Longtime Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus is walking away from the newspaper after the publisher refused to run a column she wrote criticizing owner Jeff Bezos’ new vision for the opinion section, according to a resignation letter obtained by several media outlets.
Marcus, who’s been at the Post for the past four decades, said in her letter to publisher Will Lewis ― who she says spiked the column ― and billionaire owner Bezos that it “breaks my heart” to leave under these circumstances.
“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,” Marcus wrote.
Lewis’ decision to not run the column “dissenting from Jeff’s edict ― something that I have not experienced in almost two decades of column-writing ― underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded,” she continued.
Marcus’ departure comes nearly two weeks after Bezos announced the paper’s editorial pages would be overhauled to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.”
“We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others,” Bezos wrote.
The change prompted opinion editor David Shipley to resign and was met with criticism from others at the paper.
Marty Baron, the Post’s former executive editor, also slammed Bezos’ decision in an MSNBC appearance.
“He’s saying that only his point of view is going to be represented on those pages, and that really is a betrayal of the heritage of The Washington Post and, I think, a betrayal of the very idea of free expression,” he said.
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More than 75,000 of the Post’s digital subscribers canceled in the 48 hours after Bezos made the announcement, an NPR report found. That was after the paper reportedly hemorrhaged more than 200,000 subscribers late last year when Bezos announced the paper would no longer make presidential endorsements.
Bezos is one of several tech tycoons who’ve cozied up to President Donald Trump. The Amazon founder was among those who donated large sums to Trump’s inaugural fund and dined with him at Mar-a-Lago in December.