Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is overhauling the paper’s opinion section and shifting its editorial stance towards defending personal freedom and free markets.
Bezos emailed Washington Post employees Wednesday morning to inform them of the dramatic change and told them contrary opinions could be found elsewhere.
“I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages,” Bezos wrote. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars can 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’s announcement, which he posted on X after emailing it to Post staffers, also revealed that opinion editor David Shipley opted against staying on in the role given the section’s new direction.
“I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter,” Bezos wrote. “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. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.”
Bezos did not suggest any changes will be made to the Post’s news divisions, domestically or abroad.
The shakeup comes after left-wing columnist Jennifer Rubin left the paper to launch her own anti-Trump Substack publication to criticize the president with even more partisan furor.
The Washington Post’s decision not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election generated outrage among staff and caused a significant decline in subscribers. Bezos himself intervened to prevent the outlet from publishing a draft editorial endorsing Harris’s campaign, instead having publisher Will Lewis write an op-ed explaining the Post’s choice not to endorse.
Shortly thereafter, Bezos wrote an op-ed lamenting the decline in trust Americans have for legacy media outlets. Media trust hit a historic low in October, with less than a third of Americans saying they have trust in legacy outlets, according to Gallup survey data.
Since the election, several prominent reporters have left the Post for rival publications as newsrooms prepared for covering another Trump term. Political reporter Josh Dawsey jumped to the Wall Street Journal, White House correspondent Tyler Pager left for the New York Times, and political reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer joined The Atlantic.
Lewis and former Wall Street Journal editor in chief Matt Murray joined the publication last year to shake up its coverage, sparking a revolt from journalists opposed to the purported changes. Robert Winnett, deputy editor at the Telegraph, was supposed to join the outlet as senior editor until backing out after the Washington Post reported on his alleged unethical journalistic practices at the Sunday Times.
Murray replaced former executive editor Sally Buzbee, who left the Post last year following a tumultuous tenure at the helm. Under her leadership, the paper faced significant criticism of its coverage of the war in Gaza for failing to uphold journalistic standards and taking a stridently anti-Israel bent.
The Washington Post also received scrutiny for tech columnist Taylor Lorenz’s coverage because of her progressive slant and sloppy reporting, especially on the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard case. Lorenz exited in October to launch her own publication on Substack and continue covering online culture independently.
Financial difficulties have caused the Washington Post to lay off staffers at the same time as it loses top talent. Last month, the outlet cut 100 staffers in its business division, making up roughly 4 percent of its total workforce.