Washington Put up columnist Jonathan Capehart has accepted a buyout from the paper, changing into the most recent high-profile departure amid sweeping editorial modifications carried out underneath proprietor Jeff Bezos.
Capehart, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author recognized for his outspoken criticism of President Trump, had been with the Put up since 2007. His exit was first reported by Axios on Monday.
Capehart’s ultimate column for the Put up, printed in Could, featured a dialog with Minnesota Lawyer Basic Keith Ellison on “countering” the president.
That very same month, Capehart resigned from the newspaper’s editorial board over a dispute with a white colleague about a chunk that anazlyed Georgia’s voting legal guidelines and their alleged racial implications.
Capehart had beforehand referred to Trump as “a most cancers on the presidency and American society” and in contrast a rally held by Trump at Madison Sq. Backyard to a Nazi rally on the similar venue in 1939.
The phrases of his buyout weren’t disclosed.
Representatives for the Washington Put up didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Capehart will proceed co-hosting MSNBC’s “The Weekend” and stay a panelist on PBS’s “NewsHour.”
The buyout follows feedback made by Washington Put up CEO Will Lewis, who in current weeks urged staff who don’t “really feel aligned” with the corporate’s editorial course to resign.
His departure provides to a string of exits on the paper over the Beltway broadsheet’s shift to the appropriate. In February, Bezos ordered the Put up’s opinion part to concentrate on “private liberties and free markets.”
The directive led to the resignation of Opinion Editor David Shipley, adopted by the departure of a number of different opinion writers, together with longtime columnist Ruth Marcus.
Final month, Adam O’Neal, previously of The Economist and The Dispatch, was named opinion editor.
Weeks later, well-liked columnist Joe Davidson introduced he was leaving after one in all his columns was killed for being “too opinionated.”
Davidson criticized the paper’s possession, stating that “Bezos’s insurance policies and actions have projected the picture of a Donald Trump supplicant.”
The paper confronted subscriber backlash after Bezos blocked a deliberate endorsement of Kamala Harris for president shortly earlier than the election. Roughly 250,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions.
In January, a number of high reporters and editors — together with Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Tyler Pager — left the Put up for rival retailers similar to The Atlantic and the New York Occasions.
Managing editor Matea Gold joined the Occasions’ Washington bureau in late 2024. On the similar time, the Put up laid off 4% of its business-side workers as a result of profitability issues.
Earlier this 12 months, greater than 400 workers members signed an inside petition expressing concern over editorial independence and administration selections.
Keep forward of the curve with NextBusiness 24. Discover extra tales, subscribe to our publication, and be part of our rising group at nextbusiness24.com