Why I Quit The Washington Post

By Jeff Bezos

I have owned the Washington Post since 2013 as a billionaire oligarch. I’ve had my differences with editors, writers—even a cartoonist. I have had bitter arguments about the slogan I slapped on the Post masthead implying that the paper stood firmly for democracy.

And I even personally squelched that endorsement of Kamala Harris just before Election Day. But in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who I aimed my pen at. Until now.

This is the cartoon that the owner of the Washington Post killed before it could run.

I had never doubted—despite my also having hired Will Lewis, a shady Rupert Murdoch underling, as CEO of the Post—that I was still free to exercise my journalistic prerogatives.

My cartoon that was killed (above) shows the billionaire owner of the Post chewing out a disobedient journalist, which he as owner is not supposed to do. Meanwhile, there has been widespread coverage of that same owner spending $1 million to curry favor with the felonious Donald Trump.

Some will say, “Your employer has the right to expect you to do what's good for the company.” But were not talking about a retailer like Amazon or Whole Foods here.

A news organization like the Post is the only type of business explicitly protected by the First Amendment. It, therefore, has a public obligation that supersedes any desire to ingratiate itself with a would-be autocrat.

My primary job at the Post is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. That includes the owner.

But since the owner has prevented me from doing that, I have no choice but to throw his gall back in his philandering, anti-Labor, bald-headed face. I'm sure that the woman he cheated on, MacKenzie Scott, would agree whole heartedly.

And just for good measure, how shameful is it for a grown man—who could afford to single-handedly feed all the hungry children in America—to instead jerk himself off by fulfilling his adolescent fantasy of riding a giant phallic symbol into space for a few fleeting minutes?

Now there's a helluva editorial cartoon for you.

Well, I'm outta here, reminding you that you won't have me to kick around anymore.

[Note: This is a satire. Jeff Bezos would, of course, never write this well]