Jeff Bezos announces ‘significant shift’ coming to the Washington Post. A key editor is leaving because of it
CNN
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Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Wednesday announced a "significant shift" to the publisher's opinion page that led David Shipley, the paper's editorial page editor, to leave the paper.
As part of the overhaul, the Post will publish daily opinion stories on two editorial "pillars": personal liberties and free markets, Bezos teased in an X post on Wednesday morning after announcing the change in a company-wide email. The Post's opinion section will cover other subjects, too, Bezos wrote, but "viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
"I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America," Bezos wrote. "I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void."
In announcing the shift, the billionaire media mogul championed the changes as based in American principles anchored in "freedom." This freedom, Bezos emphasized, "is ethical, it minimizes coercion, and practical, it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity."
As a basis for the change, Bezos noted that legacy opinion sections have become outdated and have been replaced by the internet.
"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 via X. "Today, the internet does that job."
David Shipley leaves the Post
Bezos also shared that David Shipley, the Post's editorial page editor, would part ways with the company. Shipley had been offered a role in leading Bezos' planned changes but decided to step away instead.
"I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter," Bezos wrote on X. "I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't ‘hell yes,' then it had to be ‘no.' After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won't be easy, and it will require 100% commitment, I respect his decision."
Bezos said the Post will search for a new opinion editor to "own" the paper's new editorial direction.
In an email to the Post's editorial team obtained by CNN, Shipley noted his decision to leave the publisher was reached "after reflection on how I can best move forward in the profession I love."
"I will always be thankful for the opportunity I was given to work alongside a team of opinion journalists whose commitment to strong, innovative, reported commentary inspired me every day, and was affirmed by two Pulitzer Prizes and two Loeb Awards in two short years," Shipley wrote in the email.
Washington Post CEO defends the decision
Following the transformation's internal announcement, Will Lewis, the paper's publisher and chief executive, noted in an internal email obtained by CNN that the "recalibrate[ion]" was "not about siding with any political party," but, rather, about "being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper."
"Doing this is a critical part of serving as a premier news publication across America and for all Americans," Lewis wrote to Post staffers.
As Shipley exits the Post on Friday, Lewis said he would put together an interim arrangement, adding that the editorial page editor's replacement would be announced in "due course", and be "someone who is wholehearted in their support for free markets and personal liberties."
