Overview

• Karen Attiah’s tense one-on-one meeting with new editor Adam O’Neal left her future in the opinion section uncertain after she declined a voluntary buyout.
• O’Neal has held one-on-one meetings urging columnists to fit his vision by taking voluntary buyouts, contributing to leadership turnover and a slimmer opinion staff.
• His commissioning of op-eds by Jay Bhattacharya and Jeanine Pirro signaled a tilt toward Trump administration viewpoints and prompted criticism from readers and former staffers.
• Attiah’s post on X declaring herself the last Black staff columnist intensified concerns over diversity and representation in the opinion pages.
• Observers describe O’Neal’s leadership as unsettled, reflecting skepticism about the direction and independence of the opinion pages under Bezos’s reforms.