23 hours Ago By Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- Washington Post opinion editor and columnist Ruth Marcus resigned from the newspaper Monday after Chief Executive Officer Will Lewis killed a column she wrote that criticized recent changes made by Post owner Jeff Bezos. Most Read from Bloomberg Other top journalists have left following major changes at the paper, including Bezos’ decision to limit what he described as viewpoints opposing “personal liberties and free markets” in the Post’s opinion section. Marcus, who had been with the Post for more than 40 years, wrote that “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,” according to her resignation letter obtained by NPR.
A spokesperson for the Post didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Post’s opinion section editor David Shipley stepped down in February following Bezos’ changes. Multiple Post editors and reporters exited in October after the paper decided to stop endorsing presidential candidates and killed a planned endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
That caused some 300,000 digital subscribers to cancel their subscriptions, according to NPR. More than 75,000 digital subscribers canceled in the 48 hours after Bezos made his decision regarding the opinion section last month. Since purchasing the Post in 2013, Bezos, the Amazon.
com Inc. co-founder, had originally remained largely distant from editorial coverage. After an early, testy rivalry with President Donald Trump that stretched back nearly a decade, Bezos had largely muffled his criticisms under Trump’s earlier presidency.
The world’s third-richest person has now been accused of prioritizing his own commercial interests over the Post. Bezos has businesses with contracts worth billions of dollars that depend on the federal government, including Amazon cloud-computing services and his Blue Origin space company. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek ©2025 Bloomberg L.
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