new York
CNN
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The Washington Post is trying to fix one of its biggest problems: an outdated homepage that is loathed by its own staff.

The redesign is a central aspect of the plan by Will Lewis, publisher and chairman of the Post, to get the paper back on track on behalf of owner Jeff Bezos. The Post is expected to post a loss of about $50 million this year. While this represents an improvement over the $77 million loss last year, it is still an unsatisfactory result.

Lewis is under pressure to win back paying subscribers and return the Post to profitability, a goal he said he is making progress on. In his weekly memo to Postal Service employees Friday night, Lewis called the updated homepage an “important step forward.”

Reporters and editors at the news organization have long complained about the drab and outdated nature of the Post’s digital front door. One of the most frustrating aspects: The homepage contained relatively few articles at any one time and lacked a consistent look. Employees envied the homepages of competitors like the New York Times. Lewis acknowledged this in his memo.

“Many of you expressed your dislike for the previous version,” he wrote. “I agreed and encouraged you to improve it, and that’s exactly what you did.”

The new version, which launched last week, “is the start of several planned improvements,” newly appointed editor-in-chief Matt Murray wrote to the newsroom.

The new homepage has twice as much space for the most important news – six instead of three – a very welcome change.

“The department editors had been fighting to get their stories into these three special posts, which led to great frustration,” a Post reporter explained.

As part of the redesign, opinion pieces were also moved higher up the page, while some sections such as “Help Desk” and “Technology” were removed. Staff said they expect to see more improvements in the coming months.

Many people find the Post’s journalism through side portals, such as social media accounts and email newsletters, but the front portal has become more important as social networks turn off the traffic firehose and Google incorporates artificial intelligence into its search results. Even more pressing at the Post is the redesign of its homepage, a sign that new management is moving quickly to make significant changes.

Earlier this summer, the newspaper also launched a new marketing campaign that combined its slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” with the catchphrase “Switch On” to boost the newspaper’s growth.

Lewis was appointed publisher and chief executive in January and was outspoken about the Post’s troubled state. His turnaround strategy was welcomed by many staff, but morale plummeted in the spring when allegations resurfaced that he was involved in a cover-up of a British wiretapping scandal. (He has denied any wrongdoing.)

Although Lewis has not yet fully recovered, he has used his weekly memos to tout the progress made in building the Post’s subscriber list. On Friday, Lewis said, “Last week was our highest net subscription growth week of the year, and this continued growth is thanks to great teamwork across the company.”

A spokeswoman for the Post declined to disclose the current number of digital subscribers to the newspaper. The most recent total figure announced was 2.7 million.