Anger and Fear Grip Washington Post Staffers as Paper on Track to Lose $77 Million This Year
“The projected losses, which the paper’s leadership revealed in a recent staff meeting, do not account for the exodus of 250,000 subscribers upset over the paper not endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid”
Lots of people are talking about the collapse of CNN and MSNBC’s ratings following the 2024 election, but a similar thing seems to be happening at the Washington Post.
The paper is on course to lose almost $80 million dollars this year, and that was the case even before they suffered a massive loss of subscriptions when owner Jeff Bezos decided the paper would not endorse Kamala Harris for president.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Washington Post Was on Track To Lose $77 Million—Before Mass Boycott Over Presidential Non-Endorsement
The Washington Post was on track to lose $77 million this year even before a mass boycott erupted over its decision not to endorse a presidential candidate, New York magazine reported.
“The level of anger is through the roof, and fear is also through the roof,” one Post staffer said.
The projected losses, which the paper’s leadership revealed in a recent staff meeting, do not account for the exodus of 250,000 subscribers upset over the paper not endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, according to New York magazine.
“The top stories that do well convert 200 readers to subscribers,” another staffer told the magazine. “You’re doing your best work, hoping you convert 200 subscribers. And we lost 250,000 through naïveté and poor decision-making.”
“[It’s] not a surprise at all,” another Post staffer said of the report. “It means ‘buckle up.’”
One of the problems plaguing the Washington Post is that it has become hostage to its own left-wing readership. They do not want balance. They want ‘resistance’ reporting that confirms their biases against Trump and Republicans.
It’s one of the reasons why Washington Post columnist Jen Rubin feels comfortable saying things like “Republicans want to kill your kids.”
Here we have the @washingtonpost's Jen Rubin saying "Republicans want to kill your kids, it’s actually true."
Which is weird when you consider liberals literally support killing babies, @JRubinBlogger. pic.twitter.com/E4PzNdHzRh
— Rusty (@Rusty_Weiss) November 19, 2024
WaPo management recently announced that Washington Post staffers will be required to return to in-office work in the coming months. People are speculating that this is a way to get some employees to leave voluntarily.
The New York Post reports:
Washington Post warns staff who refuse return-to-office mandate: ‘We will accept resignation’
Washington Post management plans to scrap the hybrid work schedule, telling employees it will accept the resignation of any staffer who refuses to return to the office five days a week, according to a report.
The Jeff Bezos-owned broadsheet shared an internal Q&A on Monday that included a section devoted to the new return-to-office policy, which was announced earlier this month as the newsroom was reeling over management’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election.
“What would you say to a person who does not wish to return to a 5-day a week office schedule?” one of the questions read.
“If an employee decides they do not wish to return to work at The Post on a 5-day a week office schedule, we understand and will accept their resignation,” the memo said.
Liberal media outlets are facing a reckoning. They need to adapt or fade into obscurity.
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Comments
The “anger” over not endorsing a candidate is dumb. They endorsed her every single day on every single page throughout the campaign.
Imagine; their subscribers don’t think the WaPo is leftwing enough.
And Bluesky is running way behind on moderating posts that have been flagged because there are thousands and thousands of Karens there wanting to speak to the manager.
Ah, I love the smell of progressive anger in the morning. It smells like… victory.
I read a story yesterday about the problems Bluesky is having in moderating comments due to the sudden influx of people.
Bezos should sell the paper to its newsroom staff and let them find out what the news business is really all about.
they cannot manage themselves let alone a business.
Bezos can change the culture by strategic firings and refusing to hire Columbia J School type graduates. It will be self correcting in no time.
As if their endorsement could have saved that tragedy of a campaign
What is crucially important is not virtue, but virtue SIGNALING.
My school taught me. Where can I get a job where I work only with people who agree with me?
This is honestly a sore point with me. We have had at least one generation taught that you should only accept jobs that you love (with people who agree with you). I was taught that your work career is like cleaning a dirty, dirty bathroom. It’s not enjoyable and it can be kind of hard and sometimes even disgusting. However buckle down, work as hard as you can on it because the harder you work, the sooner you’ll be done and then you can go play, I (was lucky and) busted my ass, made money and retired at 55. Now I play every day.
If I only did what I enjoyed, I’d have been working till I was 90, and struggling to make ends meet.
Strangely, spending a couple of decades completely alienating half your prospective customer base and then pissing off the half that you haven’t alienated doesn’t appear to be an effective business strategy.
Whodathunkit?
WaPo should consider hiring Matt Gaetz as editor of the politics section. That would definitely bring on some new subscribers.
“Liberal media outlets are facing a reckoning. They need to adapt or fade into obscurity.”
Lib media outlets are boxed into a corner: if they adapt, they lose their loony subscriber base and go under. If they don’t adapt and continue catering to the loony base, they still go under.
What to do…..
Use AI to write the articles. It is no trick at all to program a computer to churn out Communist drivel, and you don’t have to pay some no-talent ego who thinks he/she is the mightiest journalist since Cronkite and deserves a seven figure salary.
“Paper on Track to Lose $77 Million This Year”
Oh no.
Who ate the last chocolate donut? It had my name on it!
I lived and worked in the DC area for a decade starting in the late 80s. Even then I trended conservative, but I subscribed to both local papers, the Post and the Times, because they both had something to offer to even those in the middle. Even after I moved away I subscribed to the Sunday editions for years. With the growth of the internets I eventually was able to get my slanted news reportage without paying for it.
Dead tree National news orgs can no longer stay in business if they trend so far to the Left or Right that even the Middle customer base gets a bad taste of bias in the back of the throat from having the bias shoved down their throats. The paper ad money is no longer there and the customer base is too small to afford offending 2/3 of it with opinion thinly disguised as reportage.
The WP can rebuild its image by calling for the immediate arrest and conviction of Trump on the grounds of treason.
Both WaPo and the LA Times owners are heading in the right direction. A few rounds of firings resulting in leftist “reporters” unable to find other work since the cable news outlets are self immolating by doing the same thing combined with other newspapers shrinking should clarify some minds.
“Dead tree National news orgs can no longer stay in business if they trend so far to the Left or Right that even the Middle customer base gets a bad taste of bias in the back of the throat from having the bias shoved down their throats.”
I subscribed to the local paper for many, many years. It had been biased for a long time and I knew it so anything that had any sort of political slant I took with a grain of salt. More accurately a salt lick.
But that’s not what convinced me to cancel my subscription. Over time I realized that every straight news story that they presented where I knew anything about the subject matter, was full of inaccuracies and mistakes. They’d say things that I knew for a fact were flat out wrong.
If they were getting the facts wrong on the stories I knew something about, how could I possibly trust them to get the facts right on the stories I knew nothing about? If if I can’t trust them to get the basic facts right, what’s the point in reading the stories in the first place?
That’s when I cancelled and I’ve never looked back. Freeing myself of all the leftist propaganda was an added bonus.
“Fear and Loathing at the WaPo!” … Just when the post-11/5 solar-flare bursts of schadenfreude were finally beginning to subside … now … this!
Fun Exit Optic: Jen Rubin should not pull her skirt up over her head when her hair is on fire – she already needs some work.
Ewww…
Jeff Bezos is richer than God.
He bought the WAPO as a hobby, and as a political tool.
It can’t be any fun as a hobby at this point, and it is a liability politically and reputationally.
I predict he’ll shutter it and donate the furniture to Goodwill.
BEZOS: “I’ll sell you the Washington Post for $100.”
PROSPECT: “A hundred bucks, eh? I dunno…what could I do with the WAPO anyway?
Tell ya what, throw in Bat Boy and you got a deal.”
“Anger and Fear Grip Washington Post Staffers as Paper on Track to Lose $77 Million This Year”
Oh no!
Anyway….