The Washington Post Is Crumbling
Politicians long feared the Washington Post’s ability to disfigure American politics. The paper's influence was that profound.
Journalists aspired to work there, to be the next Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Michael Wilbon, or Tony Kornheiser.
In fact, OutKick's own Clay Travis credits Kornheiser as an inspiration during his early days as a sportswriter.
The Post was about the pinnacle of American journalism.
Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. The outlet is a shell of its former self. And its business model is cratering as a result.
Wednesday, the Washington Post informed staffers in a companywide email that it is cutting about 240 jobs. The email attributed the upcoming layoff period to "challenges with digital subscriptions and advertising."
“Our prior projections for traffic, subscriptions and advertising growth for the past two years — and into 2024 — have been overly optimistic,” interim chief executive officer Patty Stonesifer wrote in the email.
"The urgent need to invest in our top growth priorities brought us to the difficult conclusion that we need to adjust our cost structure now.”
The Post has roughly 2.5 million subscribers, down from 3 million at the end of 2020. Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for the outlet in 2013. The Post is set to lose $100 million this year.
A fix is not imminent. If even plausible.
The building of the Washington Post newspaper headquarter is seen on K Street in Washington DC on May 16, 2019. - The Washington Post is a major American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., with a particular emphasis on national politics and the federal government. It has the largest circulation in the Washington metropolitan area. (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP) (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images)
The reputation of the paper is fractured. It sacrificed its credibility during the Trump years in an effort to detail his presidency.
The paper lent credence to the conspiracy that Trump colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election, inciting both hysteria and hate.
The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the topic. That's great. But the reporting was not.
Here's a deeper look at some of those inaccuracies.
A Gallup poll recently found that just 15% of American adults trust formerly prestigious newspapers. The Washington Post is one of the reasons why.
It will be a challenge for the Post to reverse that reputation.
Think about CNN. The network tried to pivot back to the middle under Chris Licht to regain credibility. But instead, it alienated leftists, leaving the network without a core audience.
The Washington Post finds itself in a similar situation: on the decline, with little to no upside.
The Post is no longer a gold standard of journalism. It has become a rag.
Just look at its newsroom. There's no nastier trio of women in media than Taylor Lorenz, Laura Wagner, and Emily Heil.
Heil is the one who tried to infiltrate an advertiser boycott of a Barstool event last month. She failed.
Wagner is a former Deadspin blogger who made a name trying to defame Dave Portnoy. She also failed.
You all know Tay Lorenz, the mentally unstable tech "reporter" who unsuccessfully tried to destroy the life of Chaya Raichik., the Libs of TikTok creator.
Long live the days of Woodward and Kornheiser.
We'd call The Washington Post a hate-for-profit racket, if the paper were still profitable.