Ghanaian-American columnist Karen Attiah, a longtime Washington Post contributor and Pulitzer Prize finalist, has been fired from the newspaper’s Opinions department over social media posts criticizing political violence following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
In a Substack post on Monday, September 15, Attiah stated her dismissal stemmed from “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.”
The posts on Bluesky social media platform came after Kirk’s fatal shooting during a September 10 event at Utah Valley University.
The Washington Post Guild condemned the decision, stating: “The Washington Post wrongly fired Opinions columnist Karen Attiah over her social media posts. The Post not only flagrantly disregarded standard disciplinary processes, it also undermined its own mandate to be a champion of free speech.”
According to CNN sources, Post management took issue with Attiah’s assertion that Kirk “espoused violence” and her quotation of his 2023 remark questioning the “brain processing power” of prominent Black women like Joy Reid and Michelle Obama.
Attiah, who was the Post’s last remaining full-time Black opinion columnist, rejected the newspaper’s accusations of “unacceptable” conduct and “gross misconduct” as “charges without evidence.”
The dismissal occurs amid significant turmoil in the Post’s Opinions department, driven by owner Jeff Bezos’ push to refocus on “personal liberties and free markets” announced in February 2025.
The Ghanaian-American journalist rose to prominence at the Post following the 2018 murder of her colleague Jamal Khashoggi and had served as the founding editor of the newspaper’s Global Opinions section before becoming a columnist in 2021.
