In a blistering op-ed, President Donald Trump was slammed as “the real threat” to “personal liberties and free markets” by a Washington Publish columnist after the paper’s proprietor, Jeff Bezos, mentioned the publication would reject any content material that opposes these two rules in its opinion part.
“If we as a newspaper, and we as a country, are to defend his twin pillars, then we must redouble our fight against the single greatest threat to ‘personal liberties and free markets’ in the United States today: President Donald Trump,” wrote Dana Milbank in an op-ed printed Friday. “The rapidly spreading authoritarianism coming from this administration threatens all of our freedoms.”
Milbank elaborated by dissecting Trump’s commerce wars, his challenges to authorized immigration, his politicizing of legislation enforcement and the army, and his cherry-picking of which media shops obtain White Home entry as a couple of examples of the president’s violation of Bezos’ protected “pillars.”
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“The consequences of Trump’s illiberal actions can already be seen. Inflation has accelerated. Jobless claims jumped more than expected. Consumer confidence has slid. The stock market has been volatile. Trump’s approval numbers have inched downward,” wrote Milbank.
Bezos, in asserting his overhaul of The Publish’s opinion part in a letter to the paper’s employees, argued that the themes of non-public liberties and free markets “are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion” and {that a} “broad-based opinion section” is not wanted since diversifying viewpoints could be discovered elsewhere on the internet.
His directive led The Publish’s opinion editor, David Shipley, to resign.
Bezos and Trump reportedly had dinner collectively mere hours after Bezos introduced the adjustments at The Publish.
Since buying the paper in 2013, the billionaire Trump donor and Amazon founder has drummed up controversy over his editorial choices. Final October, Bezos ended The Publish’s custom of endorsing presidential candidates, and final month, opinion cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned after certainly one of her cartoons crucial of Bezos was killed.
Journalist Gene Weingarten, who spent 20 years as a Publish columnist, mentioned in a Substack submit Thursday that he’s heard of not less than one Publish author having their work rejected within the wake of Bezo’s announcement this week.
Publish media critic Erik Wemple had advised colleagues that he would write about Bezos’ order, which Weingarten mentioned is a part of his job. However in line with some Publish staffers, Wemple’s completed column was rejected for publication, Weingarten wrote.
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“It was described to me by someone who saw it as ‘more mystified and saddened than outraged or appalled,’” Weingarten wrote of Wemple’s submitted work. “I have been told another respected opinions columnist has also submitted a piece on the same subject. Let’s watch and see what happens.”
