Washington Post Editor Ruth Marcus resigned over CEO William Lewis' decision not to run her column "respectfully dissenting" from the newspaper's new editorial policy, it was reported Monday.
Marcus' decision came less than two weeks after Post owner Jeff Bezos said the newspaper's opinion pages would emphasize "personal liberties and free markets."
"It is with great sadness that I submit my resignation as columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post," Marcus wrote in a letter to Bezos and Lewis, according to New York Times reporter Ben Mullin.
After saying she "cherished" her "four decades at the Post" in various roles, Marcus added that as "an opinion writer, I was equally honored to offer commentary that readers could be assured constituted my best independent judgment of the topic at hand."
"Unfortunately, on the opinions side of the newspaper, that appears to be no longer the case," she wrote. "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.
"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."
Bezos last month explained the new direction of the Post’s opinions section while announcing that Opinion Editor David Shipley "decided to step away" from the newspaper.
At time, Lewis wrote in a memo to staff that the changes to the opinion section were not about "siding with any political party."
"This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper," he said. "Doing this is a critical part of serving as a premier news publication across America and for all Americans."
A 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist in commentary, Marcus last month wrote an opinion column with the headline, "Trump 2.0: The most damaging first two weeks in presidential history."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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