Washington Put up columnist Eugene Robinson, an MSNBC contributor and staunch critic of President Trump, mentioned he’s quitting after proprietor Jeff Bezos’ “significant shift” within the paper’s mission — becoming a member of an exodus of journalists on the beleaguered broadsheet.
“The announced ‘significant shift’ in our section’s mission has spurred me to decide that it’s time for my next chapter,” Robinson introduced in a memo to fellow staffers on Thursday.
“I wish nothing but the very best for the paper and for all of you. I won’t be a stranger, and I’ll be reading your unparalleled work every single day.”
Bezos, the billionaire Amazon proprietor, mentioned in February that the left-leaning publication’s opinion pages would shift their protection to raised replicate American values like “personal liberties and “free markets.”
Robinson, who has written for the op-ed web page since 2005, is the third Washington Put up staffer to go away the paper since Bezos’ edict.
Ex-opinion editor David Shipley stop as quickly because the revamp was introduced, and longtime columnist Ruth Marcus departed in March, after she mentioned writer Will Lewis “spiked” a column “expressing concern” over Bezos’ new route for the part.
Robinson joined the newspaper in 1980 and received a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his columns on the 2008 presidential marketing campaign, specializing in Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency.
He’s additionally the creator of “Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race” and “Last Dance in Havana.”
A Washington Put up spokesperson congratulated Robinson on his retirement.
“For 45 years, his reporting and commentary spanned continents and beats, earning countless recognitions, including a Pulitzer Prize. Eugene’s strong perspective and impeccable integrity have regularly shaped our public discourse, cementing his legacy as a leading voice in American journalism,” the rep mentioned.
Throughout his time on the paper, he emerged as one in every of its most vocal critics of President Trump, calling him a “weak, narcissistic man” in 2017. In February, he wrote that Trump “tramples the Constitution, vandalizes the federal government and trashes our vital international alliances.”
Robinson will proceed his position as chief political analyst at NBC Information and MSNBC.
His departure comes as Bezos and Lewis are steering the paper towards a extra centrist place, to the dismay of many present and former Washington Put up journalists, together with its ex-executive editor Marty Baron.
Baron had slammed Bezos for blocking the newspaper’s editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris within the 2024 presidential election.
On the time, Bezos defended his determination, saying that endorsing Harris would have added a “perception of bias” to their protection.
