WaPo Embraces Free Minds and Free Markets

"I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America," wrote Bezos.

Amazon CEO and The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos made a startling announcement on Wednesday: The opinion pages of his newspaper will adopt a new editorial mission of defending "two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

Hey, that's our job!

Indeed, if the new WaPo slogan sounds familiar to readers of Reason, that's because Reason has long described itself as the magazine of "free minds and free markets." The similarity was not lost on social media users, several of whom noted that Bezos would be bringing WaPo into ideological alignment with an already existing media brand.

WaPo today: pic.twitter.com/yzTlEXPHza

— Ryan Juliano (@rlj_law) February 26, 2025

Another news outlet expressing an interest in promoting civil liberties and economic freedom? Great! The more the merrier. Freedom, after all, does not suffer from a lack of enemies within the mainstream media. News coverage from a progressive and even ostensibly neutral bent often focuses on, say, the purported harms of making any cuts to bloated government; see, for instance, a recent news story in The Washington Post that explained how devastating staffing reductions mandated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had made it impossible to unlock the public restrooms at Yosemite National Park. A news publication with a libertarian-friendly mission, on the other hand, might have asked whether the government bureaucracy within the National Park Service was intentionally starting with the most painful cuts of all in order to sap public enthusiasm for the cause of limiting government—something Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett described as "malicious compliance" in a recent interview on Reason's Just Asking Questions.

But back to Bezos. It's important to note that this declaration only pertains to the paper's opinion pages: News coverage will remain unchanged. Still, the new mandate for the opinion section is significant, and has already resulted in the departure of opinion editor David Shipley.

"I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter," Bezos explained in a memo to staff. "I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't 'hell yes,' then it had to be 'no.' After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won't be easy, and it will require 100% commitment—I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction."

Bezos made clear, however, that it's full steam ahead.

"I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America," wrote Bezos. "I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void."

I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:

I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too…

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 26, 2025

Critics of this move perceived it to be an incursion into the newspaper's editorial autonomy, though Bezos is the owner, of course, and is ultimately well within his rights to direct coverage however he sees fit. Additionally, there's a political valence to all of this: Bezos attended President Donald Trump's inauguration alongside other tech CEOs, such as Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai, and Apple's Tim Cook. The perception is that the tech world has come to tolerate Trump—if not embrace him outright. Cynics will undoubtedly read Bezos's new mandate as an implicit pivot to the right, though it's not true that defending "personal liberties and free markets" necessitates joining MAGA or the Republican Party. Many of Trump's economic proposals, including his embrace of tariffs, explicitly contradict free market ethos, and the GOP's social policies are frequently at odds with the libertarian mindset.

 

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