Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist for The Washington Post, said she was fired last week after posting on social media about gun violence and “racial double standards” following the assassination of the right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
In a post on Substack announcing her firing, Ms. Attiah cited several social media posts made in the wake of Mr. Kirk’s death that expressed antipathy toward political violence and frustration with the lack of effort to curb gun violence. In one post, she criticized inaction from “white America,” which she said “is not going to do what it needs to do to get rid of guns in their country.”
She wrote that The Post said her social media posts were “unacceptable,” “gross misconduct” and endangered “the physical safety of colleagues,” charges she rejects.
A Washington Post spokeswoman declined to comment. The organization’s policies and standards say that Post employees are expected to use social media responsibly and civilly, and to treat people with respect.
The company’s opinion section has been reshaped over the past year after an edict from Jeff Bezos, its owner, declaring that The Post would embrace “personal liberties and free markets.”
That decision led to the exit of David Shipley, The Post’s opinion editor, as well as several of his colleagues. He was replaced by Adam O’Neal, a former correspondent for The Economist who was previously an editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal.
Numerous workplaces have cut ties with employees who have made public remarks about Mr. Kirk’s assassination. MSNBC last week fired Matthew Dowd, a political analyst, who said on air that Mr. Kirk “pushed” hate speech. In some cases, right-wing influencers are encouraging people to scour the internet for remarks celebrating the killing and contact their employers.
Ms. Attiah did not celebrate Mr. Kirk’s death. She said in her Substack post that she exercised “restraint even as I condemned hatred and violence.” One post cited Mr. Kirk’s remarks about Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Supreme Court justice, and Sheila Jackson Lee, the former congresswoman Texas, saying they did not have the “brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
“My only direct reference to Kirk was one post — his own words on record,” Ms. Attiah wrote. She finished her post by encouraging people to sign up for an online course she runs on race and the media.
Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at [email protected].
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