The Washington Post has its new opinion editor, the publication announced Wednesday, as owner Jeff Bezos revamps the opinions section.
Bezos in February announced the Post would be doing away with its traditional broad opinion programming in favor of a section focused on pro-”personal liberties and free markets” editorials. The role of a news publication in setting the stakes for public discourse had changed, he said.
“There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views,” Bezos wrote in a note to staff. “Today, the internet does that job.”
Adam O’Neal, Washington correspondent at The Economist and the former executive editor of The Dispatch, will helm the revamped section, and introduced himself in a video on X on Wednesday. In his message, O’Neal doubled down on his new boss’s goals.
“Our philosophy will be rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country,” he said. “What we won’t be are people who lecture you about ideology or demand you think certain ways about policy.”
Newspaper staff have stressed that Bezos has not sought to change the paper’s news coverage. But it isn’t the first time the famed publication’s owner has influenced its opinion coverage.
Last October, Bezos halted the Post’s practice of endorsing presidential candidates, spiking the editorial board’s plans to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the general election. That move triggered backlash from many of the paper’s opinion writers and its former top editor, Marty Baron. Several members of the editorial board stepped down in protest.
The Post’s readership revolted, too. Some 250,000 people reportedly canceled their subscriptions.