Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post has take a massive stride in its turn to the right by hiring three new conservative writers after losing high-profile liberal columnists.
The Post is bringing in Kate Andrews, Spectator magazine’s U.S. deputy editor; Dominic Pino, economics editor at National Review; and Carine Hajjar, a Boston Globe Editorial Board member and frequent Fox News talking head, as opinion writers.
They will work for its new opinion editor, Adam O’Neal, a 33-year-old journalist from the conservative commentary world who told Fox News this week that Post readers are “overwhelmingly liberal” but he was prepared to lose them. He said his vision is “non-partisan” while suggesting it could prove that by praising Democrats willing to attack one of their own.
The hiring of three conservatives, two with backgrounds in right-wing outlets, comes as the paper continues to experience fallout from Bezos’ new marching orders, given in February, that its opinion section would focus on “personal liberties and free markets,” in an apparent attempt to appease President Donald Trump after his return to the White House. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
Hajjar, a Boston Globe columnist, has made no bones about her political leanings. In a September piece, she praised MAGA political commentator Charlie Kirk as a “generational conservative voice” following his murder.
“Kirk’s political legacy wasn’t without controversy, but he’ll be remembered as one of the most influential conservative figures of this era,” Hajjar wrote.
She is also a regular guest on Fox News, where she spouts her views on topics such as immigration and transgender athletes.
Andrews, a British citizen who also writes for right-wing London newspaper The Telegraph, once suggested in a Spectator column that the “whole country will suffer from nightmares” if Democrat Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race. Joining Andrews and Hajjar is Pino, who has spent years writing for the influential conservative magazine National Review.
None align directly with MAGA at all times but have strongly pro “free markets” views and have been ferocious critics of democrats and “the media.”
The hiring spree comes as the paper continues to hemorrhage staff and readership while Bezos attempts to align it more closely with MAGA.
This shift has already cost the historically left-leaning newspaper veteran voices such as columnist Joe Davidson, who quit in July citing a policy restricting “the level of opinion and commentary in news section articles.”
Several other staffers—including opinion columnist Jonathan Capehart, editorial page editor David Shipley, deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus, and columnist Eugene Robinson—quit over concerns about the Post’s dramatic shift to the right since Trump returned to office.
Karen Attiah, another longtime columnist, was also fired after sharing a version of a 2023 Kirk quote on the day of his death, stating: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s spot.” Attiah had been the last Black columnist on the paper’s staff.
Last October, the Post reportedly lost around 250,000 subscribers after readers were outraged that it refused to endorse a candidate in the 2024 election between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
But this week O’Neal told Fox in his first interview in the job that he was prepared to lose liberal readers by being “non-partisan,” saying, “Our readers are overwhelmingly liberal, right?” He added that, “if there are people who had a perception that subscribing to The Post was like a form of activism,” he was prepared for them to cancel.
Asked to define what non-partisan meant, he suggested it was praising the Trump administration on specific points and Democrats who “stand up” to Mamdani. “So one day we might be saying, ‘Hey, you know, the president has a good point about Bagram Air Base,’ right?” he told Fox. “At the other time, we might praise Democrats who are standing up to Mamdani and his radicalism. And at the same time, we’ll criticize the Trump administration when we think they get it wrong.”
The Daily Beast has contacted The Washington Post for comment.
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