Thursday, February 27, 2025
PMT: Striking Changes at the Washington Post
Yesterday, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos (who also owns Amazon and is pictured above with one of his other projects) announced that in the future the opinion section of the paper would focus on "personal liberties and free markets." This is an odd development in several respects.
For one thing, the Post's opinion section, like most others, has historically run pieces addressing a very wide variety of issues with opinions on both sides. The new "focus," though moves away from that in two ways. First, in sharply narrows the topics that will be prioritized for space. second, those two topics presumably have a "right" side-- that is, in favor of personal liberties and free markets.
Over the past decade, I've had five or six pieces run in the Post, on a variety of topics. It provides a good audience, but this marks a strange turn.
It's tempting to assume this is some kind of appeasement to President Trump, but if it is, these are strange topics to focus on-- after all, Trump and his tariffs are anathema to the "free market."
Time will tell, but some people aren't waiting. The Post's Opinions editor, David Shipley, resigned immediately after the announcement was made.
