Veteran WaPo Columnist Walks

Marcus and Bezos

Ruth Marcus, a veteran journalist who spent over four decades at The Washington Post, has resigned from her position as a columnist and associate editor. Her departure was a direct response to the paper’s publisher and CEO, Will Lewis, refusing to publish a column she wrote that criticized owner Jeff Bezos’ new editorial direction for the Post’s opinion section. 

Marcus’ exit is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the newspaper amid ongoing turmoil over its editorial policies and ownership decisions. She joined The Washington Post in 1984, shortly after graduating from Harvard Law School. Over her 40-year tenure, she held various roles, including reporter, deputy national editor, editorial writer, and deputy editorial page editor, before becoming a columnist in 2006. Known for her liberal-leaning commentary, she covered topics ranging from campaign finance and the Supreme Court to broader political issues. In 2007, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, underscoring her prominence in the field.

The catalyst for Marcus’ resignation was Bezos’ announcement in late February 2025 that the Post’s opinion section would shift its focus to exclusively support “personal liberties and free markets,” effectively barring viewpoints that contradicted these principles. Marcus wrote a column—described by her as “respectfully dissenting”—expressing concern that this mandate undermined the independence of the paper’s opinion writers and eroded reader trust. She argued that columnists should be free to write what they believe, not what the owner deems acceptable.

Will Lewis, the Post’s CEO and publisher, rejected the column, a decision Marcus said was unprecedented in her nearly two decades of column-writing.  Two days after resigning Marcus published the spiked column in full, along with a reflective essay, in The New Yorker. In the essay, titled “Why I Left the Washington Post,” she described her blocked piece as “meek to the point of embarrassing” and emphasized that its rejection signaled a troubling shift at the paper. She expressed fear that readers could no longer trust that Post columnists were offering independent judgments, a cornerstone of journalistic credibility.