Washington Post Editor Quits After Bezos Orders Staff to Defend “Free Market”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the multibillionaire owner of The Washington Post, has informed the publication’s opinion section that writers should focus on defending personal liberties and the “free market” going forward — and that opposing viewpoints will not be platformed.

Bezos’s letter was first reported on by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin, who shared its contents on social media.

“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

Bezos justified his decision by saying that it was no longer necessary to elevate voices that oppose those pillars, because readers could find those views on the internet elsewhere.

“I am of America and for America,” Bezos said, claiming that a “big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm.” (The Amazon CEO’s defense of the “free market” is perhaps unsurprising given that the system has allowed him to become one of the world’s richest men on the backs of more than a million workers across the globe.)

Bezos, who once described his ownership style at the paper as “hands-off”, also said in his letter that he gave David Shipley — up until Tuesday The Post’s opinion editor — the opportunity to give a “hell yes” in support of the new policy or to step away from his position. Shipley ultimately left his post, though it remains unclear whether he stepped down or was fired by Bezos.

Despite promising in 2013 that he would not be involved in the paper’s decision-making process, Bezos has exerted more control of the publication’s opinion pages over the past several months, prompting several staffers at The Post to resign.

Perhaps the most notable example of Bezos’s involvement was just weeks before Election Day 2024, when he ordered the opinion section not to publish a planned endorsement of Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harris. In an op-ed shortly after making that call, Bezos claimed that such endorsements “create a perception of bias” and that “ending them is a principled decision.”

Critics weren’t swayed by his argument.

“Reader confusion between a paper’s news coverage and its editorial opinionating is indeed a problem in the digital age, but not one that killing endorsements alone will come anywhere close to solving; America’s bitter present divisions can be seen as an argument against weighing in on one side or another, but also an argument for doing so, as a signpost in confusing and noisy times,” said Jon Allsop, writer of “The Media Today” newsletter for the Columbia Journalism Review.

In January, Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, quit the paper in protest after it refused to publish a cartoon critical of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bezos and Disney. “I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations — and some differences — about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now,” Telnaes said of her decision.

Later that month, hundreds of Post employees penned an open letter to Bezos, calling for him to reexamine the direction of the paper under his leadership.

The letter-writers stated:

We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent.

The latest action by Bezos to dictate the paper’s Opinion Section standards has been met with widespread backlash.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a frequent critic of the Trump administration, noted that Bezos was one of three billionaires — the others being Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — to stand near Trump at his inauguration last month, describing the trio as oligarchs.

“When billionaires take control of our communication channels, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for their billionaire babble,” Reich wrote in a Substack post. “When they talk of ‘personal liberties and free markets’ they mean their own liberties to become even richer and more powerful, as the rest of America slides into worse economic insecurity and fear.”

Lyz Lenz, journalist and manager of the “Men Yell at Me” newsletter, denounced Bezos’s new policy of promoting unfettered capitalism.

“In the cold calculations of commerce, the rights of businesses and the markets often take precedence over the human right to live,” Lenz said, adding:

When Bezos talks about liberties, he doesn’t mean our right to life, liberty and not to choke on the exhaust fumes of his billions. This is Jeff Bezos we’re talking about here. And if he read his own paper, he’d realize it’s not the freedom of the markets that needs a vigorous defense. It’s the liberties our country was supposedly founded on.

Martin Baron, a former executive director for The Post, also lambasted the directives from Bezos.

“It’s craven. He’s basically fearful of Trump,” Baron said. “He has decided that, as timid and tepid as the editorials have been, they’ve been too tough on Trump.”

Baron also noted that, while he hasn’t “seen any evidence he’s interfering with the news pages, “it’s possible Bezos will come after that section of the paper next, limiting how The Post can even report on the Trump administration.”

“Trump’s going to get pissed off over the news pages,” Baron said. “We’re at a point where we’re not having a difference of opinions, we’re have [sic] a difference about what the facts are.”