"Free speech and free markets."

February 26, 2025 9:58 AM

Jeff Bezos bans Washington Post opinion writers from opposing ‘free speech and free markets’ "In a move promoted as supporting freedom of speech, The Washington Post will no longer publish opinion columns that oppose the core views of Post owner and Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos, Bezos has reportedly told staff. " (The Verge link, does not appear to be paywalled.) Opinions editor David Shipley, who is not "hell yes" over this, has now left (NYT).

Gene Weingarten has some inside scoop on the unhappy newsroom and said he will be updating this post throughout the day. "From a very quick survey by me of Wapo staffers: This is the worst thing to happen to The Washington Post ever in its 147 year life, including the Janet Cooke scandal."

* Staff isn't allowed to talk about this issue, when it was asked about, they got literal silence.
* Rumor in the newsroom about a new round of buyout offers.

Previous Bezos-trashing-his-paper poorly made decisions have been discussed here and here.

posted by jenfullmoon (138 comments total)

I didn't cancel my subscription when that thing happened, or when that other thing happened, but I cancelled it today.
posted by box at 10:03 AM on February 26 [57 favorites]

I unsubscribed from the Washington Post a while ago due to #reasons, but this is really the end of the road for it. What a sad fate for a once upstanding newspaper. Now it is but a propaganda rag.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:03 AM on February 26 [28 favorites]

In a move promoted as supporting freedom of speech

*snort*
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:04 AM on February 26 [19 favorites]

It's giving big all-speech-is-free-but-some-speech-is-more-free-than-others energy.
posted by phunniemee at 10:06 AM on February 26 [46 favorites]

Which individual rights Jeff? WHOSE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS JEFF? [Goose chasing man meme]

(Saw this elsewhere, not original to me)
posted by Wretch729 at 10:10 AM on February 26 [31 favorites]

Wow. That is fucked up AF. I mean, not surprising since Bezos is a bozos, but still.
posted by Kitteh at 10:18 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

Sounds about like a certain other billionaire's claims to promote "free" speech on the site he purchased and turned into vanity social media.
posted by stormyteal at 10:20 AM on February 26 [9 favorites]

I'm shocked.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 10:21 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

This is all starting to seem like the collapse of the free press in Russia, with all the major media outlets under the ownership of pro-regime oligarchs.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 10:22 AM on February 26 [56 favorites]

Bezos:Washington Post :: Snyder:Washington Commanders
posted by hoppytoad at 10:23 AM on February 26 [5 favorites]

the policy is exactly the opposite of free speech

can we bring back legal recourse for false advertising?

it should not be allowed to call restricted speech free speech. nor any other hypocritical BS.
posted by gkr at 10:24 AM on February 26 [9 favorites]

I have recently been re-documenting my pics of Trump from Trump 1.0 because I have a better phone. I took a new pic of the BezosBorg portrait I did back in 2018 a few days ago because I figure I would need it soon enough.
There is something severely wrong with this class of people he belongs to, they are odious, cancerous blights on the world. At some point, when the DSM-6 is being written, there has to be a new definition for the raging greed head goons currently trying to destroy every thing.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 10:25 AM on February 26 [18 favorites]

There is only one billionaire, but it has many faces. No one gets this rich by caring about or supporting free speech for anyone but themselves.
posted by 1adam12 at 10:27 AM on February 26 [17 favorites]

malignant spirit leaves crumbling murdoch husk. finds willing and powerful new flesh vessel
posted by lalochezia at 10:27 AM on February 26 [24 favorites]

Just popped in to check that I wasn't the only one reading "personal liberties" in this context as the ability to say Nazi crap with no consequences, not bodily autonomy or medical care without government interference or the freedom to exist in public without harassment or something wild like that. Sigh.
posted by mersen at 10:39 AM on February 26 [15 favorites]

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but what a sad day for WaPo

The world badly needs a way to finance journalism independently of wealthy newspaper owners. I wonder how much Bezos' own wealth has been subsidizing the paper's operation, and by what amount subscription prices would need to increase to cover that deficit?
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:40 AM on February 26 [9 favorites]

This comes immediately after, the same day it publishes a true blockbuster report on Musk's $38 Billion he's gotten from US taxpayers. No reason to believe we'll be seeing reporting like this from the Washington Post again.
posted by kmartino at 10:42 AM on February 26 [32 favorites]

I forget, is this the paper that used to have the slogan "democracy dies in darkness"? Something like that, right?
posted by limeonaire at 10:43 AM on February 26 [18 favorites]

For the time being there is still some useful news coming out of WaPo WRT to the coup, but yeah - this really smells like an end. Though their editorial page has long been friendly to free market extremists.
posted by reedbird_hill at 10:46 AM on February 26 [6 favorites]

Honest question, how meaningful is this? Like many, I cancelled my WaPo subscription of many years after Endorsementgate, so I have residual feelings about this for sure. But the media environment has changed sooo much. I think in all my years of subscribing to the Post, I never once heard a single human being in my life mention anything from the WaPo op-ed page. It's my suspicion that the non-media-industry readers of any given WaPo column number in the low thousands.

I guess my bigger concern would be some creep of the Bezos ideology into news reporting at the WaPo. Which I'm sure is also happening already, now that I think of it. Just haven't seen articles about that.
posted by kensington314 at 10:53 AM on February 26 [7 favorites]

Will Lewis, The Post’s chief executive, said in a memo to staff that… “This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper.”

Mission Accomplished
posted by Lemkin at 10:53 AM on February 26 [23 favorites]

> free market extremists

Carrying McMegan was enough to repel me from a subscription.
posted by torokunai2 at 10:55 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]

I forget, is this the paper that used to have the slogan "democracy dies in darkness"?

Act now, before they start closing out the merch.
posted by box at 10:55 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

Just canceled my subscription.

Got a great laugh out of this line in the cancellation confirmation message:

We hope you’ll reconsider the value of the necessary and important work our journalists do to keep citizens informed. Absolutely nothing has changed about that. In fact, it’s more important than ever.

"Absolutely nothing has changed about that" -- lol, surejan.gif
posted by lord_wolf at 10:58 AM on February 26 [25 favorites]

Billionaires supporting left-wing causes because it made them feel cool at cocktail parties was never going to last.

While you could see this coming from Bezos, and you don’t need to be too bright to know where the Ellisons will take CBS News, the traditional media billionaires are the big question marks. The Roberts family is already dumping MSNBC, but they’ve got NBC News still. Zaslav and CNN? And the big kahuna - the Ochs-Sulzbergers and whether the NY Times will stay the defining voice of the Democratic Party establishment. (I know that many MeFites think the NYT takes it too easy on Trump and friends, but there’s still a lot of room to the right of that to go.). Ironically, ABC News being a Disney property widely held by apolitical index fund managers may have the longest legs for progressive editorial stances.

It definitely opens up new space. If Bluesky wasn’t a B Corp. it would be on a fast track to unicorn status. (VCs don’t have to be personally left wing to perceive that there is a market for left-wing media.)
posted by MattD at 10:58 AM on February 26 [9 favorites]

I forget, is this the paper that used to have the slogan "democracy dies in darkness"?

Not so much a slogan as a mission statement.
posted by Grangousier at 10:59 AM on February 26 [35 favorites]

I do have to wonder what opposition to free markets was getting published in the Post before. I know they had a pet social democrat in the Opinion section, but the most extreme it ever got was "government should have some regulatory powers."
posted by jy4m at 11:09 AM on February 26 [11 favorites]

All that communist talk WP used to be filled with must have been crowding out all the stuff I used to read there.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:12 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]

From Post economics reporter Jeff Stein: "Massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section today - makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there

I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately and letting you know"

Despite their boss's best efforts, there are still great people there doing essential work, reporting things that we would not know about otherwise.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:12 AM on February 26 [12 favorites]

i think everyone needs to stop framing whats going on as “bending the knee” and what’s really happening which is “they’re finally feel free to do what they’ve always wanted to do”
posted by box at 11:12 AM on February 26 [29 favorites]

This comes immediately after, the same day it publishes a true blockbuster report on Musk's $38 Billion he's gotten from US taxpayers. No reason to believe we'll be seeing reporting like this from the Washington Post again.

I think we'll be seeing plenty of that. Musk and Bezos hate each other, and are in an extended, rocket based dick measuring contest
posted by Dr. Twist at 11:29 AM on February 26 [12 favorites]

Fuck that fucker
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 11:30 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]

At this point, the phrase "free speech" as it is used popularly (particularly, but not exclusively, among the right-wing) amounts to little more than a thought-terminating cliche. It really amounts to nothing more than "I don't want to face any repercussions -- legal, social, or otherwise -- for anything that I say whatsoever, no matter how false, inflammatory, or bigoted." Like, where are all the columnists who were working themselves into a lather about the Orwellian threat of students yelling at campus Nazis and how they were going to be the end of academic freedom now that the actual United States Federal Government is going on a purge review of all doubleplussungood words (like... "female"?) from government-funded research? Where did all the Free Speech Absolutists^TM go?
posted by mhum at 11:41 AM on February 26 [24 favorites]

The world badly needs a way to finance journalism independently of wealthy newspaper owners

Did the very serious Comics Journal sustain itself by publishing erotic comics or am I misremembering?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:42 AM on February 26

Conservative mags run all sorts of ads, surely the liberals have similar brands.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:43 AM on February 26

Pulitzer Feeling Increasingly Out Of Place In Washington Post Office
posted by non canadian guy at 11:45 AM on February 26 [8 favorites]

I don't even know if he's just greedy or fucking evil, doesn't really matter so I'll go with evil.

I'm already off amazon prime due to them closing their local distributions center after employees unionized, I'm also off amazon due to me boycotting US products/enterprises, and I'm triple off amazon from that WP bullshit.

I don't think it matters much since I think most of their money comes from webservices, but not sure what else I can do.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:45 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Honest question, how meaningful is this?

Not very? The modern conception of the op-ed page—publishing a mix of voices that may or may not disagree with the editorial board—barely predates Watergate; it’s something that the NYT formally introduced in 1970. The term itself is a layout term—“opposite the editorial page”—rather than a description of its content; while it had been a home for opinion content for several decades before it took on the modern connotation of a public forum, that could also mean “general commentary” or “book reviews” as much as it meant writing about sociopolitical items.

And while 30 years ago I would have thought this was a big deal, I don’t disagree with Bezos that the public forum function is kind of irrelevant today. Almost no one still picks up physical copies of a newspaper; anyone can write and share their opinions online. There’s so many different sources of opinion these days that any given essay doesn’t gain any importance or relevance by being published on a newspaper website. If you doubt me on this, think about how the two biggest editorials you can think of in the past six months were the ones that the Post and the L.A. Times didn’t publish, and not any of the many, many, many editorials endorsing Harris that were.

I’m not saying I like this; I deeply regret that we’re losing these common places where people could be exposed to opinions that they might not have heard otherwise. I’ve never had a lot of respect for the WaPo opinion pages to begin with, but it still sucks that we’re just getting another “free speech absolutist” who believes that means it should be “free as in beer.”
posted by thecaddy at 11:53 AM on February 26 [12 favorites]

I do not subscribe to the Washington Post, never have, never will. Help me understand this. What were they publishing before? Anti-free speech anti-first amendment stuff? Anti-free markets? They wanted like the old soviet 5 year plan for the economy? Was the editorial page like Pravda?

Clearly, a lot of people are upset. What were they publishing that free-speech Bezos now says they cannot publish? To be honest, from far away (me), this sounds like "duh, of course we support free speech"
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:57 AM on February 26

Does this count as cancel culture?
posted by flamk at 12:03 PM on February 26 [4 favorites]

I forget, is this the paper that used to have the slogan "democracy dies in darkness"?

Maybe it’s time for a new slogan?
posted by dorkydancer at 12:04 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Didn't they already change the slogan to something like: "Crafting Engaging Stories for Your Morning Read" or something like that? (I am not exaggerating.) This felt like more of a gut punch to me for some reason.
posted by kensington314 at 12:07 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Found it: "Riveting Storytelling for All of America."

All of America!! Seeking riveting storytelling in the pages of the Washington Post. Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyy losers
posted by kensington314 at 12:08 PM on February 26 [10 favorites]

I had the same knee-jerk response to cancel my subscription as I did when Bezos killed the Harris endorsement.. but I'm going to take my cue from Jeff Stein (mentioned above) and some reporters I know there (one of them on that Musk story linked above). They're still doing good work, but when Bezos starts fucking with the news coverage, they'll say so, and then I'm out.
posted by martin q blank at 12:08 PM on February 26 [9 favorites]

I wonder how much of Bezos's heel turn is down to Mackenzie Scott no longer being in his life. Based on her post-Bezos philanthropy she seems to have a healthy humility and understands that being wealthy doesn't mean you're an expert in everything. I wonder how much the 'Democracy Dies in Darkness' phase of the WP was really down to her.
posted by nangua at 12:10 PM on February 26 [7 favorites]

I don't like Jeff Bezos, and it's telling which Washington Post decisions he signs his name to, but I don't subscribe to any news source for the editorials, so I'll watch for the warrant newsroom canary.
posted by emelenjr at 12:13 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

I imagine everything everyone writes in the Wapo will be second guessed. The impact isn’t limited to the opinion pages or direct involvement in reporting.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:14 PM on February 26 [8 favorites]

Having now been informed that our old slogan is corrupt and wasteful, we'll be cutting it by 50%. As one of our valued subscribers, we're including you in this poll to find out which half we should keep. Do you prefer (check one):

• Democracy Dies
• In Darkness

posted by flabdablet at 12:17 PM on February 26 [24 favorites]

Democracy dies, in darkness.
posted by mhum at 12:20 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

I didn't cancel my subscription when that thing happened, or when that other thing happened, but I cancelled it today.

Same here, and it pains me to do it. The thing is that no, the op-ed pages don't particularly matter in these days when you wind up exposed to a million opinions and takes on every facet of every thing that happens, whether you want to or not. I generally tended to like the WaPo opinion section on average, but I don't value opinion sections of newspapers all that highly in the first place.

The thing is that a lot of the type of journalism that we really need in this country is expensive. It takes money to send a reporter to a foreign country and report on a crisis from the ground, for example. And journalists, on average, do important work and should be well-compensated for it. As newsrooms are gutted around the country, there are fewer and fewer institutions that even have the capacity to do solid journalism in the first place.

So I held my nose after the endorsement thing and didn't drop my subscription. I think Bezos was basically correct that newspaper endorsements don't matter. But to do this during the start of our current administration is a little too far for me. It's obviously a sop to buy off Trump and influence the overall government position towards Amazon, and I have zero confidence that Bezos won't try to exert the same pressure on the journalism side of the paper in the future whenever it seems convenient for him to do so.
posted by whir at 12:21 PM on February 26 [9 favorites]

They got this all screwed up. *scribbles furiously with sharpie*

Democracy dies? In darkness!
posted by Mayor West at 12:22 PM on February 26 [4 favorites]

What were they publishing before? Anti-free speech anti-first amendment stuff? Anti-free markets?

Do not make the mistake that the current doublespeak version of "free speech" is actual free speech.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:22 PM on February 26 [10 favorites]

Democracy dies, in darkness.

democracy is not dying in darkness, it's dying in the light of billions of screens. let's be honest here
posted by ginger.beef at 12:24 PM on February 26 [10 favorites]

the darkness may be metaphorical
posted by mhum at 12:27 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

Does this count as cancel culture?

"No, dear, he's rich. Canceling is for the poors."
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:29 PM on February 26 [10 favorites]

Democracy dying in broad daylight because Neo-new-Pravda has shifted from not publishing things to save them for book deals towards not publishing things because they like the administration.

Not that you'd know it was dying even two blocks over if no one was covering the story.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:31 PM on February 26

Bezos yearns for an earlier, simpler time. A time before Musk. Yes, even before Zuck and Kalanick and Fiorina. A time when Amazon was still a threat and everybody knew that Jeff was the asshole.

We remember, Jeff. We remember.
posted by flabdablet at 12:35 PM on February 26 [5 favorites]

Honest question, how meaningful is this?

Not very? The modern conception of the op-ed page—publishing a mix of voices that may or may not disagree with the editorial board—barely predates Watergate

This is kind of missing the point. It's the messing around with the editorial control of the newspaper that's the issue, not whether or not op-ed pages in specific are very useful. I said more-or-less this the last time he monkeyed with the functioning of WaPo. You should not trust a newspaper whose ownership doesn't at least try to put up a firewall between themselves and the paper's editorial decisions. Bezos is a far cry from Katherine Graham in that regard, I think.
posted by axiom at 12:39 PM on February 26 [11 favorites]

They're still doing good work, but when Bezos starts fucking with the news coverage, they'll say so, and then I'm out.

I'm watching Eugene Robinson on that.

I'm still undecided on cancellation. I've been addicted to WaPo for years, and I don't know at what point my free NYT access will be cut off (I dislike NYT, but it's useful, still not gonna pay for that one though), and I'm not even sure if anything else out there is equivalent to that. AP is on the Dark Lord's bad side, I'm not a fan of the Guardian, and so much bad shit is happening every 2 seconds that I need a good news source and I don't think I know of an equivalent to use instead.

Maybe I'll leave when Hax and Petri do, maybe that'll be my final "I'm OUT!" moment.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:43 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The Guardian definitely noticed - I got an email about continuing my support of them because *points at WaPo*.
posted by PussKillian at 12:43 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

In a move promoted as supporting freedom of speech

Soon to be followed by "war is peace" pieces, no doubt.
posted by gtrwolf at 12:59 PM on February 26

That's been most of the Palestine coverage over the last 50 years, so that's in hand. Specifically, siege is the form of war that the US press has consistently been spruiking as "peace" any time there wasn't also a hot war being conducted on top of it.
posted by flabdablet at 1:05 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

“A blueprint for disaster in any society is when the elite are capable of insulating themselves.”
— Jared Diamond
posted by jeffburdges at 1:14 PM on February 26 [7 favorites]

"You can say what you want. Just don't disagree with me."
-- Donald Trump
-- Elon Musk
-- Jeff Bezos
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:16 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

My dad worked at the Post for 30 years, first as.a printer (one of the Deaf printers), then in composition. I was sad about cancelling, but cancelled my subscription after the non-endorsement. Since it was an annual subscription, my subscription is still active until July. Today's news inspired me to use the chat function to see if I could end it immediately with a partial refund. I got an automated message at 1:40 saying that I would be transferred to an agent shortly, and I'm still waiting. I guess they're busy today!
posted by amarynth at 1:19 PM on February 26 [13 favorites]

It's pretty clear that we all need to start unplugging our lives in as many ways as are practical from making US billionaires money.
posted by reedbird_hill at 1:30 PM on February 26 [10 favorites]

I'm still undecided on cancellation

There's nothing wrong with that. The Opinions section is still filled with content that questions Trumpism in general. There's still a huge gap between between WaPo and Fox, just as there is still a big gap, albeit narrowing, between Bezos and Musk.

WaPo going under only benefits Fox, Newsmax and all the other rimjob rags.
posted by CynicalKnight at 1:31 PM on February 26 [5 favorites]

It's like the solution to a murder in Clue: The dork with the dirk in the dark.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:50 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

(one of the Deaf printers)

So interesting, thanks for that link.
posted by Rumple at 1:59 PM on February 26 [7 favorites]

This is kind of missing the point. It's the messing around with the editorial control of the newspaper that's the issue, not whether or not op-ed pages in specific are very useful. I said more-or-less this the last time he monkeyed with the functioning of WaPo. You should not trust a newspaper whose ownership doesn't at least try to put up a firewall between themselves and the paper's editorial decisions. Bezos is a far cry from Katherine Graham in that regard, I think.

I get it, but I also don't think that a newspaper owner exerting influence or control over the opinion section of their newspaper is a new thing. At least in the United States, It's been so since the beginning of the country. I'm going to wait and see if/how this affects the news side of things before canceling my subscription. I have enough trust in the reporters there that I think we'll know pretty quickly if Bezos tries to influence that side of the business. For now, I'm happy to ignore the op-ed section; I rarely read op-eds anyway.

WaPo going under only benefits Fox, Newsmax and all the other rimjob rags.

I think this is correct, and they and the rest of the right wing ecosphere benefit even if WaPo is just struggling.
Maybe they benefit even more, if a desperate WaPo starts behaving more like Fox etc.
posted by odin53 at 2:41 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The right has this pattern where they accuse everyone else of doing exactly what they intend to do.

They say they'll stop censorship? it means they're going to censor.

They say they'll end corruption? It means they're going to make Teapot Dome look like it was above board.

The irony of telling people he would censor them if he didn't like what they said about free speech is just... wow.

I swear there's some weird force attached to money and once you get too much you lose all self awareness and any shred of decency.

I never was subscribed so I can't unsubscribe, but fuck Bezos.

And as for the "but we have to support the people who aren't QUITE as bad as FOX or FOX will win" is just the newpaper market version of hte Vote Blue No Matter Who stuff that makes the Democrats keep getting worse and worse.

If you're supporting the second worst thing around because it's not the worst thing, you're never going to get anything better. In elections, well, you've got no choice. But in newspapers you definitely do.

WaPo delenda est.
posted by sotonohito at 2:49 PM on February 26 [4 favorites]

NPR article with anonymous sources.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:57 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Also, Cameron Barr quit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:58 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The right has this pattern where they accuse everyone else of doing exactly what they intend to do.

I’m mostly tongue in cheek when I say… if this is a simulation, it feels like the parameters for absurdity keep getting ramped up to find the revolt point.

Mostly. Because yeah, it’s so by the numbers at this point.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 3:07 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

I am of America and for America
posted by ginger.beef at 3:21 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

I quit after the non-endorsement. For the last couple of weeks I've been getting a lot of "come back, we have this cheap first year offer for you" kind of interstitials when I follow a WaPo link because I haven't logged out. We'll see how cheap the offers get after this round of cancellations.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:25 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

... and in America and by America and with America ...
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 3:27 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

We'll see how cheap the offers get

They're offering me a subscription for fifty cents a week.
posted by CCBC at 3:30 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

From Nieman Lab, "Jeff Bezos declares opinions questioning “free markets” no longer welcome at The Washington Post ":

The thing about American newspaper opinion sections is this: Their owners get final say. If the man who signs the checks — it’s almost always a man — really really really wants to see his cocker spaniel run City Hall, you’ll probably see “Our Choice: Fluffernutter for Mayor” stripped atop the editorial page. For generations — from Murdoch to Loeb, Hearst to Pulitzer, Daniels to Greeley — this has been one of the overriding perks of media ownership. If Jeff Bezos wanted to turn The Washington Post’s opinion section over to an AI-powered version of Alexa, he’d be within his rights to. So his announcement this morning — that Post Opinions would henceforth reorient “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets” — is, in a sense, merely restating the traditional droit du seigneur given over to capital.

But the scale of the hypocrisy on display here is eye-watering.

Let’s get the motivation out of the way. This is the same Jeff Bezos who decided to cancel the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the election — a move that led to more than 250,000 paying Post readers cancelling their subscriptions within days. The same Bezos who flew to Mar-a-Lago to cozy up to Donald Trump after the election. The same Bezos whose Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and paid $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary — the most it had ever paid for a doc, nearly three times what any other studio offered, and more than 70% of which will go directly into Trump’s pockets. All that cash seems to have served as a sort of personal seat license for Bezos, earning him a spot right behind the president at the inaugural. The tech aristocracy’s rightward turn is by now a familiar theme of the post-election period, and it doesn’t take much brain power to see today’s announcement as part of the same shift.

But Bezos’s assertion of power is downright laughable compared to the rhetoric he was using just four months ago when trying to justify his killing of the Harris endorsement. Remember his muddled, oligarch-splaining op-ed? His core argument back then was that the worst thing a newspaper’s opinion section could do is appear to be taking one side politically.

Given all the resignations and public denunciations from current journalists, editors, etc..., I wonder if Bezos knew this would be how it would go down or if he thought he was being totally normal and everyone else is making a big deal over nothing. Like, he's very loudly going back on some pretty recent public declarations. Did he think it would be no big deal or was he pressing ahead knowing that there would be this kind of backlash? Did he think that "surely, no one could be opposed to free markets and free speech, right? everyone will love this move!"? Or was he more like "I better do something or King Trump will chop off my head and I don't care if this fucks up the newspaper"? Sure, it probably doesn't matter much in the end, but I am a little curious about the internal thought processes of people like this. Do they know that they're being villains or do they still think they're heroes?
posted by mhum at 3:42 PM on February 26 [14 favorites]

Honest question, how meaningful is this?

Extremely fucking meaningful, and I can't really believe there are people in this thread downplaying just how much of a crossed threshold moment this is. Saying that nobody read the Editorial page anyway is a bit mind-boggling. This is open censorship of the independence of the press, something that used to be considered an American virtue. The First Amendment. This is from Viktor Orban's playbook, it's from the Nazi playbook. And WaPo is not just a small town paper with a small circulation, but one of America's premier news outlets, even in this day and age; do you think you can get your information instead from the the Internet, which is almost wholly compromised? Sure. Places here and there: Heather Cox Richardson, et al. But nothing as broad as a major news organisation printing the truth of events, or as close to as possible.

The one comment about getting a message from the Guardian looking for support? Support them. The Guardian is one of the few papers left that isn't beholden to a billionaire owner. I don't know about you all, but I am terrified with every new outrage that this government and its friends commits. So long, Washington Post. During the 70s you were a shining beacon on a hill, etc., etc. I had friends who entered journalism programs because of Watergate. That paper brought down Nixon, and now look. Just look at it.
posted by jokeefe at 3:59 PM on February 26 [22 favorites]

I'll just add this quote, from Gene Wieingarten:

From a very quick survey by me of Wapo staffers: This is the worst thing to happen to The Washington Post ever in its 147 year life, including the Janet Cooke scandal.

Let's understand this event for what it is.
posted by jokeefe at 4:28 PM on February 26 [21 favorites]

Metafilter: Do they know that they're being villains or do they still think they're heroes?
posted by TrishaU at 4:30 PM on February 26

I grew up with the Post. It used to have great reporters and columnists—I'll take Michael Dirda over Michiko Kakutani any day. Monica Hesse has been doing phenomenally nuanced and insightful reporting. And yeah, I'm cancelling my subscription, even though I know canceling will hurt the reporters and columnists more than it will hurt Bezos.

Does anybody know of concerted efforts to boycott Amazon as a result of the WaPo policies?
posted by vitia at 5:01 PM on February 26

Vile and cowardly.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 5:16 PM on February 26

I can’t cancel my Post subscription twice, but I finally just cancelled Amazon Prime. I felt bad about it for ages anyway.

America needs a new major news outlet and has for a while. This sounds like a job for an incredibly wealthy ex-wife with progressive values.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:19 PM on February 26 [8 favorites]

I'll suggest some WaPo topics with a formal-ish edge that should make them less controversial:

Economic growth shall end eventually, which destroys financial markets

Economic growth ends within like 25 years

How the distant past determines global rate of energy consumption?

We've no green revolution coming, just more energy from renewables

Mathematical Proof of the Breakdown of Capitalism

On the Instability of Bitcoin Without the Block Reward
posted by jeffburdges at 5:19 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

I cancelled too. I’m thinking about Prime as well. I’m aghast. I did still read their opinions section.
posted by eirias at 5:31 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Newspapers are not intended to tell riveting stories. George R. R. Martin is intended to tell riveting stories. Newspapers are intended to tell the truth. The truth is inherently riveting, because it is actually happening.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:50 PM on February 26 [9 favorites]

You guys I think this is my fault, sorry. I canceled my subscription back in November, but I only yesterday got around to deleting the WaPo app off my phone. I think when I did that it probably set off a buzzer on Jeff’s desk or something.

My bad.
posted by nickmark at 5:59 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The Guardian decided to use AI to write its articles when writers went on strike. (Yeah, I know, it's The Times, but I've also seen this from journalists in my Masto feed.) So they may be a better option, but they're not great either.
posted by rednikki at 6:30 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The Guardian has also been a big participant in the relentless demonization of trans people, for years.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:34 PM on February 26 [10 favorites]

I deleted my Twitter account he day Musk expressed interest in buying it. Somebody told me he might not and I should stick around, but Musk already had too much influence and… well. Yeah.

Today I cancelled WaPo. I did feel bad for the reporters there just trying to do the work, but this won’t end with opinions, plus… jfc. What a bone-headed pair of principles to make the sole focus of a major newspaper’s editorial section.
posted by zenzenobia at 7:24 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

What were they publishing before? Anti-free speech anti-first amendment stuff? Anti-free markets? They wanted like the old soviet 5 year plan for the economy? Was the editorial page like Pravda?

So, here's the thing about The Washington Post: in 1971, it caused a big scandal by publishing The Pentagon Papers a previously-secret Pentagon dossier on how American involvement in Vietnam had actually been going on since the 1940s. The Pentagon Papers admitted that LBJ was lying about the actual point to US involvement in the war (Johnson claimed we were there to support the South Vietnamese in trying to win freedom, but we were really there because we were scared of Chinese Communism); and they also reported on how we had been secretly helping the French with their war with Vietnam back in the 1950s for the same reason. A political activist, former supporter of the Vietnam war but now an opponent, secretly copied the documents and tried to find someone who could do something with it; he approached Nixon and Kissinger first, but they blew him off. So then he decided to go to the press. The New York Times considered it, but their owners were worried about the legal and political ramifications if they published.

Ellsburg then went on to the Washington Post, who initially were similarly concerned - but then owner Katherine Graham realized that publishing the contents of The Pentagon Papers was far more important than the potential personal risk she faced. And WaPo did get some legal fallout - but a number of other newspapers all followed suit in a sort of journalstic "I Am Spartacus" moment as a show of support and solidarity. The nation learned that the ongoing war in Vietnam was ultimately not the war we had been told we were embroiled in, and support for the war waned dramatically and we were soon pulling out.

Only one year later, two Washington Post reporters also started investigating a weird breakin at the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in a months-long journalistic investigation that lead to the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Both of these incidents have been commemorated in film - All The President's Men, and a more recent film about the Pentagon Papers called The Post - something ironically released one year into Trump's first presidential campaign.

In short - the Washington Post was publishing news before this, back when it had an owner who cared more about integrity and public service than she did personal gain or political status.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 PM on February 26 [35 favorites]

I hadn't heard of JCooke before today, and I don't think it's very relevant except for how the Sager non-description at the end of her wiki might be copy/paste onto the new mission statement for WaPo:

"is living within the borders of the continental United States, within a family setting, and pursuing a career that does not primarily involve writing"
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:52 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

They're offering me a subscription for fifty cents a week.

Shorter Bezos impression of everyone around him: "We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price."
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:55 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

^ Neil Sheehan at the NYT was the first to publish the PP given to him by Ellsberg. (Sheehan's "A Bright Shining Lie" is a helluva book on Vietnam) . the link with Watergate was it was Nixon's fixers who broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist office in '71 and would of course continue their black bag operation in '72 at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate.
posted by torokunai2 at 9:22 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Finally canceled my Wapo sub. A small, belated _yay for me i guess, at last. F Bezos and all of his ilk
posted by anadem at 9:29 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The Washington Post is easy to cancel. I have not canceled Amazon, because it's frankly fairly integral to my life, and I suspect many of us are in the same boat. But a newspaper is extremely ditchable.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:29 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

Remember his muddled, oligarch-splaining op-ed? His core argument back then was that the worst thing a newspaper’s opinion section could do is appear to be taking one side politically.

Always an error to assume that somebody like that saying something like that is referring to "one side" in a general rather than specific sense. Nobody need ever be in any doubt about which side Bezos thinks is the worst to appear to be taking politically.
posted by flabdablet at 4:33 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

Extremely fucking meaningful, and I can't really believe there are people in this thread downplaying just how much of a crossed threshold moment this is. Saying that nobody read the Editorial page anyway is a bit mind-boggling.

For my part, I certainly wasn’t saying that this is an insignificant moment. My reaction is basically the same as Benton’s in the Nieman Lab post that mhum excerpts. Bezos’s hypocrisy is astounding and certainly a red flag. I am not going to be surprised if, two months from now, Jeff Stein posts that Bezos spiked one of his articles. But at this moment, I really do think that any reaction needs to be put in context. Newspaper owners have directly interfered in the opinion writing in their newspapers for a long time. The WaPo is a very old institution that’s still comprised of many reporters who have been trained and steeped in strong journalism ethics and investigative practices. I don’t believe that that institution has been destroyed overnight and that all of the reporters there have rejected their training, and that their writing will now reflect whatever Bezos thinks. I’d like to continue supporting them until they tell me not to.
posted by odin53 at 4:41 AM on February 27 [4 favorites]

I’m working through Katharine Graham’s “Personal History” and how hard her Dad worked to establish the Post once he bought it about a century ago. She’s just getting started in journalism in San Francisco but wow, this would not be the legacy they wanted.

I have 70% of the book to go yet. It’s a very deep dive.
posted by childofTethys at 5:52 AM on February 27 [3 favorites]

I've largely avoided Amazon for two decades now, although I check reiews there.

Amazon winds up more expensive than ebay for many items, like older model Android phones. Amazon maybe safer somehow than ebay, but you risk duds anytime you buy online, and Amazon common fulfilment has famously fucked over many sellers, right?

What service does Amazon really bring? Just delivery speed? Isn't planning ahead always a substitute for delivery speed?

AliExpress obliterates everyone for new commodity products, but overpriced for name brands. I buy new tech off ebay, not AliExpress, but I rarely buy new tech these days. We've found leboncoin.fr and ricardo.ch beat ebay for second hand items.

Anyways I've bought new tech off Amazon over the last few years, like larger portable solar and one GSM router, which kinda violates the above ethical principle. I should buy a NAS device and monitors this year, maybe a good IR scope or non-spyware trail cams, but delievery speed never matters much for this stuff.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:18 AM on February 27

We just torpedoed Amazon (and then voted in our ON election). Feels good.
posted by whatevernot at 6:22 AM on February 27 [3 favorites]

Democracy dies in darkness. We provide the darkness.

One of my many reactions was the thought that maybe we'd be better off if all newsletters got rid of their opinion sections all together. Unfortunately, the way that "news" has evolved these days it's that's almost entirely free of context, and too often just repeats whatever it has been given by its official source.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:10 AM on February 27

What service does Amazon really bring? Just delivery speed? Isn't planning ahead always a substitute for delivery speed?

Unfortunately, for a lot of people (most of whom might be disabled or live in non-urban areas, might not be able to drive, etc), Amazon is what makes sure they can get what they need. It might be groceries, it might be cat food and cat litter, whatever. I don't have a need to use Amazon but again, I won't assume everyone who uses it is on a level playing field. Amazon is shitty and awful with their labour practices, but I have met a lot of folks--mostly with chronic pain or limited mobility--who use it because they can't just go and get what they are using it for.
posted by Kitteh at 7:19 AM on February 27 [8 favorites]

It might be groceries, it might be cat food and cat litter, whatever.

I dont think this is true, at all. Are there lots of rural whole foods?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:40 AM on February 27

You don't think it's true that... Amazon delivers things to people?
posted by box at 7:48 AM on February 27 [3 favorites]

Maybe they don't believe disabled people use it. Or that anyone might be in a difficult situation to do so.
posted by Kitteh at 7:52 AM on February 27

I don't think many rural people are only reliant on Amazon for grocery deliveries, and that if they boycott Amazon they won't be able to get their groceries delivered. Its not what amazon does, its more about "is amazon the only game in town for necessities?" and the answer is no.

Maybe they don't believe disabled people use it.

Yeah thats exactly what I believe. Got me!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:01 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

I assume you have backups for disabled/chronically ill people and you have contacted them? If not, you're just trolling. I may not need to use Amazon but I don't ignore that for some people, it is a gross necessity. Especially for people who aren't able-bodied.

Man, this turned ableist fast but I shouldn't be shocked.
posted by Kitteh at 8:03 AM on February 27 [6 favorites]

Alright fair enough, so Amazon delivers stuff like fresh food not covered by other standard seller. Amazon can do so in the US because of their distribution deals for speed? Or Amazon does distribution for some preferred grocer? Wallmart and Costco deliver according to google, maybe that's location specific, or maybe quality limits their utility?

At least in France some major grocery stores have delivery services. I've never used them so no idea about complexities, but I'd expect most EU governments cover some delivery fees for disabled people, so likely some subsidy for providing that service. We've 2-3 days with street markets near my property there, so mostly I cycle a few km to those, or to a biocoop.

Amazon has no presence in Switzerland, where I spend most of my time, so afaik you pay high import duties if you buy from them. A few Swiss companies provide comparable services, at Swiss prices. It'd rock if the EU reduced Amazon's reach in EU nations too.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:11 AM on February 27

This has nothing to do with who is disabled or anyone's ability/inability to travel to a store and buy stuff, and has everything to do with what other delivery options there are available aside from Amazon.

Amazon fulfills grocery orders essentially from one store: Whole Foods. Are you telling me that there are lot of areas in the US where the options for grocery is ONLY from whole foods, and there are no Wegman's, Krogers, Albertsons, Food Lions around to deliver food? Amazon won't deliver from those stores. That they live in a food desert and the only place to buy food is from Whole Foods?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:12 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

This is all starting to seem like the collapse of the free press in Russia, with all the major media outlets under the ownership of pro-regime oligarchs.

I was studying briefly in Russia in 2005 and we had a 'current events' sort of class. I remember the teacher saying that interpreting the news was easier in the USSR days because, for example, if there were reports of unexpectedly high crop yields, it meant that the food lines were about to get longer. You only had to flip the facts to their opposite to understand what was going on.
posted by kitcat at 8:12 AM on February 27 [2 favorites]

Russian were shocked to discover that NYC really had a serious crime problem too. ;)
posted by jeffburdges at 8:15 AM on February 27

Bedridden chronically ill person here who lives in an exurb. I looked at my Amazon orders yesterday to see if I could cancel Prime. In the last two months I bought from Amazon:
- two nutritional supplements (I buy most from Pure Formulas, but some PF doesn't have)
- a home ECG monitor
- a replacement milligram scale for measuring supplements
- a hose for the shampoo basin we use to wash my hair in bed
- organic beeswax so my spouse could make lip balm I can tolerate
- my preferred brand of alcohol wipes to clean minor wounds
- allergy pillow protectors
- a case of unscented Bon Ami cleanser
I could have gotten a total of one of those items locally, and it would have meant my spouse making another curbside pickup in addition to the two or three he makes a week, and he has enough to do with working and caring for me.
posted by jocelmeow at 10:03 AM on February 27 [8 favorites]

Guys maybe instead of trying to rules-lawyer Amazon's existence we could get back to talking about the Washington Post?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:05 AM on February 27 [6 favorites]

If Bezos follows in Murdoch's footsteps with the Wall Street Journal, he'll use the opinion section to placate the oligarchs, and he'll leave the rest of the paper alone. In the case of the Wall Street Journal, the rest of the paper, which includes several interesting beats and the odd investigation, remains quite good. When we're lucky, that quality occasionally spills into the editorial section, as it did with its recent support for Ukraine.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:21 PM on February 27 [3 favorites]

Democracy died.
posted by whuppy at 12:32 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]

Former Post writer/editor/Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten reports that the Post killed an article on the editorial change by Post media critic Erik Wemple. Note that this would have not run on the oped page, but probably in the Style section.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:56 PM on February 27 [8 favorites]

I have been told another respected opinions columnist has also submitted a piece on the same subject. Let’s watch and see what happens.

Eugene would be my guess.

Yeah, I bet nothing happens in public.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:10 PM on February 27

Marty Baron blasts Bezos over changes to Washington Post opinion page: ‘Sad and disgusted’
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:29 PM on February 27

the Post killed an article on the editorial change by Post media critic Erik Wemple.

I mean, there you have it, that's your creep of publisher control into the journalism side of the house. (I guess? I like Erik Wemple a lot, but I'd consider most of what he does analysis versus shoe-leather reporting.)

EJ Dionne managed to publish an op-ed calling out Trump as a threat to "personal freedoms and the free market," so there's that. No sign so far of anyone being able to mention the elephant in the room, which is the danger Beside himself posts to these two principles.
posted by whir at 6:29 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]

(er, Bezos himself, sorry, missed the edit window)
posted by whir at 7:23 AM on February 28

Erik Wemple is due for a chat next week. If he's still there. I will be quite curious.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:30 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]

NPR, quoting an anonymous source at the Post, reports that more than 75,000 digital subscribers have cancelled their subscriptions.
posted by whir at 11:53 AM on February 28 [6 favorites]

How long before it is illegal to subscribe to media outlets not approved by Trump, and to not subscribe to media outlets approved by Trump?
posted by Pouteria at 4:08 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]

Washington Post staffers are in open rebellion against Jeff Bezos
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:58 AM on March 1 [3 favorites]

Here's the question that worries me.

Are the techbro billionaires cozying up to Trump because they are Trumpists, or as has been said elsewhere are they frightened of him?

Because if it's the latter then we should probably make sure we're safely deep in blue territory, stocked up on supplies, and armed.
posted by sotonohito at 10:15 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Are the techbro billionaires cozying up to Trump because they are Trumpists, or as has been said elsewhere are they frightened of him?

None of them are TFGists, but they've correctly pegged him as a billionaireist. They're cozying up because they correctly see him as shallow, stupid, vain, easily manipulated by flattery and the making of public concessions, and now very nicely placed to help them grow their own personal hoards even faster.

Between them, they wield enough propaganda influence that they could easily have denied him his second term. So they're not frightened of TFG either. They installed TFG for the specific purpose of making sure they won't be required to pay more tax.
posted by flabdablet at 11:21 AM on March 1 [4 favorites]

The Erik Wemple chat is on! When asked about the spiking:

And no, I am not going to try to joke my way out of a response here. I prefer not to make any public remarks about the report that you referenced or others like it, out of a preference not to talk about any pieces that may be pending, unpublished or spiked or whatever.

nonetheless this is perhaps the hardest aspect of the week’s events in Washington Post Opinions for me – the issuance of a new editorial directive that lacks important details.

I will say that I have no information that whatever changes unfold here will mean journalists like Robinson and Marcus will not have a home on our pages.

Make your evaluations based on the content that you get on this site – the deep and news-breaking pieces on Trump’s audit/destruction (depending on your perspective) of the federal government; the seven-byline piece on Elon Musk’s history of contracts with the federal government; the Metro coverage on pedestrian deaths, the activities of the U.S. attorney here in D.C.; the sweep of up-to-the-minute sports coverage; all the impeccably written food commentary; and so on and so forth. It’s certainly fair for people to ask questions and to become anxious based on our workplace memos and the like, but what matters, and what always has mattered, is the product.

And finally...

Question: Will you buckle under if you do not agree with the new Opinions direction? Or will you resign?

Are these the only two possibilities in front of me?
This is a good opportunity to address this hunger among some subscribers for journalistic resignations. I must dissent from this craze, for three reasons: 1) I am not irreplaceable, despite being the favorite writer of at least one in more than 2 million Post subscribers. So if I turned in a principled resignation, someone above me on the org chart might just say, Good – let’s upgrade our media coverage right away. Or, just as likely – Let’s not fill that position. Which is to say, this move would cause little or no hardship for Post management or ownership; 2) In my own coverage of media organizations, I see violations/betrayals/slight deviations from the official journalism ethics handbook all the time. They involve the occasional conflict of interest, the frequent transgressions against corrections standards, material omissions and, of course, everything that happens on Fox News. As a journalism peer told me last week, you could resign every day if you wanted to present yourself as a performative resigner; 3) I found the Bezos email from Wednesday laying out new marching orders for the Opinions section poorly reasoned and confusing. The downside of confusion is that it leaves great latitude for interpretation and bad journalism; the upside is that it leaves great room for other things, too, like, good journalism. I am not resigning, though I think I'd be crazy not to be considering all the glorious and lucrative opportunities that this thriving media sector has to offer.

He then goes on vacation, so no chat again until the end of the month.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:34 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]

NYT reports on a WaPo event that the bigwigs at WaPo did not go to:
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:36 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

So... does that free markets editorial stance include scathing condemnation of Trump's tariffs?
posted by sotonohito at 12:12 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

Eugene Robinson reiterates that nobody's telling him what to say or do, still. (For now?)

And speaking of elephants in the room, obviously I have to decide whether I can, or wish to, function within any new boundaries, however they come to be defined. I prefer to make such choices on my schedule, not anyone else's. I will let you know when I decide.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:39 PM on March 4

I must dissent from this craze, for three reasons: 1) I am not irreplaceable...

The reason to consider resignation is not that you're irreplaceable and therefore the resignation would inflict retaliatory hardship on the Post ownership/management (but I mean, if you find yourself in that position, gravy I guess), the reason to consider tendering your resignation is that your own conscience will not allow you to work hand-in-hand with the kind of people who don't see the need for a robust separation between the editorial control of your paper and its ownership. If your conscience doesn't see a problem there then life must be grand for you, I guess, but you'll have to forgive me for not really giving a shit about anything you have to say after that. And Christ, "at least we're not as bad as Fox News" isn't filling me with warm happy tingles either.
posted by axiom at 9:38 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

Ruth Marcus resigned. From NPR (Mar 10), "Top 'Washington Post' columnist resigns, accusing publisher of killing piece":

A top political columnist for The Washington Post resigned today, accusing Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis of killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos's drive to overhaul the opinion pages to focus on his libertarian priorities.

Post columnist and Associate Editor Ruth Marcus, who has worked at the paper for four decades, says she can no longer stay there.

"Jeff's announcement that the opinion section will henceforth not publish views that deviate from the pillars of individual liberties and free markets threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what the owner has deemed acceptable," Marcus wrote in a resignation letter obtained by NPR.

[...]

"Will's decision to not …run the column that I wrote respectfully dissenting from Jeff's edict - something that I have not experienced in almost two decades of column-writing - underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded," she wrote.

posted by mhum at 9:50 AM on March 10 [7 favorites]

More from the NYT on this:

Ms. Marcus’s resignation from The Post came on the same day that Matt Murray, the newspaper’s executive editor, laid out his vision for the newsroom in an email to staff members. (The newsroom of The Post operates separately from its opinion department.)
Mr. Murray, who joined the newspaper as its executive editor last year, said in his email that he was separating the production of the print newspaper from the rest of The Post and changing the way its newsroom was organized.
“The Post needs to evolve with reader habits, new opportunities, and technological developments, particularly the smart use of A.I. as it continues to develop and dramatically reshape users’ experiences of news,” Mr. Murray wrote.
The Post’s national desk, an important center of gravity at the newspaper, is being broken up into two departments, with one focusing on politics and government and one on reporting across the United States. Mr. Murray also said each department would have a senior editor focused on audience growth and visuals.
“Text will no longer be a default and length no more a measure of quality,” Mr. Murray wrote.

So AI's going to do your writing for you now? You're gonna have listicles? Perhaps recycle some memes/X/Reddit posts? Coolcoolcool.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:38 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]

Ruth Marcus: Why I Left The Washington Post The column is printed here, albeit she admits that she kept it "tofu" rather than meat, as it were.

"In retrospect, you can say that this frog chose to remain in the simmering pot, but she thought hard about it."

Re: Telnaes: "This episode was far more concerning than the non-endorsement decision, because it wasn’t limited to the paper’s institutional editorial position—it implied that restrictions were coming for columnists, too. In hindsight—and, again, I thought about it at the time—maybe that should have been the moment I left."

"The columnists were deeply wounded by the newly announced limits and what they portended. We had always been able to assure our readers that no one restricted what we could write. How could we credibly make that claim now? What was the meaning of “personal liberties and free markets?” Without further clarification, we were like dogs that had been fitted with shock collars but had no clue where the invisible fence was situated."

I knew what would likely happen before I typed a single word. I had spoken out forcefully against the decision to kill the endorsement. Censoring columnists was way worse. Having written then, how could I stay silent and live with myself now? Still, I hesitated. Since Trump’s Inauguration, I had been writing at a furious pace, assailing his blizzard of executive orders, his assaults on the rule of law, his dismantling of the Justice Department, which I had covered as a young reporter. Was speaking out on Bezos important enough to risk losing the platform that the Post provided?

The column was, if anything, meek to the point of embarrassing. But I thought that it was important to put my reasons for disagreement on the record—not only to be true to myself but to show that the newspaper could brook criticism and that columnists still enjoyed freedom of expression. Running it, I believed, would enhance the Post’s credibility, not undermine it.

The verdict from Will Lewis, she said, was no. Pause here for a moment: I know of no other episode at the Washington Post, and I have checked with longtime employees at the paper, when a publisher has ordered a column killed.

According to Duenwald’s explanation, the column did not pass the “high bar” required for the Post to write about itself. It was “too speculative,” because we couldn’t know, until a new opinion editor was named, what the impact of the new direction would be. It could turn out that none of our columns would be affected by the Bezos plan. Duenwald said that my column on the endorsement had been accepted because it involved a clear-cut decision; the opinion-page policy was a work in progress.
None of this was any more convincing than the rationale for rejecting the Telnaes cartoon.

I asked to speak with Lewis. He declined to see me, instructing an editor to inform me that there was no reason to meet, because his decision was final.

posted by jenfullmoon at 5:30 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]

Eugene Robinson was not asked about last week's developments and all he said was he was still here.

I immediately assumed you had finally quit or been asked to leave the WA Post. That really hit me hard, because this is the only "contact" I have with someone "out there" (if you see what I mean), who is in the know, and who I trust. (Not that I don't trust other Live Chat WP hosts, but I've read your chats for years). So glad you're not gone! But just goes to show how on tinder hooks I am, and I assume others. If you do go, how do we find out?

Eugene Robinson: I'm not shy. If I go anywhere, I'll let you know.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:27 AM on March 19