In yet another reason to cancel your subscription to The Washington Post, my former newspaper of record reached a new low.
This week, billionaire owner Jeff Bezos announced that the Post’s opinion section will now focus exclusively on promoting “personal liberties and free markets.”
That means any dissenting opinions are no longer welcome. Debate, discussion, and opposing viewpoints—the backbone of a healthy editorial page—have been thrown out in favor of a rigid ideological agenda.
It’s a full-scale surrender to corporate interests and right-wing ideology, dressed up in the familiar buzzwords of libertarian capitalism.
David Shipley, the paper’s editorial page editor, immediately resigned in protest. And who could blame him? When a newspaper owner explicitly dictates that only certain viewpoints will be published, it’s no longer an editorial board—it’s a corporate PR department.
Bezos himself has made it clear that if you don’t agree with his vision, you can take your ideas elsewhere.
And that is precisely the problem.
Journalism exists to challenge power, to investigate, to debate, and to hold those in charge accountable. By narrowing its editorial focus to serve Bezos’s newfound ideology, The Washington Post has signaled that it is no longer interested in real discussion. It is now a megaphone for a specific, billionaire-approved worldview—one that just so happens to align perfectly with the interests of corporate America and the political right.
This doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is part of a broader trend of mainstream media, particularly corporate-owned outlets, contorting themselves to accommodate the political landscape shaped by Donald Trump and his allies.
The phrase “free markets” in today’s political climate is shorthand for deregulation, corporate tax breaks, and policies that benefit the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else. “Personal liberties,” meanwhile, has been co-opted by reactionaries pushing everything from attacks on reproductive rights to dismantling worker protections.
This is the language of the modern right, and Bezos has now decreed that it will be the guiding philosophy of The Washington Post’s editorial page.
His decision comes just months after he reportedly blocked the Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. That move alone led to widespread backlash, staff resignations, and subscriber cancellations. But rather than course-correct, Bezos has doubled down. He has taken one of the most historically significant newspapers in the world and turned its opinion section into a mouthpiece for corporate libertarianism.
This is the logical conclusion of billionaire-owned media. When newspapers are controlled by the ultra-wealthy, they inevitably serve the interests of the ultra-wealthy. Bezos is not an ideological purist—he’s a businessman. And what benefits businesses more than an editorial section that will now advocate, without question, for the same economic policies that keep billionaires like him in power?
This latest move from Bezos is yet another nail in the coffin of mainstream journalism as we’ve known it. If The Washington Post, a paper that once helped bring down a corrupt president, is now just another billionaire’s ideological pet project, what hope is there for journalistic integrity at other corporate-owned outlets?
And yet, there is reason for hope.
While Bezos can dictate The Washington Post’s editorial stance, he cannot dictate the truth.
People still crave real journalism. Independent media, nonprofit newsrooms, and investigative reporters are still doing the work that corporate media refuses to do. While mainstream outlets continue their slow transformation into stenographers for the powerful, there will always be a demand for truth.
Bezos’s Washington Post may have decided to abandon real discourse in favor of a corporate-friendly, right-wing agenda. But that doesn’t mean readers have to accept it.
Cancel corporate media subscriptions. Support local outlets as you would groceries. The truth will always find a way forward—whether or not The Washington Post chooses to be part of it.
