Even as the government has changed in the US, the editorial stances of its newspapers are changing too.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has said that the paper will no longer carry opinion pieces that argue against free markets and personal liberties. “I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning: I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others,” he posted on X.
“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. Today, the internet does that job,” Bezos added.
“I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity,” Bezos said.
“I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction. I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void,” Bezos said.
Bezos had bought the Washington Post for $250 million in 2013. For the longest time, he’d let the paper operate independently without his intervention. The paper had been extremely critical of Donald Trump in all of his last three election campaigns. But Bezos had appeared to praise Trump after the latter had been shot at in an assassination attempt, and the paper had not endorsed Kamala Harris, choosing to not endorse any candidate for the first time in several decades. Once Trump has come to power, Bezos appears to be directly altering Washington Post’s stance from its original hard-left to being more to the center.
But this might not go down well with Washington Post’s readers. The paper has cultivated a left-leaning audience over the years, and they might not take kindly to having the paper’s editorial stances determined by a “billionaire”, especially how the paper has been attacking billionaires over the years. But with Bezos now taking a centrist stand with a formerly left-leaning paper, and Elon Musk too changing X’s policies to being more centrist, it appears that Donald Trump’s second term as US President is bringing changes to the American media landscape.