The Washington Post has lost 500,000 subscribers in the nearly two years that former President Donald Trump has left office, according to a report.
The newspaper’s subscription base dropped from 3 million to around 2.5 million since January 2021, or about a 20% decline in subscribers, according to a Thursday report from The Wall Street Journal.
It comes after The New York Times first reported in August that The Post is on track to lose money this year. The Times initially reported that The Post had fallen under 3 million subscribers and that its digital advertising revenue fell about $70 million — or roughly 15% — since the first half of 2021.
The Journal report came days after The Post announced that it was discontinuing its Sunday print magazine and letting go of 10 staffers.
Major newsrooms are contracting due to a combination of poor economic conditions and a loss of the headline-grabbing presidency of Mr. Trump.
CNN, BuzzFeed, Gannett, Vice News and Vox Media have all undergone layoffs at some point this year.
In 2017, Mr. Trump claimed that “Newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there, because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.”
Post media reporter Paul Farhi acknowledged the former president’s point in March 2021: “Barely two months into the post-Trump era, news outlets are indeed losing much of the audience and readership they gained during his chaotic presidency. In other words, journalism’s Trump bump may be giving way to a slump.”
