The Washington Post’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, resigned from her position after a hurried structure change that divided the newsroom into three sections in response to a drastic drop in readership and revenue.

The Post publisher Williams Lewis had asked Ms Buzbee to oversee one of the split sections but she pushed against it, asking that Mr Lewis hold off on the changes until after the presidential polls.

Mr Lewis was looking more to maximising social media particularly multimedia to attract new readers and retain existing ones. The second division will focus on core news while the third will be devoted to opinion pieces.

Ms Buzbee, 58, who had spearheaded the newsroom over the last three years instead decided to step down given that Mr Lewis’ idea for the paper no longer aligned with hers.

Mr Lewis said that Matt Murray, who worked as a chief editor at The Wall Street Journal, will temporarily lead The Post for election coverage after which Robert Winnett, deputy editor at UK newspaper Telegraph will take over.

Mr Lewis noted that The Post lost over $70 million in 2023, a figure that has geared him to come up with new revenue-generating strategies for the paper.

“I’m not interested in managing decline. I’m interested in growth,” Mr Lewis was cited as saying to staff during a meeting on Monday. “People are not reading your stuff. We need to take decisive action.”

Still, the publisher praised Ms Buzbee for her “incredible” leadership skills and said that she “will be sorely missed.”

“I wish her all the best going forward,” Mr Lewis said in a statement.