Karen Attiah (born August 12, 1986) is an American writer, commentator, and editor. Hired by The Washington Post in 2014, she was the founding editor in 2016 for its Global Opinions section, and was elevated to Opinions columnist in 2021. Attiah stated in a newsletter post on September 15, 2025, that she was fired by the Post in response to her social media comments referencing Charlie Kirk in the aftermath of his assassination.
After graduate school, Attiah became a media consultant for the World Bank's Africa program and worked as a freelance reporter for the Associated Press while based in Curaçao. She was hired by The Washington Post in 2014.[6] In 2016, she became the founding editor for the Post's Global Opinions section and was promoted to the role of Opinions columnist in 2021.[6] Her writing at the Post focused on race, gender, culture, human rights and international affairs.[1][7] She also hosted TL;DR, a Post Opinion video series focusing on identity and global issues, which won the National Association of Black Journalists' Salute to Excellence Award for digital commentary in 2018.[8][9]
Attiah became the focus of international attention in October 2018 when Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist she had recruited for The Washington Post's Global Opinions section, went missing on October 2 after entering the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.[10] In an interview in Marie Claire, Attiah said her WhatsApp was suddenly flooded with "Jamal's missing" messages after his disappearance, and she "started to fear the worst".[11] On October 5, Washington Post Opinions let Khashoggi's usual column space in its print edition remain blank.[12] She was interviewed by major news outlets as the primary contact for Khashoggi's last published opinion,[13] and she began writing about his death and advocating for its investigation.[14] Attiah later turned this work into a book about Khashoggi called Say Your Word, Then Leave,[5] which remains unreleased.[15]
Outside of her work at the The Washington Post, in March 2024, Attiah became an adjunct professor at her alma mater, Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. In 2025, Columbia canceled her course "Race, Media, and International Affairs 101". Attiah attributed the decision to Columbia "pre-emptively cav[ing] to pressure", citing it alongside their placement of the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under receivership after demands from the Trump administration.[16] Attiah instead hosted the course online, calling it Resistance Summer School. Attiah said the course's 500 seats were filled within 48 hours of her announcement, and more than 3,000 people remained on the waitlist.[17]
Washington Post termination
Attiah announced that she had been fired by The Washington Post in a newsletter post on September 15, 2025.[18] She wrote that her firing was due to social media posts on Bluesky that referenced and quoted Charlie Kirk in the aftermath of his assassination.[19] Attiah's statements regarding her firing were also reported by a wide variety of news organizations.[20][21][22][23] Attiah described herself as the Post's "last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist".[20] She also wrote, "As a columnist, I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, challenge power and reflect on culture and politics with honesty and conviction. Now, I am the one being silenced—for doing my job."[21]The Washington Post declined to comment on her firing, directing reporters instead to their employee social media use standards.[19][20][21][22] The Washington Post Guild, the newspaper's editorial employee union, condemned her firing.[24]
The Independent and The Guardian reported that her only recent direct social media reference to Kirk was to quote his comments that prominent Black women such as Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee "do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously", and that they "had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously".[20][21] Some challenged her remarks, which paraphrased Kirk while using quotation marks, as suggesting he was referring to all Black women when he had been referring to Sheila Jackson Lee, Joy Reid, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Michelle Obama.[25][23] According to the Poynter Institute, "it did not appear that it was that post, or any one specific post, that led to her firing."[26] According to the New York Times, her posts did not celebrate Kirk's killing.[22]The Independent and The Guardian also noted that Attiah's job may have already been in danger due to confrontations with Post opinion editor Adam O'Neal, who had reportedly offered buyouts to columnists whose work was not aligned with the opinion section's conservative shift announced in 2025.[20][21]
↑ "Global Opinions / By Jamal Khashoggi". The Washington Post. October 4, 2018. Retrieved June 16, 2025. Editor's note: Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi journalist and author, and a columnist for Washington Post Global Opinions. Khashoggi's words should appear in the space above, but he has not been heard from since he entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul for a routine consular matter on Tuesday afternoon.
1 2 Fiallo, Josh (September 15, 2025). "Bezos' MAGA Washington Post Fires Columnist Over 'Unacceptable' Charlie Kirk Posts". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 15, 2025. She wrote, partially quoting Kirk from a 2023 episode of his show: 'Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's spot.' That is not an exact quote. Attiah's critics pointed out that Kirk had been speaking specifically about liberal Black women such as Michelle Obama and former Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee—who have said that affirmative action gave them an opportunity to prove themselves—but was not addressing all 'Black women,' and never said as such.
Diamond, Larry; Attiah, Karen; Dunne, Michele; Margon, Sarah; Stephen, McInerney (October 18, 2018). U.S.-Saudi Arabian Relations(CSPAN Special Report) (streaming video). Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution and CSPAN. Retrieved June 16, 2025. The Hoover Institution held a discussion on US-Saudi relations as the investigation into the disappearance of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi continued. Speakers in the first panel talked about implications for democracy and human rights. In the second panel, speakers focused on Saudi Arabia and US-Saudi relations.
External links
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