Washington Post columnist who resigned over a spiked Bezos op-ed ‘fears’ readers can’t trust opinion writers

Ruth Marcus, who recently resigned as a Washington Post columnist after four decades, said she parted ways with the paper following a spiked opinion piece on the paper’s billionaire owner because her job is to tell readers “what I think, not what Jeff Bezos thinks I should think.”

Ruth Marcus, who recently resigned as a Washington Post columnist after four decades, said she parted ways with the paper following a spiked opinion piece on the paper’s billionaire owner because her job is to tell readers “what I think, not what Jeff Bezos thinks I should think.” In a New Yorker piece that was published less than 48 hours after her resignation, Marcus shared more details about the events that led to her departure — and raised concerns about what Bezos’ changes could mean for the future of the paper’s opinion coverage. The New Yorker piece also includes a column written by Marcus that was spiked by the Post’s chief executive and publisher Will Lewis. One week ago, Bezos announced the opinion section would focus on two “pillars,” personal liberties and free markets, while “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.” Several Post staffers have publicly called out the change, which is reported to have led to 75,000 readers ending their subscriptions in less than 48 hours, and opinion editor David Shipley resigned after being asked to lead the overhauled opinion desk. Marcus’ blocked piece only gently raised issues with Bezos’ overhaul. Marcus’ column was scrapped for allegedly failing to meet the Post’s “high bar” and for being “too speculative,” since the impact of Bezos’ actions wouldn’t be known until a new opinion editor was named, Mary Duenwald, the Post’s deputy opinion editor, according to the New Yorker piece. When Marcus asked to meet with Lewis over his choice to scrap her column, her request was denied “because his decision was final.” That’s when Marcus says she resigned. Marcus called her column “meek to the point of embarrassing” — a fact that makes her resignation all the more alarming. The column, as she points out, neither mentions Bezos’ months-long attempts to curry favor with President Donald Trump nor questions Bezos’ motives. It simply disagrees with Bezos’ decision.