Nearly a year after buying the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos is replacing publisher and CEO Katharine Weymouth, ending the eight decade run of Graham family leadership at the paper.
Bezos, who purchased the paper last October in a $250 million sale, will install Fred Ryan, a founding member of Politico’s leadership team and a former Reagan administration official, as the new head of the Post as of Oct. 1.
Weymouth will remain in the company through the end of the year in an advisor capacity. Her great-grandfather Eugene Meyer bought the Washington Post in 1933 and the family has helmed the publication ever since.
“The greatest honor of my life has been serving as publisher of The Post these past seven years,” wrote Weymouth in a memo to staff. “Now it is time for new leadership.”
Bezos has invested heavily in expanding the newspaper’s coverage, including hiring dozens of new journalists and developing new digital projects. He has encouraged innovation at the paper amid a rapidly changing media landscape.
Weymouth credits Bezos “patience to invest and experiment” at a time when other news media are cutting staff and hunkering down. “There is simply no other news organization in the enviable position of The Washington Post,” she wrote to staff.
Bezos and the Post did not provide specific reasons for the change or its timing.