Longtime Washington Post editor Charles Lane is leaving the paper after 25 years to become deputy editor at Bari Weiss’ Free Press, the latest departure from WaPo’s opinions section in the fallout from its non-endorsement in the 2024 presidential election cycle.
“The brilliant Chuck Lane will be joining us as deputy editor in the new year,” Weiss wrote Friday on X. “He joins us from The Washington Post, where he has worked for the past 25 years. We could not be more excited.”
Lane served many roles at the Post, most recently as deputy opinions editor. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009, for editorial writing; Weiss also noted that “you might also remember him as the guy who busted a journalistic fraudster in the classic film ‘Shattered Glass.’”
“For much of the last decade he contributed weekly columns marked by their independence, intellectual integrity, and range,” Weiss wrote. “Those are exactly the qualities we aspire to at The Free Press — and why we know Chuck is going to be such a perfect fit.”
Weiss said Lane will be a newsroom leader, “working alongside me to dramatically expand the scope of our report, pushing us into new coverage areas, enticing new writers to join our merry band, and helping us go from one million subscribers to many, many more.”
After the October decision not to endorse a presidential candidate, multiple staffers stepped down from the editorial board, including writer Molly Roberts and Pultizer Prize-winning journalist David Hoffman.
