Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah claims she – Business News
Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah claimed she was fired by the newspaper final week over her social media posts following the assassination of Charlie Kirk — together with one through which she condemned “excessive, false mourning” of the conservative activist.
Attiah, who spent 11 years on the paper and was the final remaining full-time black individual on its opinion web page, wrote on her Substack that she was accused by the newspaper of “gross misconduct” which endangered colleagues’ security — allegations she rejected as false.
Attiah had taken goal at Kirk — in addition to the outpouring of grief and sympathy for the conservative activist who was gunned down final week during a school campus look in Utah.
Karen Attiah was the final remaining black individual on Washington Post’s opinion web page. karenattiah/Instagram
“My journalistic and moral values for balance compelled me to condemn violence and murder without engaging in excessive, false mourning for a man who routinely attacked Black women as a group,” Attiah wrote.
Attiah wrote that she referenced Kirk on only one Bluesky post through which she quoted him as saying: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”
“My commentary received thoughtful engagement across platforms, support, and virtually no public backlash,” Attiah wrote.
She bemoaned the truth that her exit from the newspaper leaves the opinion part with none African-Americans.
“I was the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the Post … Washington D.C. no longer has a paper that reflects the people it serves,” she wrote.
The Washington Post fired columnist Karen Attiah final week over social media posts she made after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, she stated Monday. Getty Images
Last month, Status publication reported that Attiah’s future on the Washington Post was murky after she held a tense assembly together with her new boss, the freshly put in opinion editor Adam O’Neal.
O’Neal, previously of the Economist, was employed by the Jeff Bezos-owned publication as half of his overhaul of the opinion part, which he needed to reorient across the concepts of “free markets and personal liberties.”
The Washington Post has seen a mass exodus of expertise since final fall, when Bezos prevented the editorial board from publishing its deliberate endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency.
A Washington Post spokesperson stated the paper wouldn’t touch upon personnel issues.
Attiah, who spent 11 years on the paper, stated she was accused of social media posts that had been deemed to be an act of “gross misconduct” which endangered colleagues’ security, allegations she rejected as false. Instagram/@karenattiah
Attiah characterised her dismissal as “part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, business, government, and media — a historical pattern as dangerous as it is shameful — and tragic.”
She claimed that a sequence of social media posts touting gun control that she wrote on the Bluesky platform, which has emerged as the popular left-leaning different to X, was used as justification for her firing, regardless that the views she voiced had been long-held and never new.
The different Bluesky posts had been innocuous pleadings for more gun control, she wrote.
In her Bluesky posts from final week, Attiah referenced Kirk’s assassination in Utah final Wednesday in addition to a capturing on the campus of a high faculty close to Denver on the identical day.
A makeshift memorial for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. FILIP SINGER/EPA/Shutterstock
A pupil, 16-year-old Desmond Holly, opened fire at Evergreen High School, wounding two classmates earlier than turning the gun on himself.
“I wish I had hope for gun control and that I could believe ‘political violence has no place in this country.’ But we live in a country that accepts white children being massacred by gun violence. Not just accepts, but worships violence,” Attiah wrote on Bluesky on the day of each shootings.
In a subsequent post, she wrote: “Political violence has no place in this country … But we will also do nothing to curb the availability of the guns used to carry out said violence. The denial and empty rhetoric is learned helplessness — because the truth is … America is sick and there is no cure in sight.”
Attiah wrote one other post through which she stated: “Because America, especially white America is not going to do what it needs to do to get rid of the guns in their country. It will be thoughts and prayers, ‘violence has no place’ out of a performance of goodness, not out of the resolve to convince their communities to disarm.”
Attiah additionally referenced the capturing of two Democratic state legislators in Minnesota earlier this 12 months, lamenting that “America shrugged and moved on.”
Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk was killed during a “Prove Me Wrong” debate at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025. REUTERS
On her Substack web page, Attiah posted a photograph exterior the Washington Post’s places of work holding a flaming newspaper and a rose in her mouth
She pressured that she didn’t rejoice Kirk’s death and famous her solely direct point out of him was citing his previous statements.
“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,” she wrote.
“On Bluesky, in the aftermath of the horrific shootings in Utah and Colorado, I condemned America’s acceptance of political violence and criticized its ritualized responses — the hollow, cliched calls for ‘thoughts and prayers’ and ‘this is not who we are’ that normalize gun violence and absolve white perpetrators especially, while nothing is done to curb deaths,” Attiah wrote on Substack.
Writing on Substack, Attiah insisted that her Bluesky commentary condemned political violence and pointed to what she claimed had been racial double requirements in America’s response to shootings.
Attiah defended her posts on Bluesky, writing on Substack: “Nothing I said was new or false or disparaging — it is descriptive, and supported by data.”
Attiah defended her posts on Bluesky, writing on Substack: “Nothing I said was new or false or disparaging — it is descriptive, and supported by data.”
Attiah referenced the capturing earlier this 12 months of two Democratic legislators in Minnesota.
Attiah posted about gun control within the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination.
“I did my journalistic duty, reminding people that despite President Trump’s partisan rushes to judgement, no suspect or motive had been identified in the killing of Charlie Kirk — exercising restraint even as I condemned hatred and violence,” she wrote.
Nonetheless, her bosses on the Washington Post stated they had been “unacceptable” and amounted to “gross misconduct.”
Attiah’s future on the Washington Post appeared murky final month following a reportedly tense assembly together with her boss. Christopher Sadowski
“They rushed to fire me without even a conversation,” in accordance with Attiah.
“This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold.”
