Strong reactions from Washington Post staff and other journalists as Jeff Bezos overhauls the opinion section

[ResidentialBusiness]

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday that the newspaper’s Opinions section would now essentially become a mouthpiece for his own beliefs on personal and economic freedoms. In response to this shift, opinion editor David Shipley decided to “step away” from his role. 

In an announcement shared to the Post staff and online via X, Bezos wrote that the section would now publish opinion pieces in support and defense of personal liberties and free markets. The billionaire Amazon founder added that the Post will no longer publish op-eds opposing those viewpoints, saying that newspapers in the internet era need not reflect diverse opinions.

“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 wrote. “Today, the internet does that job.”

Reactions range from critical to baffled

But journalists, including those on the Post’s staff, are already expressing criticism and bewilderment over this change. Bezos reportedly offered Shipley the opportunity to lead this reimagined Opinions section, and Shipley instead chose to leave his position. 

Jeff Stein, a reporter for the Post, called Bezos’s new direction a “massive encroachment” in an X post, adding that Bezos “makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated.” He further threatened to quit if “Bezos tries interfering with the news side.”

Ostensibly responding to the news, Philip Bump, a columnist at the paper, posted on Bluesky: “what the actual fuck.”

NBC news editor Ben Goggins wrote that he thinks Bezos is using the Post as “a personal mouthpiece.” And Matthew Chapman, a reporter with progressive news site Raw Story, wrote that it appears “the paper must take sides in favor of policy that makes Jeff Bezos rich.”

The Post has not yet responded to Fast Company’s request for comment. 

Heavy meddle

Bezos promised editorial independence when he acquired the D.C.-based outlet in 2013. In a meeting with reporters at the time, he had said that he would defer to the editorial board’s positions, saying: “I don’t feel the need to have an opinion on every issue.” 

But recently, the billionaire has started to meddle with the paper’s output. During the 2024 election, Bezos reportedly made the decision to kill an already-written endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. He framed it as a decision to end all Washington Post presidential endorsements. The paper reportedly lost a quarter million subscribers after this announcement.

And in January, cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit the Post after the paper rejected publishing her political cartoon that depicted Bezos, among other billionaires, worshiping at the feet of President Trump and holding a money bag.

A correspondent for left-leaning magazine The Nation wrote online that Bezos could have made his 250-plus-word announcement about the Opinions section change much shorter: “The Opinions section will now be my opinions only, but written by others because I am a shit writer. Who wants to be my new sock puppet?”

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