Award-winning investigative journalist Carol Leonnig has left The Washington Post after 25 years with the paper to join MSNBC as a senior investigative correspondent, TheWrap has learned.
Her exit comes amid a mass exodus from the legacy media outlet as several seasoned journalists have left in a recent round of buyouts that targeted tenured reporters.
WaPo CEO Will Lewis urged staffers in a July email to consider taking the buyout if they did not “feel aligned” with the company’s new directives regarding its opinion section. The paper’s journalists had until July 31 to decide.
Several other prominent journalists have taken buyouts from the Post, including media columnist Erik Wemple, fact checker Glenn Kessler and head of WP Ventures Krissah Thompson. Several other columnists and reporters also left WaPo in the past few months, after Bezos said the paper’s opinion section would focus on “two pillars”: personal liberties and free markets.
Leonnig served as a staff writer at The Washington Post since 2000. She is a five-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. She led The Post’s coverage of the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and also contributed to the teams that won Pulitzers in 2024, 2017 and 2014.
In 2024, she won for her reporting on the attempt to assassinate Donald Trump; in 2017, she uncovered potential Russian interference in the presidential election; and in 2014, she won the Pulitzer for Public Service for her reporting on the NSA’s secret surveillance of innocent Americans.
Leonnig had been a frequent contributor on MSNBC before formally joining the network.
As MSNBC embarks on its independent newsgathering operation, diverging from Comcast under new conglomerate Versant, the network has brought on top talent on both the editorial and executive sides. Earlier Monday, the network announced that L.A.-based NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff will join the MSNBC team as a senior political correspondent.
Versant previously named industry veteran Scott Matthews as SVP of Newsgathering and recruited CNN and The New York Times veteran Marcus Mabry to serve as the network’s SVP of Content Strategy. In his role, he has been tasked with building out MSNBC’s subscription and direct-to-consumer businesses.
Versant will house MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel, as well as digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and SportsEngine. It is expected to reach over 65 million U.S. households and generate $7 billion in annual revenue. The spinoff will be tax-free to Comcast shareholders.
