A longtime Washington Post news columnist said he quit the paper after his editors spiked a column for being too opinionated, a move he said was “a death blow” to his job.
Joe Davidson published his final edition of the paper’s long-running “Federal Insider” column last month, where he revealed he would be leaving the paper “because of a policy restricting the level of opinion and commentary in news section articles.” The 75-year-old columnist joined the paper in 2005, and has written the column since 2008.
Davidson became the latest name to exit the Post since Bezos’ announcement, joining a coterie of news and opinion writers to leave in protest. Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist Eugene Robinson left the paper in April and said Bezos’ move “spurred me to decide that it’s time for my next chapter.”
Davidson’s revelation came a day before CEO Will Lewis urged staffers to strongly consider the paper’s pending buyout offer, which expires at the end of the month.
“The moment demands that we continue to rethink all aspects of our organization and business to maximize our impact,” Lewis wrote in an email to WaPo staffers, according to The New York Times. “If we want to reconnect with our audience and continue to defend democracy, more changes at The Post will be necessary. And to succeed, we need to be united as a team with a strong belief and passion in where we are heading.”
Davidson expanded on his decision in a lengthy Facebook post on Tuesday, saying he made his choice because he “can’t live with that level of constraint.”
“Washington Post Columnist. What a great title in the world of journalism,” he wrote on Facebook. “But it’s not worth keeping at any cost.”
Neither Davidson nor The Washington Post responded to an immediate request for comment.
Davidson said in the Facebook post the spiked piece centered on what he believed was a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term, “his widespread, ominous attack on thought, belief and speech,” and referenced federal officials’ comments and Trump’s own executive orders.
But the Post spiked the column, according to Davidson. He said he tried to write two more pieces to test his resilience under the new policy, but that he bristled when editors objected to his use of “well-deserved” when describing a potential pay raise for federal employees.
Davidson said he had no reason to believe billionaire Post owner Jeff Bezos was responsible for the decision, though he said it would be “it would be naïve to ignore the context.”
Bezos announced plans to reshape the Post‘s opinion pages toward the traditionally conservative values of free markets and personal liberties, and his companies have made appeals to Trump since the inauguration. Bezos named The Economist‘s Adam O’Neal as the section’s new editor last month.
It came after Bezos killed the opinion section’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.
“Bezos’s policies and activities have projected the image of a Donald Trump supplicant. The result: fleeing journalists, plummeting morale and disappearing subscriptions,” Davidson wrote.
“Nonetheless, Post coverage of Trump remains strong,” he added. “Yet the policy against opinion in News section columns means less critical scrutiny of Trump—a result coinciding with Bezos’ unseemly and well-documented coziness with the president.”
Davidson said the policy was applied inconsistently, claiming other staffers managed to use words such as “cruelty” and “meanness” to describe Trump’s policies.
“As a columnist, I can’t live with that level of constraint,” he wrote. “A column without commentary made me a columnist without a column.”
Davidson said he would maintain his Post subscription and praised its “enduring” work. But he acknowledged that Bezos’ actions have hurt morale.
“When Bezos bought The Post, he provided needed money, energy, and direction,” he wrote. “The Post continues to produce first-rate journalism now, despite his morale-busting actions.”
The post WaPo Columnist Flames Jeff Bezos After Quitting in Protest appeared first on The Daily Beast.
