A former Washington Post columnist has opened up about why his title wasn’t “worth keeping at any cost” after he quit the Jeff Bezos-owned paper and accused editors of killing a column for being “too opinionated.”
Joe Davidson — who joined the paper in 2005 and wrote the “Federal Insider” column since 2008 — took to Facebook on Tuesday to break down the “death blow” to his time at the paper, claiming that he was subjected to an inconsistently applied editorial policy.
Davidson wrote that the now-dead column saw him declare that “one hallmark of President Donald Trump’s first three, turbulent months in office is his widespread, ominous attack on thought, belief and speech.”
He added that he doesn’t believe Bezos — who has kissed Trump’s ring since his election win — was directly involved in the decision but he’d be “naïve to ignore the context.”
“As a columnist, I can’t live with that level of constraint. A column without commentary made me a columnist without a column,” Davidson wrote.
Davidson’s exit follows a number of other journalists who have waved goodbye to the Post in recent months including at least two Pulitzer Prize winners and longtime columnist Ruth Marcus.
Bezos, roughly a month after attending Trump’s inauguration with his now-wife Lauren Sánchez Bezos, was met with backlash in the newsroom when he announced an overhaul of the paper’s opinion section to focus on the “two pillars” of “personal liberties and free markets.”
The move followed Bezos reportedly spiking an editorial board endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
In an email to Post staffers earlier this week, the paper’s CEO Will Lewis informed those who “do not feel aligned” with plans for the company’s future to consider taking a pending buyout offer set to expire at the end of July, The New York Times reported.
Davidson, in his post to Facebook, said the billionaire’s “policies and activities have projected the image of a Donald Trump supplicant” since the president’s election win.
Despite Bezos’ actions that have “damaged the news organization’s integrity,” he noted that the paper’s coverage of Trump remains “strong” and he still is subscribed to the Post as he continues to support its journalists.
“When Bezos bought The Post, he provided needed money, energy and direction. The Post continues to produce first rate journalism now, despite his morale-busting actions,” he wrote.
You can read more of Davidson’s Facebook post, which accuses the paper of further restrictions to his pieces, here.
HuffPost has reached out to the Post, which was not immediately available for comment.
