The Washington Post on Wednesday announced it has a new Opinion editor. The move comes four months after it announced a “significant shift” to the Opinion page and the departure of its embattled section chief.
Adam O’Neal, who currently serves as The Economist’s Washington correspondent, will take over as the Post’s top Opinion editor, the outlet announced in an X post that includes an introductory video from O’Neal.
“We’re also going to be stalwart advocates of free markets and personal liberties. We’ll be unapologetically patriotic, too,” O’Neal said in the video. “Our philosophy will be rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country.”
The Opinion section won’t “lecture” readers about ideologies or “demand you think certain ways about policy,” O’Neal said. The stance falls in line with the vision articulated four months prior by the Post’s owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Bezos also mentioned free markets and personal liberties when describing the section’s new mandate, which drew backlash from some staffers — including from Marty Baron, the Post’s revered former executive editor under whom the outlet won 11 Pulitzer Prizes — and praise from some conservatives.
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote in a February X post. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
As part of the February announcement, Bezos noted that David Shipley, O’Neal’s predecessor, had been offered the opportunity to continue leading the section under the new directive but that Shipley had “decided to step away.”
Shipley’s departure from the Post followed four months of mounting criticism from Post staffers and readers. The storied newspaper drew criticism for its eleventh-hour choice not to endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, which led to several editorial board members resigning and more than 200,000 subscribers canceling their digital subscriptions. Shipley also decided not to run a cartoon satirizing the relationship between Bezos and US President Donald Trump from Ann Telnaes, leading to the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist’s resignation.
Since Shipley’s departure, deputy Opinion editor Mary Duenwald has served as interim section chief. No start date has been announced for O’Neal.
In a Wednesday email to staffers obtained by CNN, Will Lewis, the Post’s chief executive and publisher, noted that O’Neal “recognizes the importance of ensuring our opinion coverage is relevant, accessible, and consequential for readers who feel underserved.”
“His appointment is about more than just filling a role; it is about connecting our editorial voice to the real concerns and conversations happening across America,” Lewis said.
In the email, Lewis similarly championed Bezos’ mandate for the Opinion section: He said its new direction is not “aligned to any political party” but instead presents “an opportunity for our Opinion section to share the best of American values.”
O’Neal’s hiring comes just over two weeks after the Post offered voluntary buyouts to Opinion staffers, the Post’s video and copy desks and any news employees who have been at the paper for 10 years or more. The buyout offers run through the end of July.
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