(TargetDailyNews.com) – There is a civil war going on at the Washington Post after its own staff published a highly critical piece about its incoming editor, Robert Winnett. Winnett is slated to become the Post’s executive editor after the presidential election this fall, though that appears less certain after the paper’s investigation.
At the heart of the controversy is the alleged working relationship between Winnett and an actor named John Ford. Ford, who calls himself a “thief,” was arrested in 2010 for trying to steal a copy of Tony Blair’s memoir. Blair is the former prime minister of Great Britain.
Working from an unpublished manuscript that Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018, the four Post reporters behind the story say they have evidence that incoming editor Winnett tried to help Ford get out of his legal troubles by hooking him up with a lawyer. The Post reporters further claim the unpublished draft chapters show that Winnett was sympathetic to Ford’s “clandestine efforts” and told him the story wouldn’t get out because of a strong code of silence in the British media.
But that’s not all. The Post’s story also claims that Winnett worked with Claire Newell, a reporter for the British Sunday Times, to get access to confidential government information Newell gathered during a temporary stint in the British Cabinet Office. The WaPo story claims Winnett used Newell to get leaked government information that would be published in the Sunday Times.
The Washington Post, of course, is most famous for its groundbreaking story on the Watergate scandal involving President Richard Nixon. Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward worked with a then-anonymous source called Deep Throat, now known to be former FBI associate director Mark Felt, to get information on Nixon’s activities.
The four journalists who wrote the recent Post story say Winnett used “deceptive practices” by working with Ford. They claim they found overlap between stories Winnett published and people that Ford said he was hired to investigate or target. This behavior, the Post reporters claim, violates the paper’s “core ethical policies.”
There is not yet word from the management at the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post reacting to this story, nor any indication of whether Winnett’s future editorship may now be in jeopardy.
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