Email not displaying correctly?
View it in your browser ([link removed]) .
[link removed]
[link removed]


** OPINION
------------------------------------------------------------


** A former Washington Post columnist writes about her exit from the paper
------------------------------------------------------------
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Earlier this week, The Washington Post lost another high-profile, well-respected journalist. Ruth Marcus, an influential columnist and Post veteran of 40 years, resigned in protest after one of her columns was nixed by CEO and publisher Will Lewis. Marcus’ column focused on some of the changes to the paper made by owner Jeff Bezos, which seem to be an effort to gain favor with President Donald Trump.

Now, Marcus is speaking out in a piece for The New Yorker ([link removed]) .

Marcus writes about her decision to leave the Post and even includes the column at the center of the controversy — the column she wrote that was never published by the Post.

And, honestly, the column was not that bad. It was about Bezos’ new plan for the opinion page, which would push for “personal liberties and free markets” without opposing viewpoints.

Marcus writes in The New Yorker story, “You can read the column in full below, but — spoiler alert — if you’re craving red meat, brace for tofu. I wrote the piece in the hope of getting it published and registering a point, not to embarrass or provoke the paper’s management.”

She would add, “I tried, as you will see if you read the column, to give the editors a way to get to yes. I made almost no mention of Bezos’s post-election efforts to cozy up to Trump. I did not question Bezos’s motives. The column was, if anything, meek to the point of embarrassing. But I thought that it was important to put my reasons for disagreement on the record — not only to be true to myself but to show that the newspaper could brook criticism and that columnists still enjoyed freedom of expression. Running it, I believed, would enhance the Post’s credibility, not undermine it.”

Perhaps most discouraging in all this is that Lewis, according to Marcus, declined to meet with her after spiking her column. Marcus mentioned that in her resignation note earlier this week. Then in her New Yorker piece Wednesday, she wrote, “I stayed until the Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, killed a column I filed last week expressing my disagreement with this new direction. Lewis refused my request to meet.”

Wait, seriously? Lewis killed a column — practically unheard of at a big-time paper — of someone who worked at the paper for four decades, and he refused to meet with her to discuss it?

Marcus went on to write, “He declined to see me, instructing an editor to inform me that there was no reason to meet, because his decision was final.”

If true, what a stunning lack of respect and leadership shown by Lewis. Even if you don’t plan on changing your mind, you still meet with a valued staffer when you make such a drastic and rare decision to kill a column.

Of course, there was more to Marcus’ decision to leave the Post than just one nixed column — although, let’s be totally clear here, that is more than enough reason to quit. Marcus goes into the Post’s editorial shift, the details of how the column was written and then spiked, and her feelings since.

In the actual unpublished column, Marcus wrote sternly but fairly: “Bezos owns the Post, and this decree is within his prerogatives. An owner who meddles with news coverage, especially to further personal interests, is behaving unethically. Shaping opinion coverage is different, and less problematic. But narrowing the range of acceptable opinions is an unwise course, one that disserves and underestimates our readers.”

Again, to the point and totally reasonable and fair.

There is so much to dig into in Marcus’ piece, so I encourage you to read it all. Her points cannot be rounded up in just a few paragraphs.

But let me say this. Marcus is no longer at the Post, and that’s sad. And while it might have been completely unintentional and undesirable, this is true: Marcus’ original column, the Post’s refusal to run it, her decision to resign and her subsequent piece in The New Yorker have done even more to bring attention to how badly things have devolved with the Post and the opinion section than anything else she could have said or written.

It’s just too bad that it had to play out as it has.

And it’s also yet another sad chapter for those of us who have always had nothing but the utmost respect for The Washington Post, a place where many excellent journalists still work, but whose leadership is letting them down.


** Oh, one more thing
------------------------------------------------------------

I mentioned that a paper killing a column is rare, and it most certainly is, especially when the column is neither libelous nor just plain bad. You almost never hear of a paper refusing to run a column because an editor or someone higher up doesn’t like the actual opinion or subject of a particular column.

I was a columnist for a decade at the Tampa Bay Times and have been writing opinions at Poynter since 2019. And in the literally thousands upon thousands of opinion pieces I’ve written, I never had even one not published over subject or content. And I’ve never once been asked or told to write a certain opinion or to back away from one. And I think I speak for practically every columnist/opinion writer at a major news organization or website.

But here’s another stunner from Marcus’ New Yorker piece: Her column wasn’t the only recent column that wasn’t published at the Post. She wrote that Post media critic Erik Wemple also had a column nixed. Marcus wrote, “His straightforward column disagreeing with the Bezos announcement — I read it in our internal system, and found it perfectly reasonable — never ran.”


** The Post gets applause from … who?
------------------------------------------------------------

Someone out there is praising The Washington Post’s recent shifts in the editorial department and the newsroom: Donald Trump’s press secretary.

During a briefing this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I would like to commend The Washington Post, who I believe is in the room today. According to a new report from Axios, The Washington Post is overhauling their newsroom structure. It appears that the mainstream media, including The Post, is finally learning that having disdain for more than half of the country who supports this president does not help you sell newspapers. It’s not a very good business model. And that is why we have people in our new media seat.”

Leavitt is completely out of line for suggesting the Post and reputable “mainstream media” has or ever had a “disdain for more than half the country.” While Post critics might not want to admit it, the Post’s journalism (well, up until Bezos and Lewis started killing pieces) has always been driven by the facts, not personal politics.

Meanwhile, you wonder how the leadership of the Post feels to have the White House press secretary go out of her way to praise them.


** No Musk
------------------------------------------------------------
Elon Musk, shown here in February. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Elon Musk has a big fan in President Donald Trump. Just Wednesday morning, Trump posted on his Truth Social ([link removed]) : “Wow!!! People are loving Elon, a GREAT PATRIOT. Nice to see!!! DJT.”

But, actually, people are most definitely not loving Elon.

A new CNN poll ([link removed]) published Wednesday (just shortly before Trump’s post) showed that just 35% of Americans have a positive view of Musk, while 53% view him negatively. Eleven percent offered no opinion.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy wrote ([link removed]) , “Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say that Musk has neither the right experience nor the right judgment to make changes to the way the government works. There is uneasiness about Musk even among some of the president’s supporters: 28% of those who see Trump’s changes to the government as necessary doubt the tech billionaire has the judgment to carry them out.”

The poll also had more bad news for Trump. About 56% disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy. A slight majority (51%) approves of Trump’s work on immigration.


** Speaking of Musk …
------------------------------------------------------------

Wowza, comedian and actor Bill Burr didn’t hold back when talking about Musk during a recent interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” ([link removed])

Burr says his standup act these days is trying to get people more informed about what’s going on. He said on “Fresh Air,” “I’m trying to get regular people to stop yelling at each other and realize that it’s a select few group of nerds eating raw almonds and doing their stupid workouts and competing with each other to have the biggest infinity pool and the rest of us are getting pushed down. They’ve politicized the whole stupid thing and we’re falling for it.”

Asked who he was talking about, Burr said, “That idiot Elon Musk.”

Burr said Musk is “evidently a Nazi” and went on to say, “I just refuse to believe it was an accidental two-time Sieg Heil. And he does it at a presidential inauguration.”

Burr then laid into liberals, saying, “This is why I hate liberals. Liberals have no teeth whatsoever. They just go, ‘Oh my God, can you believe this? I’m getting out of the country!’ I’m just like, you’re gonna leave the country because of one guy with dyed hair plugs and a laminated face? Who makes a bad car and has an obsolete social media platform? Why doesn’t he leave? Why are we so afraid of this guy who can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag?”

“Fresh Air” host Terry Gross asked Burr what he is doing. Aside from saying, “this” — meaning speaking up about Musk — Burr said, “First of all, I’m a stand-up comedian. It’s not my friggin’ job. I’m talking about Democratic politicians. Where is their pushback?”


** Deggans’ new role
------------------------------------------------------------

Eric Deggans — TV critic, media analyst and guest host at NPR — will be the next John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University. Deggans replaces Aly Colon, who has retired after 10 years in the position. Deggans, a member of Poynter’s National Advisory Board, begins his new role July 1.

Deggans said he will remain a critic-at-large for NPR.

In a statement, Deggans said, “As a TV and media critic, I’ve spent most of my career urging journalists and media outlets to uphold the highest ethical standards in their work. However, I always realized an important part of that process involves teaching young journalists the proper standards in the first place.”

He continued, “At W&L, I have found a school with energetic and talented students, significant classroom resources, amazing faculty colleagues and an institution with a storied history, where we can chart the future of journalism ethics and media practice. With indispensable and substantial support from the Knight Foundation, I am thrilled by the opportunity to work with the school and students on defining the shape of journalism ethics in the modern age while continuing to work with NPR as a critic-at-large, keeping a significant presence in the world of daily journalism.”

Here ([link removed]) are more details.


** Media tidbits
------------------------------------------------------------
* More Musk stuff: Politico’s Sophia Cai and Adam Wren with “Who’s in Elon’s ear — and DMs.” ([link removed])
* Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw broke the news ([link removed]) that Bill Simmons and his media company, The Ringer, have reupped with Spotify on a new deal. (Semafor reported back in January that it was likely to happen.) Simmons signed with Spotify in 2020 for a deal worth a reported $250 million. Simmons said in a statement, “I’ve been in enough work situations at this point that you just kinda know when you’re in the right spot.”
* Mediaite’s Alex Griffing with “Joe Rogan, Candace Owens, and the Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism Exposes a Rot in American Media.” ([link removed])
* HuffPost’s Ron Dicker with “Seth Meyers Burns Trump On Women's Month And Economy, And They're Kinda Related.” ([link removed])
* For The xxxxxx, Adrian Carrasquillo with “‘State Propaganda’: Anger Erupts Inside Univision Over Airing of Trump Ad.” ([link removed])


** Hot type
------------------------------------------------------------
* Politico’s Jonathan Martin with “Rahm Emanuel Is Gearing Up to Run for President.” ([link removed])
* For The New York Times, Doug Bock Clark with “30 Hours in a Hurricane, on a Race With No Course.” ([link removed])


** More resources for journalists
------------------------------------------------------------
* This Poynter Leadership Academy is our flagship workshop for experienced managers and leaders. Apply by March 24 ([link removed]) .
* Turn your reporting into a compelling non-fiction book concept. Apply by April 25 ([link removed]) .
* Gain a deeper understanding of Immigration policy with Poynter’s Beat Academy training. Enroll now ([link removed]) .
* Learn the Fundamentals of Investigative Journalism. Enroll now ([link removed]) .

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .
[link removed]
Help Poynter strengthen journalism, truth and democracy. ([link removed])
GIVE NOW ([link removed])

ADVERTISE ([link removed]) // DONATE ([link removed]) // LEARN ([link removed]) // JOBS ([link removed])
Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here. ([link removed])
[link removed] [link removed] [link removed] [link removed] mailto:[email protected]?subject=Feedback%20for%20Poynter
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
© All rights reserved Poynter Institute 2025
801 Third Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
If you don't want to receive email updates from Poynter, we understand.
You can change your subscription preferences ([link removed]) or unsubscribe from all Poynter emails ([link removed]) .