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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Washington Post columnist says she was fired over her posts about
Charlie Kirk and political violence
By Brian Stelter, CNN
Updated:
10:47 PM EDT, Mon September 15, 2025
Source: CNN
Longtime Washington Post writer Karen Attiah says she has been fired
from the publication’s Opinions department for “speaking out
against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s
apathy toward guns.”
The Post, which has been overhauling the entire department, declined to
comment on personnel matters. But Attiah’s Post biography has been
revised to say she “was” a columnist, indicating she is no longer
employed.
“The Washington Post wrongly fired Opinions columnist Karen Attiah
over her social media posts,” the paper’s staff guild wrote in a
statement Monday afternoon. “The Post not only flagrantly disregarded
standard disciplinary processes, it also undermined its own mandate to
be a champion of free speech.”
Attiah posted a string of messages about political violence in the wake
of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week. She criticized what she
called “empty rhetoric” denouncing violence that hasn’t been
matched by actions.
One of her posts asserted that “part of what keeps America so violent
is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and
absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.”
Attiah didn’t reference Kirk by name, but she also said to a
commenter that “refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my
face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence
is… not the same as violence.”
Attiah that “my commentary received thoughtful engagement across
platforms, support, and virtually no public backlash.”
But her assertion that Kirk “espoused violence” may have been
flagged by Post management.
Two Post staffers told CNN that management also took issue with Attiah
a Kirk from 2023.
Attiah wrote that “the Post accused my measured Bluesky posts of
being ‘unacceptable’, ‘gross misconduct’ and of endangering the
physical safety of colleagues — charges without evidence, which I
reject completely as false.”
The Post declined to say who made those accusations. The Opinion
department has been in turmoil for months, driven by Post owner Jeff
Bezos and his desire to change the direction of the editorial board.
Bezos said in February that “we are going to be writing every day in
support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free
markets.” Over the summer the Post hired a new Opinion editor, Adam
O’Neal, who said he would reorient the department accordingly.
Many of the Post’s opinion columnists have departed as a result of
Bezos’s moves.
“I was the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the
Post, in one of the nation’s most diverse regions,” Attiah wrote in
her blog post.
Attiah’s exit comes amid to get people who’ve bashed Kirk following
his murder — with comments ranging from outright celebration at his
death to indifference or criticism of his legacy — fired from their
jobs.
The free expression group PEN America said Monday that “the firing
and suspension of multiple journalists after the fatal shooting of
Charlie Kirk should alarm anyone who cares about free speech and a free
press. Taken together, these measures risk creating a chilling effect
that extends beyond those directly targeted, weakening public discourse
at a moment when open debate is urgently needed.”
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