The Washington Post's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, announced a sweeping new libertarian vision for the paper's opinion sections on Wednesday, just four months after his decision to kill a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris triggered hundreds of thousands of subscribers to cancel.
Post Opinions Editor David Shipley, whom Bezos recruited from Bloomberg Opinions in 2022, chose to resign rather than stay to oversee the paper's revamped sections.
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets," Bezos wrote in a memo to staffers announcing the changes. "We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
Newspaper op-ed sections have incorporated opposing views for years. The term "op-ed" is literally an abbreviation for pieces running "opposite the editorial pages" that often conflicted with a publisher's editorial line. But Bezos characterized that practice as outdated.
"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," Bezos said. "Today, the internet does that job."
Shock inside the newsroom
At an hour-long meeting with opinion writers, Shipley said he did not know what lay ahead, according to an attendee who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.
Shipley said he had wanted a "broader, pluralistic place," but that Bezos sought "a focused [opinion] report."
Bezos justified his decision in the memo to staffers. "I am of America and for America, and proud to be so," he wrote. "And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else."
The decision sparked fresh shock and dismay at the paper. After senior news editors raised concerns at a meeting Wednesday, Executive Editor Matt Murray reassured them that Bezos had given no indication that he wanted to interfere with news coverage, according to two people with direct knowledge. A spokesperson for the Post confirmed his remarks.
Later in the day, Murray sent a memo to the newsroom to underscore the point: "The independent and unbiased work of The Post's newsroom remains unchanged, and we will continue to pursue engaging impactful journalism without fear or favor." (Murray and Bezos did not reply to requests for comment.)
Post Associate Editor David Maraniss, a legendary journalist whose association with the newspaper stretches back more than four decades, wrote on Bluesky that he would never write for it again as long as Bezos owns it.
"One pernicious step after another, Bezos encroached on the Post editorial policy," Maraniss wrote. "Today he seized it fully. The old Washington Post is gone."
One writer for the opinions section told NPR he was "heartsick," adding, "leadership matters."
NPR spoke to six people with direct knowledge of events for this article. They were given the ability to speak anonymously because they were not authorized to speak about internal matters at the paper.
Shipley did not respond to requests for comment. According to a person with direct knowledge, Shipley told Bezos that the new approach would violate the Post's promise of holding power to account.
Bezos new approach differs dramatically from first Trump term
Bezos stood by the newspaper's dogged reporting on the first Trump administration. In that period, the Post adopted the motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness." It won Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and, earlier, of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
More recently, Bezos' decision in October to kill the Harris editorial sparked a furor inside and outside the paper, leading editorial writers to resign and more than 300,000 people to cancel their digital subscriptions in a matter of days. (The Post says it has been able to win some subscribers back and garner some new subscribers in the opening weeks of Trump's second term.)
As a practical matter, Shipley argued to Bezos, the Wall Street Journal's highly pro-markets pages have had a similar policy for decades. As with the decision not to publish the endorsement of Harris, Shipley's arguments fell on deaf ears.
In his memo to staff, Bezos praised Shipley and wrote that he offered the editor the chance to lead the reformed sections. "I suggested to him if the answer wasn't 'hell yes,' then it had to be 'no,'" Bezos wrote.
The Post has aggressively covered the new administration. But Bezos appears to have embraced the president's return to power. Bezos personally paid $1 million toward Trump's inaugural fund. He and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez traveled to Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, to socialize with the Trumps. And, along with other digital chieftains, Bezos sat behind the president as he was sworn in for a second term.
Opinions editor repeatedly in tough spot
Shipley's two-and-a-half years have brought acclaim for the section, with two Pulitzer Prizes and two Loeb Awards. But his standing was deeply undercut by Bezos's recent decisions, especially over the Harris endorsement.
When Shipley decided to withhold a cartoon from the Pulitzer-winning staffer Ann Telnaes about Bezos from publication, he told colleagues he believed he was making a decision on the merits, not pulling his punches. The cartoon depicted Bezos abasing himself along with other tech titans before Trump.
"Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force," Shipley said in a statement shared at the time with NPR. "My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition."
Shipley told colleagues privately that he understood, given the moment, it might be hard to credit his actual motivations.
The paper has bled veteran talent from both the opinion and news sides since the news broke about the killed editorial. Post journalists left for the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN among other outlets.
But Post Publisher and Chief Executive Will Lewis celebrated the change in direction on Wednesday. Lewis previously served for six years in the same role at the Journal, which is owned by Trump ally and conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch. He has advocated for a similar approach at the Post.
Bezos hired Lewis, in significant part, due to his belief the British journalist could build better bridges to Trump and to conservatives. As well as serving Murdoch as an executive for a decade, Lewis was previously editor of the conservative Telegraph in the U.K. and later served as a consultant for Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
"I am very excited about this new clarity and transparency, and cannot wait to see it brought to life in our opinion section. Every Day," Lewis said in a note to staff. "This is not about siding with any political party. This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper. Doing this is a critical part of serving as a premier news publication across America and for all Americans."
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