‘Embarrassing Defeat!’ Washington Post Being Forced to Rehire Karen Attiah Sparks Big Reaction in Media Circles

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TOP STORY

KAREN ATTIAH VS. THE WASHINGTON POST

The Washington Post fired Opinion columnist Karen Attiah last September after she posted on social media about the assassination of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. Per The New York Times, Attiah wrote at the time, “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence.”

On Monday the Post was ordered to reinstate Attiah and to pay her back pay. Arbiter Sarah Miller Espinosa found the Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” for the firing and “violated” its labor agreement by doing so. Attiah has indicated she’s open to returning to the outlet.

The stack today offers a look at what happened and what changed.

THREE TAKES

The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — Jones spoke to Attiah last October, just after the firing she said left her “feeling stunned, angry, confused, sad and even betrayed by the place where she worked for 11 years.” Monday’s “twist” was “surprising,” he noted, by and large because the Post seemed to build such a strong case against her. Jones also pointed out that “most” of Attiah’s posts last year were about gun violence, not Kirk specifically — though clearly his death was what kicked off her messages. She wrote in one, “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.”

Townhall, Jeff Charles — Charles roundly rejected the idea that Attiah’s comments were acceptable. The Post was “forced to rehire” the “leftist writer who attacked Charlie Kirk,” his headline read Monday afternoon. Charles offered two takes from Espinosa: first, that Attiah’s “posts referred only to a limited group of people and not all white men” and second, the idea that the “comments did not constitute disparagement based on race and gender.” Charles didn’t offer much more beyond the headline and a handful of keywords, but he didn’t really have to.

Status, Oliver Darcy — The Washington Post was “dealt an embarrassing defeat,” Darcy wrote of the decision. Attiah’s comments, which were initially caught by “then opinion-editor Adam O’Neal,” who said they were “completely unacceptable for someone associated” with the newspaper. Darcy also included something the others did not: though the Post was told to re-hire Attiah and she said she’d be willing to go back, “Attiah told me that as of Monday evening she has not heard from The WaPo’s leadership.”

TAKEAWAY: The sensitive nature of the story may be the biggest reason our newsletter authors were willing to elevate Attiah’s arbitration result but not comment on it extensively. Darcy tiptoed out onto a limb to describe the result as “embarrassing” for the Post, but perspectives which outright celebrated the decision were hard to find among the left-leaning letters. That could be a sign they believe Attiah went too far but don’t want to criticize her. Or it could mean they don’t want to stoke right-wing outrage by supporting her. Either way, the silence is noteworthy.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 Status, Oliver Darcy— Bari Weiss has been “on the hunt” to find “television talent to recruit for CBS News,” Darcy wrote Tuesday morning. She’s had “some successes here and there” but “there have been many more misses along the way.” Part of the problem is Weiss is looking at journalists who “are locked into multiyear contracts with rival networks.” Sources told Status Weiss has attempted to sway “Bret Baier and Dana Perino from Fox News; Andrew Ross Sorkin from CNBC; Leland Vittert from NewsNation,” and has “irritated other networks and flummoxed television news agents” in the process of doing so. Weiss also spoke to Chris Cuomo, and “is enraptured by the former CNN anchor turned NewsNation host.” And it sounds like he’s not not interested: “To that end, I’m told that Weiss and Cuomo have met in person and shared a meal at least once. And I’m told that the two often exchange text messages.”

SCOOP 🍨 POLITICO Playbook,Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, and Will Steakin— Abdul El-Sayed could find his Senatorial campaign derailed by embracing Hasan Piker, Playbook reported today. El-Sayed was compelled to defend the relationship with Piker Monday, and that was “not good,” Tré Easton, VP for public policy at Searchlight Institute told Playbook. Easton added, “You have a finite amount of days in campaigns, and any day you’re not on your message and on the offensive, you’re losing.” Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) also made it clear that attempts at party unity will not work out if El-Sayed stays loyal to Piker. She told Playbook, “I have long said I will not campaign with someone who continues to associate with Hasan Piker. Today, Abdul El-Sayed had a prime opportunity to cut ties with Piker and directly disavow his words, but he did not. There is a lot of work left to do to unite the party.”

SCOOP 🍨 CJR’s Near and Far, Tannu Jain — In May, some two million students were told they would have to retake a national medical school exam after India’s government announced “some of the questions had found their way onto WhatsApp and Telegram.” The students were “livid.” Many had “subjected themselves to grueling, expensive preparation courses for the exam, one of the only real vehicles for social mobility in India amid rising youth unemployment and a spiking cost of living,” Jain wrote, and the demand prompted rallies across Delhi. Mainstream media began taking steps to “occasionally cast doubt and disfavor” on the group, who dubbed themselves the Cockroach Janata Party — or CJP. Police in Delhi violently “cracked down” on the group on July 20, which spurred the students’ anger — and also resulted in a media frenzy and a reckoning.

“For the first time we saw a news story become a national issue even in the absence of national media,” Youtuber Shyam Meera Singh told CJR. Legacy media houses “have now seen that news can be covered just as well by independent journalists.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — There’s no need to panic about Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that will “eventually, partially clear the way for Donald Trump to implement his cartoonishly unconstitutional executive order cracking down on mail-in ballots in blue states by abusing Post Office procedures,” Egger wrote today. That’s because “it’s probably not as bad as that description makes it sound.” The case of mail-in ballots won’t be fully decided until “a third forthcoming ruling from a lower judge” is in, and yesterday SCOTUS “were simply allowing—for now—the government to proceed with its fig leaf of legality intact.” That doesn’t mean it’s not concerning, because the president “has never bothered to hide the purpose of his order: to keep states from running their elections via mail-in ballots by hook or by crook,” and the justices “have kicked the can down the road.”

ANALYSIS 👀 Awful Announcing’s The A Block— Sports media has apparently decided to fully ignore the developing (awful) news that’s surrounding San Francisco 49er’s owner Jed York, The A Block wrote today. York was arrested in Ohio on Monday after he responded “to an online prostitution ad that turned out to be part of an undercover sting run by the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force.” He also “pleaded no contest Monday to amended misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and possessing criminal tools.” That’s one thing, but the silence from ESPN, Fox, and CBS on “a significant story.” While “no one” is expecting a resurgence of the “Bob Ley era of sports television” that included “appointment-viewing breaking news desks,” the coverage could have been different. “What’s being missed is a host reading a headline, laying out what’s known, what happens next, and what it means for the 49ers heading into the season,” The A Block pointed out.

ANALYSIS 👀  Page Six Hollywood, Ian Mohr and Katcy Stephan— At long last, Coyote vs. Acme hits theaters this weekend and has already received “rave reviews,” Mohr and Stephan wrote today. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the film will prove successful at the box office. The fact that the movie is “making it to theaters is being celebrated as a win for the creatives behind the project,” after it was initially shelved by Warner Bros. in 2023, but WBD head David Zaslav will likely be the one who ends up “laughing all the way to the bank.” The film is anticipated to make $10 to 15 million this weekend — “a financial brick wall.” Mohr and Stephan added, “Like a Looney Toons character, it’s Zaslav who keeps landing on his feet: His reign at Warner Bros. Discovery since 2022 had been widely criticized, and he then managed to pull off the stunning sale of the studio to Paramount.”

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Owens spun the block on a piece of information from the newsletters we went through yesterday—Semafor’s reporting on how the New York Times is now testing its first generative AI feature for readers—but added some business-savvy analysis of his own. His argument is that publishers (especially reputable ones) should leave LLMs alone, since competitors like ChatGPT will always do generative AI better. Besides, institutions have standards to uphold and Owens sees that as a human responsibility. QUOTE 📣 “It’s not that I’m against news outlets figuring out ways to leverage AI, but there should probably be a human in the loop for just about any consumer-facing content. Journalistic organizations should be held to a higher standard than your average LLM.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Netflix is exploring a transition from a standalone streaming platform into a broader digital marketplace by potentially allowing competitors like Paramount+, Peacock, and HBO Max to sell subscriptions directly inside its app. QUOTE 📣 “This is further evidence that Netflix views YouTube — and, to a lesser extent, Amazon — as an existential threat to its long-term growth. The more these companies consolidate streaming services under one roof, the more control they gain over the broader streaming marketplace.”

CNN Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — In his own explainer of Netflix’s possible pivot to being a marketplace, Stelter includes an interesting business tidbit: The streaming giant posted $2.81 billion in revenue in the United Kingdom for 2025. This financial milestone means the digital platform is now generating more cash in the UK than ITV, the country’s leading legacy commercial broadcaster.

The Publisher Newsletter, Peter Houston — In an extract from its Inside the Print Revival report, the newsletter outlines 10 arguments to help convince publishing decisionmakers to invest in high-quality physical print products. They should see this as a way of “sweating their assets” and maximizing content return on investment across multiple platforms. QUOTE 📣 “Each iteration of your content is an opportunity to bring in additional revenue from a different audience. The people that read TIME magazine online may be very different from the people who read the weekly in print – but that doesn’t mean you should see your print publishing operation as separate from your digital output. Your print and digital content need to be complementary.”

Nieman Lab, Hanaa Tameez — This is from last week but getting traction in other newsletters today, so worth a mention: Independent news site The Food Section has implemented an unusual phone-only pitch policy to halt a massive surge of AI-generated freelance pitches. QUOTE 📣 Per founder Hanna Raskin, “Having been deluged by AI-generated and enhanced story ideas this summer, we’re re-humanizing the process with a dedicated hotline (which has the added benefit of weeding out supposed reporters who aren’t in the habit of ringing up strangers.)”

CNN Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — Curating a new scoop in its “Briefly…” section, the newsletter highlights a Variety report that digital media network Crooked Media has finalized an acquisition deal to revive the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast. The popular program will return under this new banner, continuing to be hosted by Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and Galen Druke.

OTHER COOL STUFF

CNN Reliable Sources — Universal Studios Hollywood went to great lengths to build its massive new Fast & Furious roller coaster to be super-quiet, but didn’t account for how audible that would make the screams of satisfied customers.

The Wakeup — Just a few days ago, Matthew McConaughey revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the 2003 rom-com How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days still pays him his largest residuals. Now, Paramount has officially put a sequel into development with Kate Hudson set to produce. Fan service!

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter — Up-and-coming musicians are bypassing traditional concert venues to tour children’s summer camps in an effort to promote their albums. This is actually smart: Kids are a core demo and they are more than capable of not only managing word-of-mouth campaigns, but making songs go viral on TikTok.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

Puck’s Line Sheet, Lauren Sherman — Sherman recently grabbed physical copies of both Vogue and Vanity Fair and compared the two, something that sounds a little novel in this day and age. Vogue was “quite thick and formulaic … from the features to the editorials.” While “factoring in my unavoidable bias,” Sherman wrote (noting she’d just been profiled in Vanity Fair by former Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin) Vanity Fair offered “more urgency” across the board in her view.

For all of our focus on new media (and in the case of the One Sheet, media-focused newsletters), it’s important to recognize from time-to-time that the glossies still matter.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

The Bulwark’s False Flag, Will Sommer — Yesterday, a bizarre story about MAGA influencer Jennica Pounds unfolded on X after she revealed “Deep-state operatives embedded within the Trump administration had tried to entrap her into committing treason,” Sommer wrote. Pounds accused Sarah B. Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department of offering “to leak her government documents about Cuba to publish as an ‘exclusive,’” — though Pounds soon began to “panic that she was being set up.” Rogers herself shared the documents and noted that “markings” that alarmed Pounds “are FOIA redactions required even for voluntary disclosure.”

The debacle is a reminder of a peril of Trump 2.0: there is “a lack of talented media figures who can handle even the basic function of laundering the administration’s message,” Sommer wrote. To make matters worse, Pounds is now a Trump employee, which makes the story “convoluted.” Sommer does a masterful job of explaining the confusing (and concerning) tale.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.