The Washington Post said Wednesday that Economist correspondent Adam O'Neill has become his next opinion editor.
O'Neill is accused of running a new direction in sections that Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, to defend “personal freedom and the free market.” Before joining Economist, O'Neill was an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal. There, the opinion pages are definitely conservative.
O'Neill, 33, introduced himself to readers in a short video posted by the Post's public relations account, saying that he was “a journalist for a while,” adding that the section is “apollojotic and not patriotic,” and that he “uses technology to improve journalism.”
“The odds are you probably never heard of me and you may wonder: who am I?” O'Neill said.
O'Neill will replace David Shipley, who resigned this year after Bezos decided to adjust the section's ideological scope. The opinion section of the post has a history of publishing multiple political views, but Bezos tried to narrow his focus to highlight economic and personal freedom.
The opinion section of the post has been in Tumult for the majority of the past year. Just before the November presidential election, the Post ended its tradition of supporting presidential candidates. This is a decision to protest from several members of the readers and opinion staff. Soon after, Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Anne Ternus quit after a surge in comics critical of Bezos. Next came Mr Shipley's departure.
In a memo to employees, Will Lewis, CEO of the Post, said O'Neill “embodies our core values,” and that “the importance of ensuring coverage of our opinions is relevant, accessible and consequential to readers who find service inadequate.”
“Our new directions are not short-term changes and do not line up with political parties,” Lewis wrote.
The Washington Post has recently been exploring plans to significantly increase the number of opinions posted on its website. The project, known internally as Ripple, calls for posts to publish content from other news organizations, Substack authors, and even non-professional authors. Later stages of the plan call for contributors to create columns with guidance from an AI editing tool called Ember, which has not yet debuted. The new project works separately from the traditional opinion section, which O'Neill oversees.
