UPDATE: Sept. 16 — After this story was revealed, media reporter Oliver Darcy revealed Attiah’s termination letter, which was written by Wayne Connell, the Washington Publish’s chief HR officer. Attiah confirmed the letter’s authenticity to HuffPost. “Your postings on Bluesky (which clearly identifies you as a Post Columnist) about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not comply with our [social media] policy,” Connell wrote. Later, he stated Attiah’s “poor judgment” arose “against the backdrop of documented performance concerns, which have been raised with you.”
PREVIOUSLY: Karen Attiah, a famous Washington Publish opinion columnist, stated Monday that she had been fired over social media posts within the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was fatally shot final week, allegedly by a lone gunman who’s now in police custody.
Attiah’s firing provides to the widespread effort to crack down on the political left and people vital of Kirk ― who launched a brand new technology to far-right beliefs ― and serves as the newest instance of the Publish’s ongoing evolution towards hyper-conservative opinion pages.
Throughout her 11 years on the Publish, Attiah wrote columns, was the newspaper’s first World Opinions editor, and shared a 2019 George Polk award with author David Ignatius “for eloquence and resolve in demanding accountability in the wake of the gruesome murder of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.”
“I was the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the Post, in one of the nation’s most diverse regions. Washington D.C. no longer has a paper that reflects the people it serves,” Attiah wrote in a Substack put up Monday. “What happened to me is part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, business, government, and media — a historical pattern as dangerous as it is shameful — and tragic.”
ISABEL INFANTES through Getty Photos
In February, Jeff Bezos, the Publish’s proprietor, introduced that the paper’s opinion part could be “writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Opinion editor David Shipley resigned over the change. The brand new editor, Adam O’Neal, stated in June that opinion web page editors could be “unapologetically patriotic” and that the part’s philosophy could be “rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country.” Alongside the way in which, many journalists have left the paper.
Within the aftermath of the Kirk taking pictures, Attiah plainly denounced homicide, but additionally posted and reposted a number of opinions on gun violence and racism in America ― as is likely to be anticipated from an opinion author.
Nonetheless, Attiah was fired for, as she described it, “Speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.” She stated the Publish had alleged that her posts, on the Bluesky platform, had been “unacceptable,” “gross misconduct” and endangered her colleagues’ bodily security — “charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false,” Attiah wrote.
“For the record. My posts were not even about Kirk directly, but about America’s apathy towards political violence, and the coddling of white male shooters and hate peddlers,” she added individually. “I was fired because I mentioned race: white men and violence― that was my ‘gross misconduct.’”
HuffPost wasn’t capable of attain Attiah for additional remark, and a Publish spokesperson declined to remark “on personnel matters.”
The Washington Publish Guild, the union for the paper’s staff, condemned Attiah’s firing and stated it could proceed to “support her and defend her rights.”
The Publish “flagrantly disregarded standard disciplinary processes” and “undermined its own mandate to be a champion of free speech” by firing Attiah “over her social media posts,” guild management wrote in a press release Monday.
Attiah highlighted a couple of of her Bluesky posts within the Substack put up saying she had been fired:
That final put up is a slight misquote. Kirk, in a 2023 dialogue of affirmative motion, didn’t refer to “Black women” usually. As an alternative, in response to a widely-circulated clip, he referred to as out 4 Black ladies specifically ― journalist Pleasure Reid, former first woman Michelle Obama, the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), and Supreme Courtroom Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — who had all commented on the courtroom majority’s ruling in opposition to the constitutionality of affirmative motion in faculties and universities.
“You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” Kirk stated on the time, after referring to the ladies. “You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
Along with being an opinion journalist and Substack creator, Attiah is the creator of “Resistance Summer School,” a web based academic platform. The platform will quickly supply beginner- and intermediate-level courses on “Race, Media and International Affairs.”
