Jennifer Rubin, a veteran Washington Post opinion writer, said Monday she was leaving to join a startup, and on her way out she lambasted the billionaire owner of Beltway Broadsheet.
Rubin, an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, recently publicly attacked the newspaper and its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for appearing to be trying to curry favor with Republicans.
“Major media executives and billionaires have betrayed the loyalty of their audiences and obstructed journalism's sacred mission to protect, protect, and advance democracy,” Rubin said in his resignation letter. Ta.
Mr. Rubin, who was criticized on social media for urging reporters to leave the Los Angeles Times after it blocked an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, criticized Mr. Bezos for doing the same. He is a person who did not heed his advice. Rubin is CNN commentator and former Obama administration official Norm Eisen.
Her departure was announced amid new reports indicating that: The Washington Post suffered a loss We had about $100 million in web traffic last year. It has plummeted to just 25% of its peak in January 2021.
Last week, the newspaper announced it would lay off 4% of its workforce, which equates to fewer than 100 employees. Most of those affected worked in the public relations department of The Washington Post.
Mr. Eisen, a former White House ethics lawyer, is working with Mr. Rubin to launch Contrarian. new independent publication It claims to be “owned by no one”.
“The Washington Post's billionaire owner and management team are also criminals.”
The newspaper has contacted the Washington Post for comment.
The founder of Amazon, his net worth is Valued at $238 billion by Bloomberg Billionaires Index As of Monday, the editorial board had blocked the publication of an endorsement of Harris, angering Rubin and other longtime Washington Post employees and readers.
It was reported that as many as 250,000 frequent readers of the newspaper canceled their subscriptions in protest.
Several other journalists also resigned from the editorial board. In the weeks that followed, many of the paper's top reporters and editors left, including Ashley Parker and Josh Dorsey.
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Ternas resigned after the newspaper refused to publish a cartoon mocking Bezos and other tech titans kneeling before Trump. She criticized the decision as harmful to press freedom.
Parker and Michael Scherer, senior political reporters, left the Washington Post to join The Atlantic, a left-leaning publication owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs.
Opinion columnists Robert Kagan and Michelle Norris left the paper following Bezos' decision.
Mr. Bezos defended his decision not to support Ms. Harris or any presidential candidate as “correct” and “principled.”
The tycoon also rejected suggestions that the Trump administration did so to curry favor with Mr. Trump, who will be in charge of regulating the industry where Mr. Bezos' business is active.
Bezos said the editor's endorsement creates a perception of bias at a time when many Americans don't trust the media and have done nothing to change the scale of the election.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, offered similar reasoning, saying he wants to diversify the paper's opinion pages.
