Washington Post op-ed writer quits after paper refuses to publish piece critical of Bezos

Journalist Ruth Marcus, who has worked for the Washington Post since 1984, has stood down after a row over the paper refusing to run an opinion piece by her that was critical of owner Jeff Bezos.

“It breaks my heart to conclude that I must leave,” Marcus wrote in a resignation letter. Marcus said that the Post's publisher, Will Lewis, declined to run her column, which she described as “respectfully dissenting” from Bezos' edict. It was the first time in nearly 20 years of writing columns that she's had one killed, she said.

The decision “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 wrote.

Last month, Amazon-founder Bezos announced that the Post’s opinion columns would no longer be a free-for-all for individual author’s thoughts. Instead, it would focus on two specific themes: “personal liberties and free markets”.

Making the announcement on X, the billionaire wrote: “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

A Post spokesperson said Monday that “we're grateful for Ruth's significant contributions to The Washington Post over the past 40 years. We respect her decision to leave and wish her the best.”

Marcus’s exit is the latest fallout from Bezos’s announcement. The newspaper's opinions editor, David Shipley, resigned because of the shift.

“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,” Bezos wrote.

The storied newspaper has been in a free fall, financially and editorially, over the past year. Marcus, who worked in the news and opinion departments during her career, is “the bedrock of The Washington Post, embodying the history of the place as well as the talent and accomplishments of its journalists,” said Paul Farhi, a former media reporter there.

Marcus’s departure could signal to readers that the Post’s opinion pieces are no longer truly the viewpoints of the journalists behind them, suggests Farhi.

Shortly after the editorial page decision was announced nearly two weeks ago, another Post story on the issue, by media columnist Erik Wemple, was scrapped, according to the Gene Pool, a blog written by former Post writer Gene Weingarten. Wemple declined to comment.

In January, editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned after her work depicting Bezos and other billionaires genuflecting before a statue of President Donald Trump was rejected, a decision Shipley explained at the time was because it was repetitive of other opinion pieces.

Amazon was one of the many tech firms that gave $1 million donations to Trump’s inauguration, and alongside the Post’s refusal to make a presidential endorsement (having backed only Democrats since 1976), Bezos has joined the ranks of the many tech billionaires kowtowing to the new executive-in-chief.

The announcement, weeks before the November election, sparked a wave of resignations and thousands of subscription cancellations. Journalists Molly Roberts, David E. Hoffman and Mili Mitra announced their departures after the paper pulled away from their anticipated endorsement of Kamala Harris.

The Post, which made money during the first Trump administration, has been losing money in recent years and its internal strife largely began last June, when Sally Buzbee quit as executive editor rather than accept a newsroom reorganization. Several prominent Post journalists – among them Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Philip Rucker, Matea Gold, Jackie Alemany, Michael Scherer and Will Sommer – have left for other jobs.