial interest in WJLP since 29th December 2023 and WJLP has no contractual relationship with The Washington Post.”

In addition to corporate clients, Lewis also provided communications advice to former UK prime minister Boris Johnson after the “Partygate” crisis in 2022 — the so-called “Save big dog” operation that ultimately failed to defend Johnson’s government from accusations that he flouted Covid-19 rules during the pandemic. 

Lord Ross Kempsell, Johnson’s former spokesman, who was appointed by the then-prime minister to the House of Lords, acts as a senior adviser to WJLP but is not involved in its day-to-day operations.

One person who attended some of the meetings, including dinners with Lewis, described him as a top networker: “He’s an extraordinary convener of people [and] had a great way of helping [companies] . . . he was very shrewd with his advice and helpful with introductions.”

Lewis is a former Financial Times journalist and Telegraph editor who served as chief executive of the Murdoch-owned Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal from 2014 to 2020. 

However, his career in journalism and communications has come under scrutiny since he was named publisher of The Washington Post in November 2023.

As well as WJLP, Lewis founded The News Movement, an online news site aimed at younger audiences. The News Movement was in part funded with money from Heritage Advisors, a venture capital firm led by Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani, a former Qatari government official.

Heritage Advisors has also invested in right-wing cable channel Newsmax. The Washington Post reported earlier this year that Newsmax employees were told to avoid criticising Qatar, although this was denied by Newsmax. Heritage has said it has no links to the Qatari state.

Lewis was appointed by Bezos to arrest mounting losses and a falling readership but he angered journalists in the newsroom after replacing executive editor Sally Buzbee with former colleagues from the WSJ and the Telegraph.

In the wake of her departure and the announcement of his plans to overhaul the newsroom, US media outlets have extensively covered his links to an alleged cover-up of the phone-hacking scandal that shook Murdoch’s UK news operation more than a decade ago.

He is one of the former and current News Corp employees named in legal proceedings brought by Prince Harry over phone-hacking claims against Murdoch’s publications. Lewis has always denied any wrongdoing. 

US media have also alleged that he tried to stop The Washington Post and other US outlets from running negative stories on his past, something his spokesperson has denied. 

Bezos sent a memo to senior editors at the newspaper this week that was widely seen as supportive of Lewis’s position, arguing “the world is evolving rapidly and we do need to change as a business” but that high editorial standards would remain unchanged.

Additional reporting by Arash Massoudi in London