(L-R) Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony earlier than Donald Trump is sworn in because the forty seventh US President within the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Pictures
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and proprietor of the Washington Put up, stated Wednesday that his newspaper’s opinion pages would now be devoted to supporting “private liberties and free markets,” and that the group wouldn’t publish opposing views.
“We’ll cowl different matters too in fact,” Bezos stated in an electronic mail to Put up staffers that he posted on X. “However viewpoints opposing these pillars shall be left to be revealed by others.”
Whereas the transfer garnered reward from some in President Donald Trump’s administration, comparable to Elon Musk, it was panned by some present and former Put up staffers, together with former editor Marty Baron, who stated he was “disgusted.”
Bezos stated that editorial web page editor David Shipley, who had held the job for over two years, determined to resign slightly than lead the opinion part below the brand new coverage.
“I advised to him that if the reply wasn’t ‘hell sure,’ then it needed to be ‘no,'” Bezos stated of Shipley, including, “I respect his choice.”
The Put up shall be “looking for a brand new Opinion Editor to personal this new route,” Bezos stated.
He asserted that whereas a significant newspaper may as soon as have thought of it a service to supply its readers “a broad-based opinion part that sought to cowl all views,” that’s now not the case.
“Right this moment, the web does that job,” Bezos wrote.
“I am assured that free markets and private liberties are proper for America,” he added. “I additionally imagine these viewpoints are underserved within the present market of concepts and information opinion. I am excited for us collectively to fill that void.”
Representatives for Bezos and the Put up, in addition to Shipley, didn’t instantly return CNBC’s requests for added remark.
By erecting new parameters round what opinions the Put up can print, Bezos will probably draw contemporary accusations that he’s in search of to curry favor with Trump, who has lengthy attacked the paper as “Faux Information.”
Lower than two weeks earlier than the 2024 presidential election between the Republican Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, the Put up introduced that it will not endorse both candidate, breaking with a long time of latest precedent.
The Put up in a information article on the time reported that the paper’s editorial workers had deliberate to endorse Harris, and that Bezos himself made the choice to finish the custom.
David Shipley and the workers of The Washington Put up through Getty Pictures react as they study they’ve gained three 2024 Pulitzer Prizes throughout a newsroom gathering in Washington, DC on Monday, Could 06, 2024.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Put up | Getty Pictures
4 days later, the newspaper reported that not less than 250,000 of its readers had canceled their subscriptions following the coverage shift.
After Trump gained the election, Bezos’ Amazon joined with quite a few different tech giants in donating hefty sums to the then-president-elect’s inaugural fund. Whereas Bezos stepped down as CEO of the corporate in 2021, he nonetheless serves as its govt chairman.
Bezos was additionally noticed eating with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago dwelling and membership in Florida. The tech megabillionaire later attended Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, standing alongside Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner, Google chief Sundar Pichai and Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
Musk, who leads Trump’s government-slashing activity pressure often called DOGE, praised Bezos for implementing the editorial change.
A number of staffers have not too long ago stop the Put up in protest. Cartoonist Ann Telnaes left the paper in early January, after accusing her bosses of killing her drawing of businessmen — together with one resembling Bezos — genuflecting at an altar of Trump. When she resigned the identical month, columnist Jennifer Rubin accused Bezos and different wealthy media moguls of enabling Trump and betraying their audiences’ loyalty.
In reacting to Bezos’ announcement Wednesday morning, some have famous that Amazon is presently concerned in an antitrust lawsuit introduced by the U.S. Federal Commerce Fee.
Previous to Trump’s inauguration, Puck Information first reported that Amazon would pay $40 million to license a documentary about first woman Melania Trump. The Wall Avenue Journal reported this month that Melania will pocket greater than 70% of that whole.
It’s not unprecedented for a newspaper’s proprietor to contain themselves in editorial choices, New York College journalism professor Adam Penenberg informed CNBC. He pointed to the New York Put up’s conservative shift after Rupert Murdoch’s takeover in 1976, and Sheldon Adelson’s push to make the Las Vegas Evaluate-Journal extra pro-business.
However Penenberg famous that Bezos’ order for his paper’s editorial pages to adjust to particular ideological views units him aside.
The announcement spurred a variety of preliminary responses from reporters on the Put up — a few of whom stated the information division is not going to be affected.
“As I’ve said earlier than: Nothing modifications,” wrote Dan Lamothe, who covers army affairs, on X later Wednesday morning. “We ask onerous questions and maintain these in energy to account. That is the job, whether or not these in energy prefer it or not.”
However chief financial reporter Jeff Stein referred to as Bezos’ choice a “huge encroachment” into the paper’s opinion part that “makes clear dissenting views is not going to be revealed or tolerated.”
“I nonetheless haven’t felt encroachment on my journalism on the information aspect of protection, but when Bezos tries interfering with the information aspect I shall be quitting instantly and letting you realize,” Stein wrote on X.
Baron, who retired as editor of the Put up in 2021 after eight years within the position, slammed Bezos in a scathing assertion to the Day by day Beast later Wednesday.
“What Bezos is doing at this time runs counter to what he stated, and really practiced, throughout my tenure at The Put up,” Baron stated. “I’ve at all times been grateful for a way he stood up for The Put up and an impartial press in opposition to Trump’s fixed threats to his enterprise pursuits. Now I could not be extra unhappy and disgusted.”
Philip Bump, a present Put up opinion columnist, wrote on Bluesky: “What the precise f—.”
