The Washington Post plans an influx of outside opinion writers

Straits Times

03-06-2025

The Washington Post plans an influx of outside opinion writers in a new programme, known internally as Ripple. PHOTO: ERIC LEE/NYTIMES
WASHINGTON - The Washington Post has published some of the world's most influential voices for more than a century, including columnists such as George Will and newsmakers such as the Dalai Lama and President Donald Trump.
A new initiative aims to sharply expand that lineup, opening the Post to many published opinion articles from other newspapers across America, writers on Substack and eventually nonprofessional writers, according to four people familiar with the plan.
Executives hope that the programme, known internally as Ripple, will appeal to readers who want more breadth than the Post's current opinion section and more quality than social platforms such as Reddit and X.
The project will host and promote the outside opinion columns on the Post's website and app but outside its paywall, according to the people, who would speak only anonymously to discuss a confidential project. It will operate outside the paper's opinion section.
The Post aims to strike some of the initial partnership deals this summer, two of the people said, and the company recently hired an editor to oversee writing for Ripple. A final phase, allowing nonprofessionals to submit columns with help from an AI writing coach called Ember, could begin testing this fall. Human editors would review submissions before publication.
A spokesperson for the Post declined to comment.
Mr Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder and owner of the Post, has been trying to turn around the news organisation's struggling business. He has told confidants that he wants to broaden the publication's reach beyond its traditional audience of coastal elites. For years, Mr Bezos has also urged leaders at the Post to embrace aggregation, the practice of summarising and linking to journalism published by other outlets, to attract additional readers.
Ripple would be a big step in that direction. Executives involved with the project believe that it could reach a potential audience of 38 million US adults, based on internal research, and that some of them would join a 'talent network' to submit their own writing, two of the people said. The company is also planning to explore subscription bundles with partner publishers, one of the people said.
The Washington Post's traditional opinion section has undergone a significant shift in recent months. Mr Bezos decided shortly before the November election that the Post would no longer endorse a presidential candidate. That decision stopped the publication of the section's endorsement of Vice-President Kamala Harris.
In February, Mr Bezos ordered the Post's opinion section to embrace 'personal liberties and free markets', prompting the section's editor, Mr David Shipley, to resign. Both decisions have drawn scrutiny from readers and inside the company.
Ripple is the result of a research and development process that began more than a year ago. The Post's opinion section experimented in 2024 with local content from Kansas City, Missouri, and began brainstorming sessions to expand the idea that spring. Executives approved the plan for Ripple in January, and the Post started the project in April.
Mr Will Lewis, the Post's CEO, has been looking for new ways to reduce costs at the company while finding new sources of revenue. In 2024, the Post created a road map to guide its efforts, with focus areas including artificial intelligence, new products and personalisation.
Executives have already considered a list of potential partners that includes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Salt Lake Tribune, popular Substack writer Matt Yglesias and The Dispatch, a right-of-centre politics site, two of the people said.
Ms Lauren Gustus, CEO of The Salt Lake Tribune, said the nonprofit publication had declined to participate in the programme, preferring to focus on 'building relationships and trust here in Utah'.
Mr Andrew Morse, the publisher of the Journal-Constitution, said the Post had not contacted him about the project, adding that the plan was not in line with his company's strategy.
'We are laser-focused on growing direct relationships with customers,' he said. 'We think scale is yesterday's war.'
Ember, the AI writing coach being developed by the Post, could automate several functions normally provided by human editors, the people said. Early mock-ups of the tool feature a 'story strength' tracker that tells writers how their piece is shaping up, with a sidebar that lays out basic parts of story structure: 'early thesis', 'supporting points' and 'memorable ending'. A live AI assistant would provide developmental questions, with writing prompts inviting authors to add 'solid supporting points', one of the people said.
The Post's plan to publish content by contributors is a familiar tactic in digital media. Forbes and HuffPost became online destinations for opinion writing submitted by users, leading to a boom in their digital audiences. But that approach has fallen out of favor in recent years as news organisations have placed a greater emphasis on building deeper engagement with users to create paid subscription businesses.
Ripple is being developed by Mr Lippe Oosterhof, a strategic adviser at the Post who previously worked for Reuters and Yahoo. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr Oosterhof is also a strategic adviser to Symbolic.ai, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to assist professional journalists and corporate communications executives.
One publication initially under consideration as a potential partner for Ripple was The Contrarian, an online publication co-founded by Ms Jennifer Rubin, one of the people said. Ms Rubin resigned from the Post after Mr Bezos stopped the endorsement of Ms Harris, saying the company's leaders had abandoned values central to the Post's mission.
The Post has since removed The Contrarian from consideration. When told that she had been under consideration at all, Ms Rubin burst out in laughter.
'Did they read my public resignation letter?' she said. NYTIMES
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