The Washington Post has a new Opinion editor four months after Bezos touted ‘significant shift’

The Washington Post on Wednesday announced it has a new Opinion editor. The move comes four months after it announced a “significant shift” to the Opinion page and the departure of its embattled section chief.

The Washington Post on Wednesday announced it has a new Opinion editor. The move comes four months after it announced a “significant shift” to the Opinion page and the departure of its embattled section chief. Adam O’Neal, who currently serves as The Economist’s Washington correspondent, will take over as the Post’s top Opinion editor, the outlet announced in an X post that includes an introductory video from O’Neal. “We’re also going to be stalwart advocates of free markets and personal liberties. We’ll be unapologetically patriotic, too,” O’Neal said in the video. “Our philosophy will be rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country.” The Opinion section won’t “lecture” readers about ideologies or “demand you think certain ways about policy,” O’Neal said. The stance falls in line with the vision articulated four months prior by the Post’s owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos also mentioned free markets and personal liberties when describing the section’s new mandate, which drew backlash from some staffers — including from Marty Baron, the Post’s revered former executive editor under whom the outlet won 11 Pulitzer Prizes — and praise from some conservatives. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote in a February X post. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”