Ex-Washington Post editor Marty Baron rebukes Bezos: 'betrayal of free expression'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Fri 28 Feb 2025 05.00 EST
Last modified on Fri 28 Feb 2025 06.45 EST


Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”. In an interview with the Guardian, Baron also said: “I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.”

On Wednesday, the billionaire newspaper owner and Amazon founder sent an email to Post staffers announcing that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome, and other viewpoints “will be left to be published by others”.

Bezos’s announcement was met with criticism and resulted in the departure of the newspaper’s opinions editor, David Shipley. Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post from 2012 until 2021 and is one of the most esteemed figures in American journalism, blasted Bezos’s decision.

“There’s been a long tradition at the Post of having a variety of opinions on the opinion pages and that’s part of its heritage,” Baron said. “Bezos supported that since he acquired the paper, he advocated for that internally, but his most recent decision represents a real betrayal of the heritage of the Post and a betrayal of the very idea of free expression.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/marty-baron-jeff-bezos-washington-post

[wiggs]

1. If this is the stance on the editorial page, I suspect the rest of the WP may be shaped by bias as well. 'Free

espression', straight news, objective reporting, freedom of the press, etc are starting to sound quaint....

MSM and big tech sometimes appear to have other priorities.

I once again post Cliff Robertson's ending quote in 'Three Days of the Condor'....How do you know they'll print it?

[mathematic]

2. Ridiculous journalistic self-aggrandizement. Journalism has always and forever been about the views of the publisher.

Journalists love holding themselves out there as if they represent the public at large. They do not. They represent themselves and they get published when they align with the message of their publisher. This is true of Fox. This is true of The Times. This is true of The Guardian. This is true of Russia Today and of the BBC. This is true of The Post yesterday and today.

Defining the editorial scope of your newspaper is not an attack on free speech. It's a fundamental aspect of journalism. It always has been and always will be.

Note that The Guardian benefits commercially and influentially if they can undermine the legitimacy of The Post and at no point in this editorial do they point out this conflict of interest.

[live love laugh]

4. The control and ownership by majority Republican oligarchs is the issue.

Before monopolization and deregulation outlets were opinionated but not in lockstep.

[live love laugh]

3. I'm amazed that it took this long to see the consequences of monopolistic media.

And It’ll get worse before it gets better.

[mdbl]

5. There are going to be so many right-wing rags

they will have to compete for magat subscriptions. I certainly won't read them.