Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Wednesday said he was reshaping his paper’s opinion section to focus on “two pillars,” personal liberties and free markets – and a number of legacy media journalists made it immediately clear they are not thrilled.
That included a handful of WaPo staffers who work for Bezos, like columnist Philip Bump. “What the actual f—” Bump posted on Bluesky soon after Bezos’ announced his changes.
Jeff Stein, WaPo’s chief economics reporter, called it a “massive encroachment” by the Amazon founder. “If Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately and letting you know,” Stein said on X.
Associate Editor David Maraniss, who has worked for the paper since 1977, said the “old Washington Post is gone” due to Bezos’ change. “I’ll never write for it again as long as he’s the owner.”
And former WaPo executive editor Marty Baron told The Daily Beast he was “sad and disgusted” by Bezos’ announcement.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, Bezos outlined his new vision for the Post’s opinion section.
“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 will be left to be published by others,” Bezos said in a note to staff that he then shared on X on Wednesday.
“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,” he added. “Today, the Internet does that job.”
Beyond the couple of WaPo staffers who shared their displeasure, a number of other journalists weighed in on Bezos’ announcement. Former “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, who left NBC News last month, said Bezos’ cozy relationship with the government, via his Blue Origin rocket company, made him a bad newspaper owner.
“Have folks realized yet that folks and corps with massive government contracts are not to be trusted as owners of honest journalistic enterprises,” Todd posted on X.
Ex-“SportsCenter” and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann went a step further, saying Bezos had declared his paper was “utterly fascist.”
Elie Mystal, a writer for The Nation and a frequent guest on CNN, said that Bezos was reshaping the opinion section to only include his opinions.
Ben Goggin, deputy tech editor at NBC News, posted Bezos wanted the WaPo to be his “personal mouthpiece.”
Some non-journalists shared their two cents as well. “Pod Save America” co-host Dan Pfeiffer posted Bezos’ decision “will further damage the credibility of a critical media institution.”
And Sen. Bernie Sanders said that Bezos had “now declared the editorial page” is “going Trump right-wing.” Bezos, it should be noted, did not mention Trump or any political party in his Wednesday memo.
