Washington Post's new opinion chief says 'tough decisions about staffing' are looming

FIRST ON FOX - Washington Post opinion editor Adam O'Neal on Wednesday informed colleagues that "tough decisions about staffing" are looming, while reiterating social media guidelines and announcing a trio of new opinion writers. 

O'Neal, who joined The Post in July after being selected to carry out billionaire owner Jeff Bezos' mission statement to promote "personal liberties and free markets," sent a memo to opinion staffers that detailed the next steps of his plan to overhaul the opinion section. 

"We've already started the hard work of making our workflows more nimble when publishing editorials, op-eds and columns. Soon we will introduce a new org chart that will require us to make tough decisions about staffing. While it is never easy, restructuring the page is critical to making the opinion section more competitive and capable," O'Neal wrote in the memo obtained by Fox News Digital. 

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"In the past, our columnists often served as a rapid-response team to breaking news. Unsigned editorials, on the other hand, stood outside the news cycle. Recently we have increased the number of unsigned editorials and have emphasized speed while improving quality," he continued. 

"We will eventually begin to publish three editorials a day, and our columnists will begin writing on scheduled days. Together these changes can help give our section a more distinct voice and help readers form habits around consuming our content."

O'Neal also announced three new hires. National Review economics editor Dominic Pino, The Spectator U.S. deputy editor Kate Andrews and Boston Globe columnist Carine Hajjar will all join The Post next month and report to deputy opinion editor James Hohmann. 

All three currently work for or have backgrounds with right-leaning publications, a noteworthy development given the paper's historically left-leaning opinion roster.

"We'll have more announcements in the coming months as we continue hiring contributors with diverse backgrounds to strengthen our section," O'Neal wrote. 

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O'Neal recently told Fox News Digital the current state of the editorial pages was a "work in progress" and reshaping them would take time. He conceded the paper's readers are "overwhelmingly liberal" from a handful of blue states and hopes to expand its reach with a non-partisan approach. 

"My mission is to hire the kinds of people from throughout the U.S. with different kinds of backgrounds, intellectual diversity, who can appeal and rebuild that trust. And I think that a lot of folks have a poor view of The Post because they don't feel that they've been well served by it," O'Neal told Fox News Digital in his first interview since landing the job.

"If there are people who had a perception that subscribing to The Post was like a form of activism and that they had to do it to oppose a particular politician or party now that we're opening up our lands and writing more widely in a nonpartisan way, I don't know, maybe you'll lose people that way," O'Neal continued. "But I think the upside of where the growth is by appealing to many more Americans in rebuilding that trust, to me, that's a pretty clear decision."

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The Washington Post lost a reported 250,000 subscribers when it elected not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 for the White House.

In his memo to staffers, O'Neal also reminded that "management mandated all Washington Post employees based in the region return to the office five days a week," and everyone is expected to comply. He also attached the company's ethics guidelines and social media polices, urging staffers to cooperate. 

Karen Attiah, a former progressive Washington Post columnist, was terminated last month following social media posts related to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a move that drew criticism from media freedom advocates.

The Washington Post didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fox News Digital's Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.