“I love the Post,” Ruth Marcus wrote at the end of her resignation letter. “It breaks my heart to conclude that I must leave.”
~ Ruth … wow I know other girls born on 15 May they sure are resistors like no other
Washington Post columnist resigns after her critical column is spiked
Ruth Marcus, a 40-year Post veteran, quit after the publisher refused to run her column on owner Jeff Bezos, adding to a wave of high-profile exits
A former Washington Post columnist writes about her exit from the paper
After the Post’s publisher killed her column, Ruth Marcus asked for a meeting. He refused.
Top Washington Post columnist quits after piece critical of Bezos is scrapped Ruth Marcus dissented from paper’s new opinion policy of supporting only ‘personal liberties and free markets’
Washington Post veteran quits after Bezos-critical article killed
Washington | Washington Post opinion editor and columnist Ruth Marcus has resigned from the newspaper after chief executive Will Lewis killed a column she wrote that criticised recent changes made by Post owner Jeff Bezos.
Other top journalists have left following major changes at the paper, including Bezos’ decision to limit what he described as viewpoints opposing “personal liberties and free markets” in the Post’s opinion section.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony in January. AP
According to her resignation letter obtained by NPR, Marcus, who had been with the Post for more than 40 years, wrote that “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”.
A spokesperson for the Post didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Post opinion section editor, David Shipley, stepped down in February following Bezos’ changes. Multiple Post editors and reporters exited in October after the paper decided to stop endorsing presidential candidates and killed a planned endorsement of former vice president Kamala Harris.
That caused some 300,000 digital subscribers to cancel their subscriptions, according to NPR. More than 75,000 digital subscribers cancelled in the 48 hours after Bezos made his decision regarding the opinion section last month.
Since purchasing the Post in 2013, Bezos, the Amazon.com co-founder, had originally remained largely distant from editorial coverage. After an early, testy rivalry with President Donald Trump that stretched back nearly a decade, Bezos had largely muffled his criticisms under Trump’s earlier presidency.
The world’s third-richest person has now been accused of prioritising his own commercial interests over the Post. Bezos has businesses with contracts worth billions of dollars that depend on the federal government, including Amazon cloud-computing services and his Blue Origin space company.
Separately, Amazon said on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) it would air the first seven seasons of The Apprentice, the reality competition TV show hosted by Trump before he ran for president.
The first season, which debuted in 2004, will appear on Prime Video this week. A new season will be available each week culminating with the seventh season in April.
Amazon is also licensing a documentary about the first lady, Melania Trump, that is scheduled to be released later this year.
