Reporters Attack WaPo Editor Before Promotion

(HorizonPost.com) – Washington Post reporters, still stinging from the departure of former executive editor Sally Buzbee, came out swinging at her incoming replacement, Robert Winnett, publishing a report on June 17 questioning Winnett’s journalistic ethics.

The article, authored by four Washington Post reporters, accuses the former UK Sunday Times deputy editor of collaborating with a “self-described ‘thief’.”

According to the report, Winnett routinely worked with John Ford, a perennial confidential source for the Sunday Times who used unscrupulous and illegal methods to obtain his information.

Ford was arrested in 2010 for trying to steal a pre-release copy of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s memoir.

The article cites an unpublished manuscript written in 2017 and 2018 by Ford that accuses Winnett of introducing him to a lawyer who could “sort” Ford out. The Sunday Times deputy editor allegedly assured Ford that his unscrupulous methods would never be publicly revealed because of British journalism’s “remarkable omerta,” Ford wrote in his unpublished book.

The Washington Post article also alleges that Winnett took Ford to meet with Claire Newell, a colleague of Winnett’s at the Sunday Times who in 2004 was arrested for leaking government documents to the Times while she was working in the Cabinet Office.

The article cites a 2008 book by UK investigative reporter Nick Davies to accuse Winnett of arranging the leak of the confidential information Newell passed to the Sunday Times.

According to the Post’s article, Ford’s manuscript details how he provided confidential information about UK officials obtained through “dishonest means” to the Sunday Times while Winnett was deputy editor.

The reporters also claimed that their review of Winnett’s tenure at the Sunday Times revealed an “overlap” between the people and entities Ford claimed to have targeted and stories written by Winnett. They add that the use of such “deceptive tactics” in news reporting violated the “core ethics policies” of the Washington Post.

The hit piece on the incoming executive editor allegedly had the blessing of Washington Post managing editors Scott Vance and Matea Gold, according to anonymous sources.

Winnett is expected to take over as executive editor after the November election unless his future employer’s hit piece forces him to withdraw.

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