I subscribed after the 2016 election because, you know, “democracy dies in darkness”. I cancelled after Bezos decided to kneel at the altar of Trump. Don’t regret either choice.
I am a subscriber of the WSJ, as I find their new coverage “fair and balanced”. I do not object to a lot of their editorial page and look forward to Peggy Noonan’s column every Saturday. I try to take in a wide range of viewpoints. So sorry if that doesn’t fit your narrative.
I applaud Bezos for pushing the paper right. I’ve subscribed for over 10 years and the anti-Trump bias was truly sickening at times. Save for George Will, the editorial page offered nothing but negative, and often outrageous outcry for even insignificant Trump actions. And that doesn’t even touch on the monster woke sentiment that the paper continued to foster. I stayed because I need to read both sides (and the crosswords) of the spectrum and the Post was echoing The Nation and other far left outlets. That they lost the loony left subscribers who felt they owned the paper, to me, was absolutely healthy. This changeover will take time. And it might not work. But the Post truly needed a right shove to get it back on a more respectable track.
Well.... revenue basis I am afraid you're a crappy deal.
They lost not "loony Left" but the large professional class softy-touchy-feely Left that's a mix of the Washignton area tech scene, the professional consulting class on both federal and private contracts. White collar Democrats (of a socio-economic profile that in my youth was centrist Republican).
Calling them Loony Left really says more about you than them.
I would go more for "annoying and tedious college educated class who got sucked in Wokey Wokeness out of herd instinct"
While it was just an aside, the decline of local newspapers has had an impact. I live in a medium-sized city and subscribe to the local paper, but it’s a shadow of what it once was. Perhaps Nate can take a deep data dive into local news. I’d be interested to learn more.
CTRL_F propaganda turned up no hits. How is this possible? Incessentaly and relentlessly misrepresnting (lying about) Trump and MAGA is the #1 reason they are fake news. Why would people keep paying for that? You claim that pulling back from their "adverserial, anti_Trump" posture is the cause of their decline. I would submit instead that the ever-growing reams of evidence that they are a leftist propaganda machine is gradually shaking loose all but the most stalwart ostriches. Good day.
You could submit that but that's unhinged partisan loony tunes blather. Which is sad and pathetic.
It's quite clear that the Washington DC metro area had a large subscriber base that is Professional Class - people with four year college degrees plus with white collar jobs. And all national and sub-national polling demographics has become over past 15-20 years more "cultural Left" leaning in orientation and more D voting
Given the huge base of population in the employment sectors that are by statistical data known to be squishy cultural Lefty tending (technology, professional services, consultancy whether Federal Gov or private oriented etc), that data simply clearly reflect that audience.
going on some self-deceptive bender against data that the Reason X happened is your personal view is... sad self-deception.
this is to make no statement that what that subscriber base wanted/wants is good or bad, but the data, socio-economic profiles are clear - and Trump and MAGA bunglers by national data are not winning converts but rather looking pretty similar to the Lefty shriekers - each one of the fringes making the same error in thinking everyone agrees with them because reasons...
I have been a subscriber to the Post for some 30 years now, and the Boston Globe for a decade before that. [For whatever that is worth other than to document that I’m old]. The Post and every other newspaper in the United States is in decline and has been for over a decade, losing out to social media. The Post did itself no favors for its non-local readers with their non-endorsement in the 2024 election, but the Post’s revenue has been in decline for years, and consequently its capability to bring in talented reporters in DC, the United States, and the World has consequently been diminished. I would dare say that one of the biggest reasons that the Post is still published is Bezos himself!
It's not quite true that every newspaper is in a death spiral. The New York Times is continuing to do well (and I think part of Nate's point is that anyone who cares about the future of news ought to think hard about the reasons for that).
Bezos's announcements caused him more problems in the DC area than any actual changes did - or maybe those announcements were made for an audience of one. The actual news coverage is still left of center-ish, and the opinion page is decently balanced. We still get a physical paper each morning, and will continue to do that as long as possible.
I grew up in DC during the 1950s - 1960s. I remember when the Post broke Watergate. I also remember the Washington Star (the afternoon paper). I used to deliver the Post in the mornings. Then I moved in 1972. I came back to the DMV often since my parents and sister lived there. After 2013, when my father and sister died, I was coming back 5-7 times per year to check on my mother. And she continued to subscribe to the Post. During those years, I could hardly read the paper. It was just propaganda. So, when I see the post going down the sh*tter, I am sad on one hand. But on the other hand, they did this to themselves and deserve the consequences of their crappy reporting.
Bezos's editorial turn and hiring of Will Lewis are clearly a major part of this decline. But I wonder how much is attributable to the Post's failure to follow the Times in adding products and niches outside of hard news that would keep readers around in less urgent times and attract readers who were not news junkies.
The Times leveraged it's Trump bump to buy Wirecutter (2016), Serial (2020), the Athletic and Wordle (2022); these were the most visible signs of diversification, but my general sense is that they expanded coverage in other non-hard-news areas as well. The Post didn't, so when Trump and COVID receded there was nothing keeping people around.
I recall some exchange on perhaps Slow Boring or maybe Noah Smith where someone said something like Washington Post went from trying to be Junior League New York Times to Junior League WSJ. Which may perhaps is too generous as my sense of WP is it's just a bungled muddle right now.
It could have opted maybe for a kind of Reason type posture for anti Trump to be anti-Trump but with a different kind of angle (particularly given how Trump's turned into a nightmare if one were a ideological liberatarian in the claimed classic liberalism sense [the Reason kids seem to generally be that])
WP now is just an incoherent mess. Not being one thing or another, pleasing no readership I think.
Arguably the Post's problem is that it needs to *both* make sense as a business in and of itself (i.e., provide readers with good reasons to subscribe to it), *and* not be a liability for Bezos's other, much larger and more valuable business interests. Since they branded themselves around being Trump-critical, and now Trump has started retaliating hard against his critics, this is a hard circle to square.
I've never seen the Washington Post as comparable to the New York Times. When I lived in Washington only the professional politicos I knew subscribed; whereas nearly every upper-income New Yorker I know took the Times. Unlike the NYT, the Post wasn't good about local affairs, culture, fun, recipes, reviews, useful ads, sports, etc. It was an unbalanced paper--a second rate major urban paper with exceptional inside-the-beltway political coverage and some standout investigative journalism.
I think a lot of the chart can be explained by the declining influence of Washington insiders on politics and the partisan fracturing of investigative journalism. Many of the Post's traditional sources and readers are cut off from power and information. The best investigations are ignored by the half of the population that doesn't like the results, and the weakest investigations are embraced by the half that does like the results. Investigation quality no longer matters. Current Washington insiders probably don't read or talk much to the Post. Much of politics is fought out far from Washington.
But the Post can take heart from Brooks Brothers. The company built around conservative office wear faced bankruptcy when business casual eroded its market, just as populism is eroding the traditional foundations of the Post. But Brooks Brothers made a successful pivot, and so can the Post.
It just sounds like Politico and the NYT are running circles around the Post concerning investigative reporting.
Regarding a rightward pivot, Bari Weiss’ plan to turn CBS News into something it’s not isn’t going much better. I think news branding is sticky that way.
I subscribed after the 2016 election because, you know, “democracy dies in darkness”. I cancelled after Bezos decided to kneel at the altar of Trump. Don’t regret either choice.
Always subscribe to papers that confirm your priors and never challenge you. It’s the safest way.
I am a subscriber of the WSJ, as I find their new coverage “fair and balanced”. I do not object to a lot of their editorial page and look forward to Peggy Noonan’s column every Saturday. I try to take in a wide range of viewpoints. So sorry if that doesn’t fit your narrative.
I also like the WSJ, largely because they seem to understand the difference between editorial and news content better than most other news outlets.
True. So few outlets left. What’s happened at the LA Times for instance is sad.
Famous for the feud between News and Editorial not so many years ago.
I really recommend Noonan’s 2024 book “A Certain Idea Of America”. A collection of previous columns, cogent and thoughtful.
It’s your narrative not mine. You signed up when Trump was elected and dropped it when Bezos bent the knee (didn’t endorse Kamala?)
Yawn.
Hiring a British tabloid editor, particularly one with ties to past scandals there, as publisher was also an extraordinarily bad idea.
I applaud Bezos for pushing the paper right. I’ve subscribed for over 10 years and the anti-Trump bias was truly sickening at times. Save for George Will, the editorial page offered nothing but negative, and often outrageous outcry for even insignificant Trump actions. And that doesn’t even touch on the monster woke sentiment that the paper continued to foster. I stayed because I need to read both sides (and the crosswords) of the spectrum and the Post was echoing The Nation and other far left outlets. That they lost the loony left subscribers who felt they owned the paper, to me, was absolutely healthy. This changeover will take time. And it might not work. But the Post truly needed a right shove to get it back on a more respectable track.
Well.... revenue basis I am afraid you're a crappy deal.
They lost not "loony Left" but the large professional class softy-touchy-feely Left that's a mix of the Washignton area tech scene, the professional consulting class on both federal and private contracts. White collar Democrats (of a socio-economic profile that in my youth was centrist Republican).
Calling them Loony Left really says more about you than them.
I would go more for "annoying and tedious college educated class who got sucked in Wokey Wokeness out of herd instinct"
What a great analysis. Silver is hard to beat when it comes to understanding the data.
I believe this is the point. Reduce liberal influence to garner favor with mein Fuhrer.
While it was just an aside, the decline of local newspapers has had an impact. I live in a medium-sized city and subscribe to the local paper, but it’s a shadow of what it once was. Perhaps Nate can take a deep data dive into local news. I’d be interested to learn more.
CTRL_F propaganda turned up no hits. How is this possible? Incessentaly and relentlessly misrepresnting (lying about) Trump and MAGA is the #1 reason they are fake news. Why would people keep paying for that? You claim that pulling back from their "adverserial, anti_Trump" posture is the cause of their decline. I would submit instead that the ever-growing reams of evidence that they are a leftist propaganda machine is gradually shaking loose all but the most stalwart ostriches. Good day.
You could submit that but that's unhinged partisan loony tunes blather. Which is sad and pathetic.
It's quite clear that the Washington DC metro area had a large subscriber base that is Professional Class - people with four year college degrees plus with white collar jobs. And all national and sub-national polling demographics has become over past 15-20 years more "cultural Left" leaning in orientation and more D voting
Given the huge base of population in the employment sectors that are by statistical data known to be squishy cultural Lefty tending (technology, professional services, consultancy whether Federal Gov or private oriented etc), that data simply clearly reflect that audience.
going on some self-deceptive bender against data that the Reason X happened is your personal view is... sad self-deception.
this is to make no statement that what that subscriber base wanted/wants is good or bad, but the data, socio-economic profiles are clear - and Trump and MAGA bunglers by national data are not winning converts but rather looking pretty similar to the Lefty shriekers - each one of the fringes making the same error in thinking everyone agrees with them because reasons...
The WaPo is still published? Who knew!?
Target audience of one person.
It is hardly a surprise you don't really notice them anymore.
No.
Just, no.
I have been a subscriber to the Post for some 30 years now, and the Boston Globe for a decade before that. [For whatever that is worth other than to document that I’m old]. The Post and every other newspaper in the United States is in decline and has been for over a decade, losing out to social media. The Post did itself no favors for its non-local readers with their non-endorsement in the 2024 election, but the Post’s revenue has been in decline for years, and consequently its capability to bring in talented reporters in DC, the United States, and the World has consequently been diminished. I would dare say that one of the biggest reasons that the Post is still published is Bezos himself!
It's not quite true that every newspaper is in a death spiral. The New York Times is continuing to do well (and I think part of Nate's point is that anyone who cares about the future of news ought to think hard about the reasons for that).
The "paper" retreated from being biased and not a "paper" at all. Funny 😄
Bezos's announcements caused him more problems in the DC area than any actual changes did - or maybe those announcements were made for an audience of one. The actual news coverage is still left of center-ish, and the opinion page is decently balanced. We still get a physical paper each morning, and will continue to do that as long as possible.
I grew up in DC during the 1950s - 1960s. I remember when the Post broke Watergate. I also remember the Washington Star (the afternoon paper). I used to deliver the Post in the mornings. Then I moved in 1972. I came back to the DMV often since my parents and sister lived there. After 2013, when my father and sister died, I was coming back 5-7 times per year to check on my mother. And she continued to subscribe to the Post. During those years, I could hardly read the paper. It was just propaganda. So, when I see the post going down the sh*tter, I am sad on one hand. But on the other hand, they did this to themselves and deserve the consequences of their crappy reporting.
Bezos's editorial turn and hiring of Will Lewis are clearly a major part of this decline. But I wonder how much is attributable to the Post's failure to follow the Times in adding products and niches outside of hard news that would keep readers around in less urgent times and attract readers who were not news junkies.
The Times leveraged it's Trump bump to buy Wirecutter (2016), Serial (2020), the Athletic and Wordle (2022); these were the most visible signs of diversification, but my general sense is that they expanded coverage in other non-hard-news areas as well. The Post didn't, so when Trump and COVID receded there was nothing keeping people around.
I recall some exchange on perhaps Slow Boring or maybe Noah Smith where someone said something like Washington Post went from trying to be Junior League New York Times to Junior League WSJ. Which may perhaps is too generous as my sense of WP is it's just a bungled muddle right now.
It could have opted maybe for a kind of Reason type posture for anti Trump to be anti-Trump but with a different kind of angle (particularly given how Trump's turned into a nightmare if one were a ideological liberatarian in the claimed classic liberalism sense [the Reason kids seem to generally be that])
WP now is just an incoherent mess. Not being one thing or another, pleasing no readership I think.
Arguably the Post's problem is that it needs to *both* make sense as a business in and of itself (i.e., provide readers with good reasons to subscribe to it), *and* not be a liability for Bezos's other, much larger and more valuable business interests. Since they branded themselves around being Trump-critical, and now Trump has started retaliating hard against his critics, this is a hard circle to square.
I've never seen the Washington Post as comparable to the New York Times. When I lived in Washington only the professional politicos I knew subscribed; whereas nearly every upper-income New Yorker I know took the Times. Unlike the NYT, the Post wasn't good about local affairs, culture, fun, recipes, reviews, useful ads, sports, etc. It was an unbalanced paper--a second rate major urban paper with exceptional inside-the-beltway political coverage and some standout investigative journalism.
I think a lot of the chart can be explained by the declining influence of Washington insiders on politics and the partisan fracturing of investigative journalism. Many of the Post's traditional sources and readers are cut off from power and information. The best investigations are ignored by the half of the population that doesn't like the results, and the weakest investigations are embraced by the half that does like the results. Investigation quality no longer matters. Current Washington insiders probably don't read or talk much to the Post. Much of politics is fought out far from Washington.
But the Post can take heart from Brooks Brothers. The company built around conservative office wear faced bankruptcy when business casual eroded its market, just as populism is eroding the traditional foundations of the Post. But Brooks Brothers made a successful pivot, and so can the Post.
It just sounds like Politico and the NYT are running circles around the Post concerning investigative reporting.
Regarding a rightward pivot, Bari Weiss’ plan to turn CBS News into something it’s not isn’t going much better. I think news branding is sticky that way.
“much of the audience doesn’t understand the firewall between news and opinion pages”
To be fair, I have to wonder how many people IN the news business grasp the distinction.