Robert Winnett, the Daily Telegraph editor that Washington Post Publisher and CEO William Lewis recruited to edit “core news” at the paper, resigned last week as the tide of exposés about his and Lewis’ shady conduct at British newspapers continued to surge. “It is with regret that I share with you that Robert Winnett has withdrawn from the position of Editor of The Washington Post,” Lewis wrote in a staff memo.
Suddenly, Lewis looks increasingly isolated and his own job seems at risk — made more so by a PR strategy of deflection and silence increasingly at odds with the severity of his predicament.
Since accepting the publisher position in November — and even before — Lewis has tried to charm everybody he encounters. When charm won’t suffice, Lewis plays the “tough guy.” That was his move at a recent Post staff meeting when he parried with his irate journalists, saying, “Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
But his most potent tactic, more effective so far than charm or trash-talking, has been to stonewall ethical questions about his past — other than to deny them, that is. “I took a view very early on that I’m never going to talk about it,” Lewis told the Washington Post about his purported role or non-role in destroying evidence when he took the job. Recent news accounts about him are peppered with him declining to take questions from the press or even respond to queries. When NPR reporter David Folkenflik sought an interview with Lewis last year, he agreed on the condition Folkenflik didn’t ask about phone-hacking. Folkenflik declined.
Is this any way for the publisher of the Washington Post to behave?... (our emphasis)
No, and we're hoping he won't be publisher of the Post much longer.
More than 1,300 people died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia as the faithful faced extreme high temperatures at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom, Saudi authorities announced Sunday.
Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdurrahman Al-Jalajel said that 83% of the 1,301 fatalities were unauthorized pilgrims who walked long distances in soaring temperatures to perform the Hajj rituals in and around the holy city of Mecca.
Speaking with the state-owned Al Ekhbariya TV, the minister said 95 pilgrims were being treated in hospitals, some of whom were airlifted for treatment in the capital, Riyadh. He said the identification process was delayed because there were no identification documents with many of the dead pilgrims.
He said the dead were buried in Mecca, without giving a breakdown.
The fatalities included more than 660 Egyptians. All but 31 of them were unauthorized pilgrims, according to two officials in Cairo. Egypt has revoked the licenses of 16 travel agencies that helped unauthorized pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia, authorities said.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists, said most of the dead were reported at the Emergency Complex in Mecca’s Al-Muaisem neighborhood. Egypt sent more than 50,000 authorized pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year.
Saudi authorities cracked down on unauthorized pilgrims, expelling tens of thousands of people. But many, mostly Egyptians, managed to reach holy sites in and around Mecca, some on foot. Unlike authorized pilgrims, they had no hotels to return to to escape the scorching heat... (our emphasis)
Terrible loss of life that could have been avoided.
“The intense phase of the war will come to an end very soon,” Netanyahu said. “But that does not mean that the war will be over.” He added: “I am willing to make a partial deal, which will bring some of the people back to us. That is no secret. But we’re committed to continuing the war after the truce.”
The Hostages Families Forum on Monday condemned Netanyahu’s remarks, saying that ending the conflict in Gaza “without freeing the hostages would be an unprecedented national failure and a departure from the war’s objectives.”
The group said Netanyahu’s plan “abandons” the 120 hostages and “violates the state’s moral obligation to its citizens.” It said that “the responsibility and duty to return all hostages lies with the prime minister.”
The families of the hostages have increasingly clashed with Netanyahu and far-right members of his cabinet over whether it is a priority to reach a deal on the hostages or to continue fighting to destroy Hamas...
Israel is America's ally, Netanyahu is not. Watch how he acts when he's the guest of House MAGAt Republicans in a few weeks.
