Another veteran Washington Post journalist fled the Jeff Bezos-owned broadsheet on Tuesday — joining an exodus of talent after management spiked an endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
CNN announced on Tuesday that Philip Rucker, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and long-time Washington Post national editor, is joining the network as senior vice president of editorial strategy and news.
Rucker’s departure follows a wave of resignations in recent weeks due to growing dissatisfaction with the Washington Post’s leadership.
Rucker spent two decades at WashPo, earning a reputation as one of the most respected chroniclers of Trump’s first term.
He co-authored two bestselling books about his presidency.
A Washington Post spokesperson confirmed Rucker’s departure, telling the New York Post that the publication wishes him the best.
In his new position at CNN, Rucker will play a pivotal role in shaping the network’s coverage of the second Trump administration.
He will oversee political newsgathering efforts and help integrate that reporting across CNN’s various platforms, including its digital outlets.
“I look forward to collaborating with the world-class journalists at CNN to help chart a new era of digital transformation,” Rucker said in a statement.
His departure comes after more than 400 Washington Post staffers sent a letter to Bezos begging him to intervene on the paper’s direction.
Bezos, the Amazon founder who bought the venerable Beltway paper in 2013, and Will Lewis, its CEO and publisher, blocked the editorial board from publishing an endorsement of Harris just weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
The move triggered widespread anger among readers with a reported 250,000 of them canceling their subscriptions in response.
The decision also pushed many high-profile staffers to leave, including Jennifer Rubin, the veteran opinion columnist and outspoken critic of Trump, who announced last week that she would join a startup newsletter founded by former Obama official Norm Eisen.
Several other journalists quit the editorial board. In the weeks that followed, a number of the newspaper’s top reporters and editors, including Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey, departed.
Parker and Michael Scherer, both senior political reporters, left the Washington Post to join The Atlantic, the left-leaning publication owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs.
Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, resigned after the paper declined to publish her cartoon mocking Bezos and other tech moguls kneeling before Trump.
She criticized the decision as detrimental to press freedom.
Rucker will be based at CNN’s Washington bureau and is set to begin his role on February 10.
Rucker’s hiring comes at a pivotal moment for CNN.
During Trump’s first presidency, the network took a confrontational stance in its coverage, which became a defining element of its approach to political reporting.
Under the leadership of network boss Mark Thompson, CNN is said to be seeking a more balanced tone.
A sign of change came last week when it was reported that Thompson wanted to move anti-Trump anchor Jim Acosta to the graveyard shift.
The Post has sought comment from CNN.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
