By Alexandra Bruell

Jeff Bezos has offered his clearest vision yet for the Washington Post's future, saying Wednesday that the paper's opinion page would focus on the support and defense of "personal liberties and free markets."

He said the move was borne of a reality publishers have been wrestling with in the digital age: the internet now serves the purpose of being a community's town square.

"There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job," Bezos wrote in a post on X and memo to staff Wednesday.

The opinion page change is a pivot from the current objective to cover a wide range of views -- the historical approach of local newspapers. The move prompted the resignation of the Post's opinion editor, David Shipley.

Bezos said he offered Shipley the opportunity to continue to oversee the opinion coverage, but he decided to leave. The company will look for a new opinion editor.

"We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others," said Bezos.

The position espoused by Bezos is similar to that of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which has long held a defined intellectual and political worldview under the banner "free markets, free people."

Bezos' change follows another decision just prior to the election not to back a presidential candidate, which resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of subscribers. At the time, he penned an op-ed in the Post saying that endorsements "create a perception of bias."

Critics speculated that he was motivated by business and other interests, as founder of Blue Origin and Amazon.com. Bezos at the time defended his record of integrity as the paper's owner, despite the appearance of conflict.

He has tapped a handful of Journal leaders, including former publisher William Lewis and top editor Matt Murray.

"This is not about siding with any political party," Lewis, the Post's CEO and publisher, wrote in a staff email. "This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper."

Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 26, 2025 12:03 ET (17:03 GMT)

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