On Sunday night time, minutes after Will Lewis, the chief govt of The Washington Publish, knowledgeable staff that the newspaper’s govt editor, Sally Buzbee, was being changed, managers gathered on a convention name to listen to from their boss one final time.

Ms. Buzbee informed them {that a} new organizational construction created by Mr. Lewis — successfully splitting the Washington Publish newsroom and opinion part into three smaller divisions — didn’t work for her. She added that Mr. Lewis was pushing for aggressive strikes to show round The Publish, and requested editors to order judgment for now.

“I might have most popular to remain to assist us get by means of this era, but it surely simply acquired to the purpose the place it wasn’t doable,” Ms. Buzbee stated, in line with an individual conversant in the matter.

The gorgeous name — which some attendees described as funereal — added to the rising stress between the newsroom and Mr. Lewis, who has set about remaking The Publish since he began in January.

Many reporters and editors figured that Ms. Buzbee would stay in place till at the very least the presidential election in November. Simply two weeks in the past, Mr. Lewis and Ms. Buzbee had addressed The Publish’s workers collectively at a long-awaited all-hands assembly by which Mr. Lewis mentioned his imaginative and prescient for The Publish.

When Mr. Lewis revealed his plan to separate The Publish’s newsroom into segments, he stated she might run one among them, in line with an individual with information of the interactions. Ms. Buzbee chafed on the thought, in line with two individuals conversant in her pondering.

The reorganization would have been an efficient demotion for Ms. Buzbee, who had been in command of all information content material at The Washington Publish. The construction provides a division targeted on service and social media journalism beneath the supervision of a brand new editor, which might have pulled a big portion of The Publish’s editorial output out from beneath Ms. Buzbee’s supervision.

On Sunday, Mr. Lewis informed Ms. Buzbee that he was appointing one other individual to her job, in line with an individual with information of the talks.

Mr. Lewis is quickly changing Ms. Buzbee with Matt Murray, the previous editor in chief of The Wall Avenue Journal. Mr. Murray will run The Publish’s newsroom as govt editor by means of the election, at which level he’ll transition to run the division targeted on service and social media journalism. Mr. Lewis had been contemplating hiring Mr. Murray for a senior editorial function at The Publish for greater than a month, in line with an individual with information of their discussions, although one other individual conversant in the talks stated Mr. Lewis first immediately approached Mr. Murray about this function every week in the past.

A brand new editor, Robert Winnett, will take over the corporate’s core protection areas after the election. For the previous decade, Mr. Winnett has run information operations at The Each day Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.

David Shipley will proceed to run The Publish’s opinion part. All three — Mr. Winnett, Mr. Murray and Mr. Shipley — will report on to Mr. Lewis.

A spokeswoman for The Washington Publish declined to say whether or not Jeff Bezos, the proprietor of the newspaper, was conscious of or authorized the management modifications introduced on Sunday night.

Mr. Murray, 58, was launched to The Publish’s newsroom on Monday, in a town-hall assembly that kicked off with an extended spherical of applause for Ms. Buzbee, in line with a number of individuals in attendance. Underneath her management, the Publish tremendously expanded its enhancing ranks and obtained six Pulitzer Prizes, three of them this yr.

In the course of the assembly on Monday, the executives have been grilled by reporters at The Publish on the shortage of variety within the hires changing Ms. Buzbee — Mr. Murray, Mr. Winnett and Mr. Shipley are white males.

In keeping with a recording obtained by The New York Occasions, one among The Washington Publish’s star political reporters, Ashley Parker, requested how the newspaper had arrived at its resolution, including that one skeptical interpretation could be that Mr. Lewis was merely hiring his associates to assist run The Publish.

Mr. Lewis is in some ways orchestrating a reunion with those that he labored with throughout earlier chapters of his profession. Because the writer of The Wall Avenue Journal, he appointed Mr. Murray to the highest editorial place on the paper in 2018. And he labored with Mr. Winnett for years, first at The Sunday Occasions after which at The Telegraph.

“Once you have been right here earlier than, you talked very movingly about the way you care about variety — and folks discuss variety — however then when push involves shove, they are saying, ‘Effectively, I appeared round and I couldn’t discover anybody,’” Ms. Parker stated.

In response, Mr. Murray stated that variety could be a “fixed dedication” at The Publish, including that he had “probably the most various masthead that The Journal had ever had” throughout his years as the highest editor at The Wall Avenue Journal.

Mr. Murray wasted no time familiarizing himself with The Publish’s newsroom. On Monday, he started taking conferences in Ms. Buzbee’s outdated workplace on the seventh ground, hours after her sudden departure. Her nameplate has already been eliminated.

In an announcement on Monday, The Washington Publish Guild stated that it was “troubled” by Ms. Buzbee’s sudden departure and the shortage of variety in The Publish’s high ranks.

The editorial change-up comes at a fragile time for The Washington Publish. The newspaper is making ready to cowl the homestretch of the presidential election, together with the nominating conventions in Chicago and Milwaukee this summer season. It’s extremely uncommon to switch the highest editor of a serious U.S. newspaper throughout this era.

On the all-hands assembly two weeks in the past, Mr. Lewis rattled off a listing of priorities that included “construct it,” “repair it” and “say it.” Mr. Lewis revealed that The Publish was in dire straits, with greater than $70 million in losses over the past yr and viewers declines of fifty p.c over the identical interval.

Close to the tip of the assembly on Monday, Kainaz Amaria, The Publish’s nationwide visible enterprise editor, stated that Ms. Buzbee’s remedy “didn’t really feel honest,” including that the circumstances of her exit might make it troublesome to belief new management.

“To start out off like that is very troublesome,” Ms. Amaria stated, in line with the recording.