The columnist, who worked for the Washington Post for 40 years, resigned on Monday after newspaper management said it had decided not to implement critical commentary on owner Jeff Bezos’s new editorial policy.
“It breaks my heart to conclude that I have to leave,” Ruth Marcus, who has worked in the newspaper since 1984, wrote in his letter of resignation.
Her exit is the latest fallout from the orders of the billionaire owner. This means that the post narrows the topics covered in the Personal Freedom and Free Market Opinions section. David Shipley, editor of newspaper opinion, had already resigned due to the shift.
The prestigious newspaper has fallen financially and editorially free for the past year. Marcus, who worked in the news and opinion department during her career, “embodies the foundations of the Washington Post, the history of the place and the talent and achievements of journalists,” says former media reporter Paul Farhe.
Marcus, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2007, said Post’s publisher Will Lewis refused to run her column. She said it was the first time she had killed in a writing column that had almost 20 years.
The decision “emphasizes that the traditional freedom of columnists emphasizes that they choose the topic they want to deal with and that they think they have dangerously eroded,” she wrote. Her letter of resignation was first reported by the New York Times.
A spokesman for the Post said Monday, “We are grateful for Ruth’s great contributions to the Washington Post over the past 40 years. We respect her decision to leave and hope for her best.”
Pablo Martinez Monsiweis / AP
Bezos and Lewis have the right to make such a decision – they are bosses – “It wasn’t a tradition,” Farhi said. He compared it to how the Department of Justice, technically under White House control, is generally independently operated. Editorial writers and columnists were paid to express their views and decided what they normally should write, he said.
The danger is that by deciding publishers not to move the column forward, they will ask readers whether the writer’s perspective is really their own, he said. What’s worse, it could pollute the news sector, which is actively covering the new administration on most accounts.
A separate posting story about the issue by media columnist Eric Wemple was discarded shortly after the decision to make the editorial page was announced almost two weeks ago, according to Gene Poole, a blog written by the original post office’s Jean Weingarten. Wemple declined to comment Monday.
In January, editorial cartoonist Anne Ternaes resigned after a job portraying Bezos and other billionaires who had been genuinely folded before the statue of President Donald Trump was rejected, Shipley explained at the time, because it was a repetition of other opinions.
Under executive editor Matt Murray, the post also said he would refrain from writing journalists on issues relating to newspapers, Wemple said in a January chat with readers that “I can’t resist more strongly.”
Monday’s Post Office opinion included an editor opposed a $10 billion lawsuit against a firearms manufacturer, a U.S. Supreme Court case. Columnist Max Boots wrote about Trump, Russia, Perry Bacon Jr., about democratic resistance to Trump’s central focus, and Philip wrote about Jim Gerati whether Trump will pay political prices for unpopular policies about Syrian violence.
The post, which earned money during the first Trump administration, has lost money in recent years, and that internal struggle began mainly in June last year. Several well-known postjournalists, Ashley Parker, Josh Dorsey, Philip Rucker, Mattia Gold, Jackie Alemany, Michael Scheller and Will Somer, have left for other jobs.
Last fall, Bezos led to the departure of subscribers fighting for recovery last fall, when editorial staff prepared to support Democrat Kamala Harris, and then the newspapers left the country, fighting for a recovery.
Post’s executive editor Marty Baron wrote that in 2013, Bezos “brought over ten years of ownership” last week in the Atlantic when he purchased the paper in 2013.
Marcus’ resignation on Monday overshadowed plans for the newsroom reorganization introduced by Murray, including separating the Post’s digital and print product workflows.
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David Bauder writes about the media on the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
