Jen Rubin exits Washington Post, joins Norm Eisen to launch new outlet countering ‘authoritarian threat’

By Brian Stelter, CNN

New York (CNN) — Veteran opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin is becoming the latest in a long list of Washington Post figures to leave the troubled institution.

Rubin is partnering with former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen and launching something new: a startup publication called The Contrarian.

The startup’s tagline, “Not owned by anybody,” is a pointed reference to billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other moguls who, in Rubin’s view, have “bent the knee” to President-elect Donald Trump.

“Our goal is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face,” Rubin told CNN in an interview ahead of the publication’s introduction.

Rather than anti-Trump, the founders describe their venture as pro-democracy. They said they have already enlisted about two dozen contributors, including people who played prominent roles in debunking 2020 election denialism and investigating the January 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol.

“The voices we’ll be featuring are diverse across parties and generations,” Eisen said in a statement, “connected by the shared belief that we need an unshackled media in order to meet this moment, as we face an existential threat to American democracy.”

The Contrarian joins a growing group of publications – like The Bulwark and Zeteo, to name two – that are built on the Substack newsletter platform. Starting Monday, it will publish some content for free but will charge $7 a month for complete access to columns, podcasts, and videos.

Eisen, a regular presence on cable news who is departing his CNN legal analyst role, will be the publisher. Rubin will be the editor-in-chief.

A 14-year veteran of the Post’s opinion section, Rubin said she resigned because “the Post, along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press.”

“I fear that things are going from bad to worse at The Post,” she added.

Rubin cited numerous controversies, including Bezos blocking the editorial board’s planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in October and Amazon, which Bezos founded, making a $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural fund. She said a major factor in her exit was the Post’s recent refusal to publish a satirical cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes showing Bezos and others on bended knee. Telnaes resigned as a result.

The Post’s opinion editor David Shipley defended his decision to nix the cartoon in an internal memo last Friday, calling it a “sound editorial decision” because other Post columns had referenced Bezos and Trump and “yet another piece in the span of a few days struck me as overkill.”

Both the opinion and newsroom departments at the Post have, indeed, covered Bezos rigorously. But Rubin’s concerns about the Post, including about its independence, have been shared by others, and boldface names from both departments have departed in the past couple of months, sapping morale inside the organization.

Rubin said the name of her outfit, The Contrarian, signaled “we’re not going with the herd,” meaning with the billionaire types that have sought to “curry favor” with the president-elect.

She said subscribers could expect “reported opinion and commentary” about political news, but also cultural coverage that might appeal to people who don’t follow politics closely.

Humorist Andy Borowitz, who parted ways with The New Yorker in 2023 and now has his own home on Substack, will be a contributor.

Eisen, a former US ambassador to the Czech Republic, said, “I know from my experience in Europe that the dissident movements there have been led by those in humor, satire, and culture like my friend President Václav Havel who was a playwright.”

“We will bring in a large array of voices – you need that to fight autocracy,” he added. “Laughing may actually end up being more important than political and legal analysis!”

Rubin and Eisen will face the same challenges as other digital startups: distribution hurdles, marketing constraints and a general reticence from readers to give up a credit card and pay for a subscription.

But Rubin does have one data point as motivation. In the wake of the Post’s non-endorsement scandal, at least 250,000 customers dropped their subscriptions. For a Post veteran walking out the door in protest, those fellow protesters might be the starting point for a new subscription business.

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