The Washington Post’s opinion editor is leaving after about a year.
Adam O’Neal was hired as part of owner Jeff Bezos’s push to champion “personal liberties and free markets” in the opinion section. O’Neal had been a correspondent at The Economist. A replacement hasn’t been named.
Bezos unveiled the changes to the Post’s opinion page in a note to staff in early 2025.
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote at the time. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
While newspaper owners generally set the direction of opinion pages, the shake-up sparked criticism. Former Post editor Martin Baron said it ran counter to the paper’s history of championing editorial independence.
“Bezos argues for personal liberties,” Baron said at the time. “But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section.”
In a Friday memo, O’Neal said that the section’s work had “become more relevant, accessible, and consequential” during his tenure.
“During my first six months, Opinions users more than doubled their time spent on the site,” he wrote. “Editorial pageviews grew by triple-digits year over year.”
“Both subscription starts and entrances from search ticked up,” he added.
Below are the memos that O’Neal and acting publisher and CEO Jeff D’Onofrio sent on Friday:
Here’s O’Neal’s memo:
D’Onofrio’s memo:
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