Washington Post CEO Fred Ryan stepping down

Washington Post CEO Fred Ryan will step down later this summer, after nearly a decade in the position, he informed staff on Monday.

Ryan, in a memo to the newsroom, said he would step down in August to head up a new project on public civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.

Ryan said the project has the support of Jeff Bezos, who purchased the Post in 2013 and hired Ryan to lead it.

In an interview with the newspaper, Ryan said he was concerned that “the decline in civility is threatening the foundation of our democracy,” and his relationship with Bezos “could not be closer.” 

Patty Stonesifer, the founding chief executive of the Gates Foundation, will take over as interim CEO, the newspaper reported.

Ryan’s departure comes amid a time of ongoing strife between the Post’s masthead and its employees union, as well as broader challenges facing large news publishers in terms of readership and financial health.

The Post eliminated nearly two dozen newsroom positions in January, citing the current “economic climate.”

A month earlier, Ryan was shouted at by members of the Post’s employees union during a town hall event during which he addressed the planned layoffs.

Ryan told the Post his departure had “nothing to do with that” saying “I firmly believe there is a sound model for successful journalism and The Washington Post is well positioned to do that.”

A former aide to president Ronald Reagan, Ryan was a founding executive at Politico before Bezos hired him to run the Post.