Cartoon by Ann Telnaes, long-time political cartoonist for The Washington Post, who recently resigned because one of her cartoons was pulled for the viewpoint it expressed.
NPR reports: “More than 75,000 digital subscribers to The Washington Post have cancelled since its owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced on Wednesday that he would radically overhaul the paper’s opinion pages to reflect libertarian priorities and to exclude opposing points of view.
Wednesday’s announcement led to the immediate resignation of Opinions Editor David Shipley. He had vainly sought to persuade Bezos to drop the plans, according to a person with direct knowledge. Shipley did not respond to requests for comment.”
Bezos’ decision also prompted an outcry from longtime Post figures, including Associate Editor David Maraniss and former Executive Editor Marty Baron. Baron called the move “craven” and told Zeteo News that Bezos, whom he praised extensively in his 2023 memoir, was “basically fearful” of President Trump.
“The rapid-fire cancellations since Wednesday represent a historic level of reader fury over the changes. Yet they are only the most recent wave in a series of mass cancellations that began in late October. That was when Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Between then and Election Day, more than 300,000 subscribers canceled the Post, as NPR first reported last month. That was more than 12% of digital subscribers, which make up the vast majority of the paper’s paid circulation.” NPR
