April 4, 2025
A veteran opinion columnist quits The Washington Submit in response to Jeff Bezos’ overhaul of the part.
Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist Eugene Robinson resigned from The Washington Submit on April 4 in response to the paper’s billionaire proprietor saying plans to shift the part’s focus to “free markets and private liberties.”
Robinson expressed his continued assist for the Submit however cited Jeff Bezos’ overhaul of the opinion part because the catalyst for his resolution, writing that it “spurred me to determine that it’s time for my subsequent chapter.”
“I needed to let that I’ve determined to depart The Submit,” Robinson wrote to his colleagues in an e mail, as cited by The New York Instances. “The introduced ‘important shift’ in our part’s mission has spurred me to determine that it’s time for my subsequent chapter.”
A spokesperson for the Washington Submit referred to Robinson’s departure as a “retirement” following his 40-plus years on the newspaper, which started in 1980 earlier than he moved to the opinion part in 2005. His columns on the 2008 presidential marketing campaign, which highlighted the election of the primary African American president, earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2009.
“For 45 years, his reporting and commentary spanned continents and beats, incomes numerous recognitions, together with a Pulitzer Prize,“ the spokesperson mentioned. ”Eugene’s robust perspective and impeccable integrity have frequently formed our public discourse, cementing his legacy as a number one voice in American journalism.”
Robinson’s departure follows his look on MSNBC in February, the place he criticized Bezos for signaling the paper’s shift to the precise, stating that such a transfer would result in his exit.
“For many people, that is, to cite Elon Musk, a ‘fork-in-the-road second’ as a result of these sorts of constructions—no matter they grow to be—aren’t what we thought we had signed up for,“ Robinson mentioned on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “This isn’t the way in which now we have labored to supply what’s, I imagine, objectively the perfect opinion part in American journalism.”
Robinson has since confirmed that he’s retiring from The Submit, however not from journalism, and has but to determine about his subsequent transfer.
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