Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Wednesday shared on X a memo he had sent that declared a broad reshaping of The Post’s liberal opinion pages.
The memo announced that starting soon, the paper would be publishing opinions in “support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Bezos said opinions on other topics would be run, but “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
The move comes as other media companies announce changes to their coverage and/or staffing. MSNBC in the past few days announced cancellations of shows hosted by Joy Reid, Alex Wagner, and Jonathan Capehart. Jim Acosta, a longtime CNN host and former chief White House correspondent, announced last month that he would be leaving the network.
Bezos bought The Post for $250 million in 2013. In late October, he preempted The Post editorial page’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris‘ presidential bid in a move widely seen as hedging bets against a second Donald Trump presidency. The move led to three of The Post’s 10 editorial board members to resign. Additionally, 21 opinion columnists signed onto a statement calling Bezos’ decision a mistake.
The decision also led to 250,000 subscribers canceling their subscriptions after the endorsement announcement. That contributed to the paper losing $100 million in 2024. Much of that financial loss comes from plummeting ad and subscription revenue. In 2021, the newspaper’s website drew 22.5 million daily visitors as compared with the approximately 3 million daily visitors during the summer of 2024. Fortunately for The Post, Bezos, who founded Amazon, is a centibillionaire and can afford to subsidize the loss.
The tech titan justified his new approach to The Post’s editorial content by pointing to the modern media ecosystem that exists with the internet.
“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,” he opined.
The change resulted in The Post’s opinion editor David Shipley resigning from his position, which Bezos characterized as an amicable breakup.
“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 wrote.
The mogul announced that he would be looking for a new opinion editor. Bezos ended his note with optimism about the potential for the change.
“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,” he wrote.
Bezos’ move is being seen by some as yet another example of what’s perceived as a rightward shift in the country. The change arguably started when Elon Musk bought Twitter and released “The Twitter Files,” exposing how the social media platform under its prior owner censored Americans.
Trump’s victory in November appears to have cemented the vibe shift. Amazon announced that it would be lifting a ban on Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson’s bestselling book “When Harry Became Sally” critical of transgenderism. Bezos was also not the only tech titan in attendance at Trump’s swearing-in on Jan. 20, which also featured executives of Tesla, Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), TikTok, and Apple. Furthermore, Musk now serves as a senior adviser to the president and head of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Bezos took a patriotic tone in the Wednesday memo writing, “I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else.”
Bezos’ appreciation for the success of the United States comes as a new poll shows, for the first time in more than 20 years, that a plurality of Americans thinks the country is on the right track.