Exclusive: What’s Next for Karen Attiah After Her Year of ‘Exile’ from The Washington Post?

An arbitrator recently ordered The Washington Post to reinstate columnist Karen Attiah, but she isn’t pretending everything is back to normal. Nearly a year after the company fired her by email, The Post’s last full-time Black columnist is waiting on what she calls her “golden invitation.”

In an exclusive interview with The Root, Attiah got candid about her next steps and what this fight has taught her about journalism, independence and collective power.

“I’ve seen that The Post has said in the media that they ‘respect the arbitration process,’” Attiah said. “Whether or not that translates to respecting and complying with the decision and the outcome, that is a different story.”

She has not heard directly from The Post yet. “I’m waiting for my golden invitation to come back,” she added.

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In the meantime, the veteran journalist is keeping her options open while also taking time to appreciate what she describes as a major victory — not just for herself, but for journalists and the labor movement.

“I didn’t expect, perhaps, how this would become bigger than just me,” she said. “It’s bigger than me losing a job. It’s even bigger than The Post.”

Notice that Attiah had been terminated arrived by email in September 2025. There was no conversation or meeting, she said. Almost immediately, she knew she would challenge it. What she didn’t anticipate was how far the fight would travel or how much attention it would draw.

Winning her arbitration case, including reinstatement with back pay, has deepened her appreciation for unions. Attiah also sees the fight through the lens of her own position at the Post. She was the last full-time Black columnist at the newspaper, a particularly significant role at an institution in the nation’s capital, a historically majority-Black city.

“I just, at the very, very least, saw the symbolic weight of fighting against being purged pretty much,” she said.

The year away from The Post also allowed Attiah to strengthen her identity as an independent journalist. She had been committed to journalism, press freedom and Black storytelling long before she joined the newspaper.

She remembers hearing civil rights icon Jesse Jackson once say, “Jobs come and go, but the work, your mission, your purpose, what you were put here on this earth to do — that remains.”

That idea stuck.

For Attiah, journalism is more than having a particular title or institutional platform. It’s asking questions, listening to people, challenging harmful narratives and making space for Black voices.

In that sense, her year of “exile” from the Post was difficult, but also liberating.

“It’s a test of how committed one is to doing the work that they’re put here on this earth to do,” she said. “As long as I’ve got a pen, as long as I’ve got paper, as long as I’ve got a voice and I can speak, as long as I’ve got typing hands and the internet, I’m not gonna be stopped from doing what I was put here to do.”

That independence may be especially important as the media industry continues to change. Attiah pointed to shrinking advertising revenue, audiences moving toward independent media and social platforms, political pressure on news organizations and consolidation of media ownership.

For Black journalists, she said, the situation is particularly concerning. Layoffs have disproportionately affected them, while independent Black journalists like Georgia Fort and Don Lemon have faced arrests and threats.

But Attiah isn’t looking at the current media landscape only through a lens of fear. There are plenty of reasons to worry, Attiah said. But there are also plenty of tools left to use.

After the arbitration, she’s choosing optimism.

“There’s so much that’s happening. There’s so much that’s going on,” she continued. “I very much believe in how important it is to find joy, savor the wins and to savor the victories.”

Attiah’s immediate plans?

“To pop champagne and do the electric slide somewhere.”