CNN
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Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday a “significant shift” to the publisher’s opinion page that led to paper editor David Shipley leaving the paper. Change has beaten precedents and rattles off media companies that have already been shaken by years of chaos and leadership departures.
As part of the overhaul, this post will publish daily opinion articles on two editorial “pillars.” In Personal Freedom and Free Market, Bezos teased X-Post on Wednesday morning, announcing company-wide email changes. The opinion section of the post will also cover other subjects, Bezos writes, but “views against these pillars will be exposed by others.”
“I am convinced that the free market and individual freedom are right for America,” Bezos writes. “I believe these perspectives are not well served in the current market for ideas and news opinions. I’m excited to fill that void together.”
In announcing the shift, the billionaire media mogul defended change based on American principles that are fixed in “freedom.” He emphasized that this freedom is “ethical, minimized coercion, practical, and promotes creativity, invention and prosperity.”
As a basis for the change, Bezos noted that the Legacy Opinion section has become obsolete and replaced by the Internet.
“There was a time when newspapers, especially those that were local monopoly, could have seen them as services that brought a broad opinion section to the reader’s doorstep every morning, trying to cover all opinions,” Bezos said through X. “The Internet does that job today.”
Bezos also shared that David Shipley, editor of the post, said goodbye to the company. Shipley was offered a role in leading Bezos’ planned changes, but instead decided to step away.
“I offered David Shipley, who has a great admiration for the opportunity to lead this new chapter,” Bezos wrote to X: After careful consideration, David decided to leave. This is a big change, not easy and requires 100% commitment. I respect his decision. ”
Bezos said the post will search for new opinion editors and “own” the new editing direction of the paper.
In an email to the editorial team of posts obtained by CNN, Shipley noted that he reached his decision to leave the publisher “after reflection on how I can do my best in the profession I love.”
“I am always grateful for the opportunity to work with a team of opinion journalists who have inspired me every day by being a strong, innovative, and committed to reported commentary.
Shipley’s departure comes after four months navigating growing criticism of posts from subscribers and their own journalists. Meanwhile, she defended the Post Office’s decision not to run comics from Anne Ternus, featuring Jeff Bezos, leading to her resignation.
“Not all editorial judgments reflect the power of malignancy,” Shipley said in January. “My decision was led by the fact that I had just published a column on the same topic as the comics and had already scheduled another column (this is satire) for publication. The only bias was against repetition.”
Bezos’ announcement quickly met the hostility of some post staff who made the move publicly a problem.
Jeffstein, the publisher’s chief economics reporter, was deemed a “large invasion by Jeff Bezos,” revealing that “opposition will not be published or tolerated there.”
“I haven’t felt an invasion of journalism on the news yet, but if Bezos tries to interfere with the news, I’ll stop and let you know right away,” Stein said in X.
Amanda Katz, who resigned from her role in the Post’s opinion team at the end of 2024, was called “an absolute waiver of the powerful, justice, democracy, human rights and accurate information accountability principles that previously animated the section in favor of the self-accepted Zenda of a white male billionaire.” And columnist Philip Bump pens the Post’s weekly “How to Read This Chart” newsletter, saying “actual f**k” on Bluesky.
Meanwhile, conservatives are celebrating Bezos’ change. Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, welcomed the change, saying, “The culture (…) is changing rapidly.” And Elon Musk, where SpaceX is a direct rival to Bezos’ blue origin, was concisely praised, “Bravo, @jeffbezos!”
Following the internal announcement of the change, Will Lewis, the paper’s publisher and chief executive, said CNN is “read-adjusted (Ion)” as “not about siding with political parties,” but “becoming clear as to what we represent as a newspaper.”
“Doing this is an important part of serving as the best news publication for all of America and for all Americans,” Lewis wrote to staff.
When Shipley leaves the Post on Friday, Lewis said he will put together the interim arrangement, adding that an alternative to the editorial page editor was announced in the “course,” adding that he is “a heartfelt person in supporting free markets and individual freedoms.”
Early in the afternoon, Post’s executive editor Matt Murray rang to respond to “questions” he received from those involved. In an email obtained by CNN, Maledo Bezos’s line reminds staff that the opinion section is “traditionally the source of the owner of news organizations.”
“The independent and impartial work of the Post’s newsroom remains unchanged and continues to pursue attractive and impactful journalism without fear or favor,” Murray writes.
Murray and Lewis support transformation with Bezos staff, but New York magazines report that Lewis’ songs are totally different behind the scenes, warning Bezos that the changes are likely to have a negative impact on the publication.
It appears Lewis’ private predictions have already been revealed. Since its announcement, two former Top Post editors have opposed the move. As the Daily Beast reported, Marty Baron, the Post’s former executive editor, said that the founders of Amazon and Blue Origins “prioritize those commercial interests over the Post and are “betraying and disgusting” by Bezos’s demands, emphasizing that he is betraying the Post’s longstanding principles in order to do so.
Meanwhile, Cameron Burr, former senior managing editor of the Post, said in a LinkedIn post that Bezos’ change represents “an unacceptable erosion of its commitment to publishing healthy diversity of opinions and discussions,” and that it would end a “professional association” with the newspaper. And longtime editor and Pulitzer Prize winner David Maranis said in Bruski that “as long as[Bezo]is the owner, I will never write again (for the post).”
New directions for Bezos and the Post
The overhaul of the division came months after Bezos blocked approval of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ opinion page in the 11th hour, ending a decades-old precedent. Shipley was one of the chorus of voices that tried to persuade Bezos not to ban her from endorsing her, and told staff in October that she “failed that.”
Since Bezos’ actions to block Op-Ed, a chain reaction has hidden the post, with 250,000 post leaders cancelling subscriptions and several opinion staff resigning in protests cancelled. The post also bleed a reporter who signed a rival publication, rather than staying at the outlet of the illness.
The massive ChangeUp comes just a few months after Bezos acknowledged in his OP-ED block defense that his Amazon and Blue Origin business interests acted as “post-complicated devices.”
In the November election, Silicon Valley media moguls were seen hedging bets in the event of a conservative presidential victory, resident of then Donald Trump. Critics said Bezos is trying to change the editorial strategy of the Post to gain favour with Trump, who has grown close to Bezos’s own business rival Elon Musk. Bezos pushed back these charges in the rare October OP-ED.
“I am not the ideal owner of the post when it comes to the emergence of conflict,” writes Bezos. “You can view my wealth and business interests as breakwaters against threats, or you can see them as a web of conflicting profits.”
“Only my own principles can tilt balance from one to the other,” he wrote in October.
Bezos’ “Announcement of Conflict” is published from his numerous holdings, including his Amazon and the spacecraft company Blue Origin. Bezos’ Amazon is also facing lawsuits from the FTC and 17 states, accusing it of abusing its economic control and damaging fair competition.
Bezos attended President Trump’s January inauguration. Bezos wasn’t the only high-tech billionaire, but his attendance as the owner of the post did little to dispel the emergence of the conflict.
Recently, this post chose not to publish anti-mask wrap ads in print versions. The post Greenlighted an internal anti-muscle ad, but has yet to reveal the basis for rap being rejected when asked if Bezos was involved in the decision.
Poststaff also complained with Bezos about appointing Lewis as publisher and chief executive. After working at the top in early 2024, reports of Lewis’ involvement in several controversies were soon revealed about his involvement in several controversies, including accusations of using fraudulent and unethical methods to obtain reports of articles while working during Sunday’s era. Lewis was also attacked for allegedly trying to kill the story about his allegedly involved in covering up a phone hacking scandal. Lewis denied the charges.
His dissatisfaction with Lewis peaked in June. This led two Pulitzer Prize-winning post-journalists to question Lewis’ journalistic integrity, undermining the Post’s reputation and sought a change in leadership in reports that reportedly reported them as well.
However, as Murray points out, the opinion section is the “source” of the post owner, meaning Bezos – the billionaire’s final change lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, exacerbating the post’s financial difficulties. As overhauls have exacerbated years of issues with a celebrity publication, and current and former post staff have publicly condemned the changes, the post appears to be in a state of emergency.
CNN’s Brian Stelter contributed to this report.
