The Washington Post’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos left many of his paper’s staffers enraged on Wednesday after he announced a shocking new direction for the paper’s opinion content that resulted in a top editor resigning.
Bezos’ latest mandate comes amid concerns among the publication’s journalists that the Amazon founder is currying favor with Donald Trump by softening the Post’s coverage of the anti-media president, which began when he blocked the editorial board’s endorsement of then-vice president Kamala Harris last October.
In a memo sent to staff Wednesday morning, Bezos noted that he was letting them “know about a change coming to our opinion pages”, which revolved around what topics columnists would now be allowed to write about.
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” he noted. “We’ll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
Bezos added: “There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”
Bezos added that opinion editor David Shipley did not embrace this decision to focus on the two topics, prompting his resignation. Shipley was the editor who decided not to publish an editorial cartoon showing Bezos on bended knee before Trump, prompting the cartoonist to quit.
“I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes’, then it had to be ‘no’. After careful consideration, David decided to step away,” Bezos stated. “This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100 per cent commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new opinion editor to own this new direction.”
He concluded: “I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.”
In a separate statement, embattled publisher Will Lewis insisted to the staff that Bezos’s opinion mandate had nothing to do with partisanship. “This is not about siding with any political party. This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper,” Lewis wrote.
Needless to say, especially since the paper’s journalists have been begging Bezos to visit the newsroom and restore “trust that has been lost” under his watch, the ultra-wealthy businessman’s sudden and shocking mandate was not well received.
“Massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section today — makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there,” Washington Post chief economics reporter Jeff Stein tweeted on Wednesday.
“I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I will be quitting immediately and letting you know,” he added.
Other Post staffers told The Independent that the announcement was “being received badly” by the newsroom, with many reporters expressing their “anger” at Bezos’s further meddling in the editorial process of the paper.
“I have a feeling this isn’t gonna bring back the 250K subs,” one reporter wrote in the Post’s Slack channel, referencing the quarter-million readers that canceled their subscriptions after Bezos pulled the Harris endorsement days before the 2024 election.
Besides the lost subscriptions, the spiked endorsement also led to several editorial board members resigning in protest, while a number of star journalists and editors left for other opportunities. At the same time, the beleaguered paper recently laid off 4 per cent of the staff, mostly from the business and public relations divisions.
Meanwhile, Washington Post video producer Dave Jorgenson — who is the face of the paper’s YouTube and TikTok accounts — took to his Bluesky account on Wednesday to repost a video he made a few months ago about “why some billionaires are going soft on Trump”.
“Using my ‘personal liberties’ to repost this,” Jorgenson noted, adding that followers could check out his personal YouTube and social media channels going forward. “Echoing Jeff (Stein), if Bezos interferes with my work on the news side — I’m out,” he added.
“What the actual f***,” columnist Philip Bump succinctly posted in response to Bezos’s changes.
Military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe reiterated that the paper’s “hard news” division would continue to plug along and keep reporting on the important stories of the day. “As a hard-news journalist at The Washington Post, there’s no shortage of important news to cover. I will keep digging in. As I've stated before: Nothing changes. We ask hard questions and hold those in power to account. That’s the job, whether those in power like it or not,” he tweeted.
The Independent has reached out to the Post for comment.
While staffers are outraged over this move, Maga world was elated over Bezos’s new mandate for the Post’s opinion pages.
“He says that viewpoints which disagree with those positions will be written elsewhere. David Shipley has stepped down as the paper’s opinion editor as a result of the shift,” author Michael A. Rothman wrote on X (Twitter).
“Bezos also affirms that he is ‘of America’ and wants to celebrate these uniquely American values that have lead [sic] to innovation and prosperity. He believes these viewpoints are underserved in the current newspaper environment (he’s right),” he continued. “Good! The culture is changing rapidly for the better.”
DOGE chief and “first buddy” Elon Musk, one of the only men in the world wealthier than Bezos, also expressed his explicit approval.
“Bravo,” he tweeted.
