Earlier this year, The Washington Post's owner, Jeff Bezos, announced that the opinions section of his paper would be "writing every day in support and defense of…personal liberties and free markets." Today's guest is the person Bezos hired to execute that mission. He's Adam O'Neal, a 33-year-old Southern California native whose resume includes stints at The Economist, The Dispatch, The Wall Street Journal, Real Clear Politics, and covering the Vatican for Rome Reports. O'Neal tells Gillespie his goal is to build a nonpartisan editorial section rooted in core American values of free expression, free enterprise, and limited government. That means taking on MAGA and the Trump administration, insurgent Democratic Socialists, and censors and statists in both parties. "It's small L libertarian…classical liberal," says O'Neal of the section he's building. "It's non-partisan and free markets and personal liberties are the North Star." O'Neal talks about the challenges in bringing a classical liberal sensibility to mostly left-of-center readers, how growing up in California informs his thinking, what he thinks of Pope Francis' and his American successor Pope Leo's attitudes toward capitalism, and why newspapers shouldn't endorse candidates. The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and journalists who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least a more interesting—place by challenging worn-out ideas and orthodoxies.   0:00—Introduction 1:39—Writing in defense of free markets and personal liberties 7:40—Government threats to free speech 14:01—The Washington Post's editorial decisions 18:59—The state of free markets in America 21:52—Is the opinion section becoming libertarian? 34:09—O'Neal's origin story 40:46—Pope Francis and capitalism 45:17—Experiences at The Dispatch and The Economist 52:59—The culture of The Washington Post's opinions team 55:38—Generational change in politics and culture 59:04—The Washington Post ends candidate endorsements   Transcript This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy. Nick Gillespie: Adam O'Neal of The Washington Post opinion section, thanks for talking to Reason. Adam O'Neal: Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to talk about free markets and personal liberties with Reason, which knows a little bit about those subjects, certainly. Yeah, that's right. Our longtime tagline has been "Free Minds and Free Markets." So I guess I'll start there. All of us at Reason were excited earlier this year when Jeff Bezos announced on Twitter that the opinion section is going—and I'm quoting him here—he said, "We're going to be writing every day in support of personal liberties and free markets." And then