Veteran Washington Publish opinion author Jennifer Rubin mentioned Monday she is leaving to hitch a startup — and blasted the Beltway broadsheet’s billionaire proprietor on her method out the door.
Rubin, an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, had not too long ago publicly attacked the paper and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for showing to get into the Republican’s good graces.
“Company and billionaire homeowners of main media retailers have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, defending and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation be aware.
Rubin — who was pilloried on social media for urging Los Angeles Occasions journalists to give up the paper after it blocked an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris solely to fail to heed her personal recommendation when Bezos did the identical — is becoming a member of a Substack e-newsletter based by CNN commentator and former Obama official Norm Eisen.
Her exit comes amid a brand new report indicating that the Washington Publish suffered losses of round $100 million final 12 months whereas its net visitors has plummeted to only 25% of its peak in January 2021.
Final week, the newspaper introduced that it was shedding 4% of its workforce — which interprets to fewer than 100 folks. Most of these affected labored within the Washington Publish’s public relations unit.
Eisen, a former White Home ethics lawyer, is teaming up with Rubin to launch “The Contrarian,” a brand new unbiased publication which payments itself as “not owned by anyone.”
“The Washington Publish’s billionaire proprietor and enlisted administration are among the many offenders.”
The Publish has sought remark from the Washington Publish.
The Amazon founder, whose web price is valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $238 billion as of Monday, angered Rubin and different longtime staff and readers of the Washington Publish by stopping the editorial board from publishing its endorsement of Harris.
It was reported that as many as 250,000 frequent readers of the newspaper canceled their subscriptions in protest.
A number of different journalists give up the editorial board. Within the weeks that adopted, quite a lot of the newspaper’s prime reporters and editors, together with Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey.
Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, resigned after the paper declined to publish her cartoon mocking Bezos and different tech moguls kneeling earlier than Trump. She criticized the choice as detrimental to press freedom.
Parker and Michael Scherer, each senior political reporters, left the Washington Publish to hitch The Atlantic, the left-leaning publication owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs.
Opinion columnists Robert Kagan and Michele Norris give up the newspaper in response to Bezos’ resolution.
Bezos defended the choice to not endorse Harris or any presidential candidate, saying it was “proper” and “principled.”
The mogul additionally rejected recommendations that he did so with a view to curry favor with Trump, whose administration might be in command of regulating industries the place Bezos’ companies are energetic.
Bezos mentioned that editorial endorsements create a notion of bias at a time many Individuals don’t imagine the media, and do nothing to tip the scales of an election.
Los Angeles Occasions proprietor Dr. Patrick Quickly-Shiong provided an analogous rationale, saying he was trying to diversify his newspaper’s opinion web page.