Ex-Washington Post columnist details departure from paper after editor killed column critical of Bezos

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Former Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus detailed her exit from the paper in a Wednesday piece for The New Yorker, calling out the paper's publisher for killing her column critical of the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos, just weeks after he announced major changes to the opinion section. 

"I stayed until I no longer could-until the newspaper's owner, Jeff Bezos, issued an edict that the Post's opinion offerings would henceforth concentrate on the twin pillars of 'personal liberties and free markets,' and, even more worrisome, that 'viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.' I stayed until the Post's publisher, Will Lewis, killed a column I filed last week expressing my disagreement with this new direction. Lewis refused my request to meet," Marcus wrote.

Several Washington Post employees have left the paper since Bezos blocked the editorial board from endorsing former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election over President Donald Trump. Bezos announced in February that the opinion section would be focused on writing "in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

Marcus explained she was told by higher-ups that the column she wrote disagreeing with Bezos' direction for the opinion page "did not pass the 'high bar' required for the Post to write about itself."

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"It was 'too speculative,' because we couldn't know, until a new opinion editor was named, what the impact of the new direction would be," Marcus wrote, noting the feedback she got from Mary Duenwald, a deputy opinion editor at the Post. "I know of no other episode at the Washington Post, and I have checked with longtime employees at the paper, when a publisher has ordered a column killed."

Marcus said the "too speculative" excuse took Bezos "for a feckless fool, which he is most certainly not."

"He announced a change in direction, and we should take him at his word, not assume that it was meaningless, or that he would forget about the idea. And my point was not only about what columns would get through the filter, once installed; it was about maintaining the trust of our readers. I asked to speak with Lewis. He declined to see me, instructing an editor to inform me that there was no reason to meet, because his decision was final," she continued. 

Marcus, who worked at the paper for 40 years, also called out Post publisher Will Lewis in her resignation letter for killing the column and said the freedom of columnists to write about what they want had been "dangerously eroded."

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Marcus described what she believed was a change of heart throughout Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post, noting that the paper had endorsed former President Biden in 2020 with "no disagreement from the owner."

"I wish we could return to the newspaper of a not so distant past. But that is not to be, and here is the unavoidable truth: the Washington Post I joined, the one I came to love, is not the Washington Post I left," she concluded. 

Marcus joined several staffers who have left the Post, including former columnist Jennifer Rubin, who was also very critical of the paper's owner upon her departure.

Marcus also included in her New Yorker article the column that was killed, which rebuked Bezos' changes to the opinion section.

"It was one thing when the owner chose to dispense with Presidential endorsements. The editorial page, consisting of unsigned editorials, reflects the views of the owner. Signed opinions express the views of their creator. My job is supposed to be to tell you what I think, not what Jeff Bezos thinks I should think," she wrote. 

The Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.