Just before the 2024 election, Jeff Bezos and Will Lewis (the Murdoch-henchman and Washington Post CEO) ordered the Washington Post’s staff to kill the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. This unfolded in the final two weeks of the election, with Bezos claiming that the kill order came from him because he wants WaPo (which he owns) to operate with less of a political agenda. Nevermind Bezos’ very public delight when Donald Trump won the election – Bezos quickly congratulated Trump on social media and donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. It seems that it’s quite alright for a newspaper and newspaper owner to have a political agenda, as long as that agenda is fascist, authoritarian, oligarchical and unhinged. Speaking of, Bezos continues to meddle in the daily operations of WaPo, and this week, he forced out WaPo’s Opinions Editor:
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 But Bezos characterized that practice as outdated.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.”
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.
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” And that’s why Bezos killed the Post’s endorsement of the candidate who would defend personal liberties and free markets? That’s why Bezos is sycophantically courting Donald Trump, who is interfering in free markets and personal liberties? WaPo is so f–ked, my god. Bezos has absolutely lost the plot.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos just emailed the paper’s staff to announce a “change coming to our opinion pages.”
— Will Oremus (@willoremus.com) February 26, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.
