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The WaPo’s Attiah Walkback

Leadership has stayed quiet after being directed to reinstate the columnist it fired last year. And audio obtained by Status adds another wrinkle for the paper.

Natalie Korach
Natalie Korach

Aug 27, 2026

The WaPo’s Attiah Walkback

The WaPo’s Attiah Walkback

Leadership has stayed quiet after being directed to reinstate the columnist it fired last year. And audio obtained by Status adds another wrinkle for the paper.

Natalie Korach
Natalie Korach

Aug 27, 2026

The WaPo’s Attiah Walkback

Nearly a week after an independent arbitrator ordered The Washington Post to rehire fired opinion columnist Karen Attiah and award her full back pay for much of the last year, the newspaper has remained remarkably silent.

While the paper has indicated that it respects the arbitration process, it has not addressed Attiah’s reinstatement, and its executives have yet to discuss the matter with staffers. Attiah, the founding editor of The Post’s global opinions section and the paper’s only Black female columnist, told me she wants to return to her old job, but has heard nothing from the paper’s leadership.

The silence has not gone unnoticed among media observers—or inside The Post, where some employees are wondering whether the Jeff Bezos-owned paper actually intends to welcome Attiah back into the fold. For now, that remains unclear. But behind the scenes, Status has learned…

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Authors

Oliver Darcy

Jon Passantino

Natalie Korach

Brian Lowry

Status is the definitive nightly briefing that cuts through the noise to inform readers about what is really happening in the corridors of media power.

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