William Lewis (journalist)

William Lewis (born 2 April 1969) is a British media executive and was formerly chief executive of Dow Jones and Company and publisher of ''The Wall Street Journal''. Earlier in his career he was known as a journalist and then editor.

While Editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'', Lewis led the team that broke the story of the MPs' expenses scandal, which led to the resignations of six government ministers and Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin, and to the creation of Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

From September 2010 to July 2011, Lewis worked as General Manager of the newspaper publisher News International, playing a role in the company's response to the phone hacking crisis. In July 2011, following the closure of the ''News of the World'', Lewis left News International to join the Management and Standards Committee, an independent division led by Lord Grabiner KC, created by the News Corp board to orchestrate cooperation with multiple law enforcement investigations into News International.

Early life and career

William Lewis was born and raised in Hampstead Garden Suburb, North London, England. His father David Lewis M.B.E, worked as a Managing Director of a packaging company and his mother Sally was a teacher. Lewis's primary education was at Brookland Junior school in Hampstead Garden Suburb. His secondary education was at Whitefield school, a comprehensive school in the London Borough of Barnet. After achieving his A levels, Lewis studied for a BSc in Politics and Economics at Bristol University, where he wrote for the student newspaper, ''Epigram'', and captained the University 1st football team. Following university Lewis completed a postgraduate diploma in Periodical Journalism at City University.

In 1991, Lewis was hired as a finance reporter by ''The Mail on Sunday''. In 1994 he left the tabloid to take a job in the ''Financial Times'' investigative unit. He later became fund management correspondent and then mergers and acquisitions correspondent. In 1999, while posted at the New York office he broke the story of the ExxonMobil merger, the biggest industrial merger in US corporate history. The scoop surprised the US business media and helped establish the ''Financial Times'' in the US. Following this Lewis was promoted to Global News Editor. He was then poached to become Business Editor at ''The Sunday Times'', where he remained for three years, from 2002 to 2005.

Telegraph Media Group

Lewis joined the Telegraph Media Group as city editor in August 2005 and was made deputy editor of ''The Telegraph'' while he was still working out his notice from ''The Sunday Times''. In October 2006 he became ''The Daily Telegraph'' youngest ever editor.
On joining ''The Telegraph'', Lewis described the newspaper as a "shambles", with "no innovation, no culture of improvement, no understanding of the need to perform, of needing to work with your colleagues rather than be at war with them."

As editor he took control of the newspaper during period of tumultuous change thanks to the decline in print sales and display advertising revenue.
Lewis designed the layout of ''The Telegraph'' new Victoria newsroom and saw through the modernisation program which involved senior staff cuts. The move was initially felt to be in conflict with the newspaper's brand and aging readership.

In 2007 he was made editor-in-chief of TMG.

During his time as editor, he also attempted a broader debate at ''The Telegraph'' about the environment. While the newspapers and website continued to house global warming deniers such as Christopher Booker and James Delingpole, he also recruited Geoffrey Lean, the environmental commentator to write a weekly column and lead the ''Telegraphs global warming coverage.

Role in the parliamentary expenses scandal

Lewis's involvement in the scandal began when he was told by colleagues that they had been approached by an intermediary on behalf of a source who said that they had four years' worth of MPs' data copied onto a disk. After establishing that the paper would not be breaking the law by accepting the disc, and that the story was in the public interest, Lewis approved negotiation with the intermediary.

In 2012, Lewis told the Leveson Inquiry: "the reason he sourcehad come to the Telegraph was he wanted to ensure fair and balanced coverage. He wanted to be certain that the Labour MPs and the Conservative MPs all had their chance to have their day in the sun, as it were." The intermediary, a former SAS officer John Wick, had already offered the story to a number of other newspapers, all of whom had been reluctant to take the risk of publishing, or meet the price set by Wick.

Once Lewis's team concluded negotiations with the source, the Telegraph team had only ten days to investigate the data on the disk which meant wading through more than a million documents. Once Lewis saw the information on the disc he realised that he had to run the story. Lewis told Lord Leveson: "I became very aware that it was my responsibility to bring this to the public domain. It was no longer going to be a choice for me as editor."

Lewis stressed to his colleagues that he wanted the Telegraph to be seen as be fair and balanced in their approach. They concluded that they should start with the government and then move into the opposition as it was then,the Conservative Party.

The next stage involved the team writing to each MP to put them on notice that a story was being written, and then to wait for the replies. The first MP to revert to the Telegraph team was Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw. Straw replied, confirming the information in the letter and explaining his expenses. Lewis told the Leveson enquiry: "Only then did I feel able to give the green light to publication that evening." He added, "I remain hugely proud of -- given the intensity with which the MPs' expenses team had to work, the incredible pressure they worked under, continual threat of trying to be stopped what they were doing, I think this record is one we should be proud of." He added: "I was also aware that this story was laced with risk all round, as the best and most important journalism tends to be.''

Aftermath of parliamentary expenses scandal

The publication of the story led to the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, a further six government ministers and the creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. A police investigation into the leak was called off in May 2009. A statement issued by Scotland Yard said that although the unauthorised disclosure of information appeared to "breach public duty", much of the information was in the process of being prepared for release under the Freedom of Information Act.

In 2009, Lewis spoke publicly for the first time about the scandal in a BBC Radio 4 Interview with the BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson. In the interview Lewis responded to claims by that his newspaper's coverage had irreparably damaged parliament and democracy as "Absolute, complete rubbish." In the interview Lewis claimed: "It is going to open up parliament to a whole new generation of people who understand what it means to be a representative of British citizens," he said. He described the removal of criminal MPs from Parliament as "undeniably a good thing for the United Kingdom."

In a 2017 in an interview with the ''Evening Standard'', Lewis said: "I think MPs' expenses began that disgust with the political class. Brexit has to be seen within that context. If the House of Lords is our main defence against stupidity, that doesn't make me very happy."

In 2019, Lewis appeared on BBC
...