As we progress through the digital age, the challenges of print media aren’t new. Newspapers nationwide have been forced to adapt, but even on that front—The Washington Post is floundering. Our friends at RedState covered this last week, with Bonchie writing how the Amazon journalistic venture is losing $100 million a year, with even worse numbers regarding online engagement. If there’s one word that could describe the Post soon, it’s poverty. The whole operation seems to be in freefall (via RedState):
“In addition to churning subscribers and losing $100 million a year, the Washington Post is also failing to engage audiences. Four years ago, the Post boasted 139 million monthly visitors. By the end of last year, it had less than 60 million” https://t.co/RlZXZ49nds
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) January 6, 2024
“Of that audience, less than one in five read more than a single article per month, while less than one in 500 actually convert to a paying subscription.”
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) January 6, 2024
Having a billionaire sugar daddy has helped mask some of the issues plaguing the Post, but the tide can only be held back so long. To lose over 50 percent of its online viewership is catastrophic for an outlet with such high overhead costs. Subscriber numbers have also nosedived throughout the Biden administration.
That last fact is interesting because the trend was originally blamed on Donald Trump no longer being in the news. The former president has been firmly back in the headlines the last year, though, and the Post has continued its downward spiral. If Trump being charged with multiple felonies isn't enough to save the once-storied paper, it's hard to imagine what could.
As to the reasons behind this precipitous fall, I think they are fairly obvious. Nothing the Post produces is worthwhile. Their columnists are boring parrots who all say the same thing, levying the same boring attacks they were levying nearly a decade ago. Even a dyed-in-the-wool liberal can only take so many Jennifer Rubin columns claiming the end is nigh for the nation because Republicans get to vote.
Then there's Taylor Lorenz, who has done more to harm the Post's credibility in the few years she's worked there than any other "journalist" at the outlet…
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I’m sure many of you are not upset about this development. There was also the internal fiasco in 2022, where former reporter Dave Weigel was suspended for a month without pay over retweeting a joke that offended Felicia Sonmez, another journalist at the publication. Despite Weigel removing the tweet and issuing an apology, Sonmez was fired after refusing to let this issue go.
I barely check it any more. There's little of value in it, except to find examples of bias. And I subscribe (for work, and probably not for long). https://t.co/mibkQgCECq
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) January 6, 2024
Weigel eventually left for the journalism startup Semafor. Still, Tweet-gate offered insight into the office culture at The Post, where this little incident devolved into an all-out war among its staffers, some of whom went on strike for a day last December.
I’m sure it’s even worse as the pronoun police have increased their deployment within any institution that caters to the authoritarian ethos of woke leftism.
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