Ruth Marcus Resigns After WaPo Kills Column on Jeff Bezos

Washington Post opinion columnist and associate editor Ruth Marcus has resigned over the decision by publisher Will Lewis not to publish her column about Jeff Bezos’s overhaul of the newspaper’s editorial section.

Marcus’s departure was first reported on Monday by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, who also acquired her resignation letter.

In it, Marcus wrote:

Will’s decision to not… run the column that I wrote respectfully dissenting from Jeff’s edict – something that I have not experienced in almost two decades of column-writing – underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded.

I love The Post. It breaks my heart to conclude that I must leave. I have the deepest affection and admiration for my colleagues and will miss them every day. And I wish you both the best as you steer this storied and critical institution through troubled times.

The columnist’s resignation follows that of editorial page editor David Shipley, who stepped down in February after Bezos unveiled a striking shift for The Post’s opinion section.

In a message to staff, Bezos made clear that the editorial pages would now be dedicated to “personal liberties and free markets” in a memo that mandated a “new direction.” Shipley, reportedly unconvinced by the new vision, opted to leave rather than steer The Post’s rebranded editorial direction.

Marcus criticized Bezos’s changes directly in her letter: “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.”

As Mediaite’s Sarah Rumpf noted, since Bezos memo the opinion section has maintained a largely critical tone regarding President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.