The Washington Post has lost over 200,000 subscribers after refusing to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
The loss amounts to about eight percent of the paper’s 2.5 million subscribers across their digital and print formats.
The stunning figure continued to rise on Monday, according to a report from NPR, which cited two people at the Post familiar with the subscriber numbers.
“It’s a colossal number,” former Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR. “The problem is, people don’t know why the decision was made. We basically know the decision was made but we don’t know what led to it.”
The canceled subscriptions point “to the polarization of the times we’re living in and the energy people feel about these issues,” Brauchli told NPR. “This gave people a reason to act on this mood.”
Brauchli is urging people not to unsubscribe over the Harris snub.
“It is a way to send a message to ownership but it shoots you in the foot if you care about the kind of in-depth, quality journalism like the Post produces,” Brauchli said. “There aren’t many organizations that can do what the Post does. The range and depth of reporting by the Post’s journalists is among the best in the world.”
Also on Monday, two more Washington Post editorial board members stepped down in protest of the newspaper’s decision.
The journalists join Washington Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. Several other journalists also resigned or vowed not to work with the paper again in the future.
The newspaper announced its decision not to endorse on Friday, prompting a wave of liberals to cancel their subscriptions.
“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” the announcement read.
The announcement added, “Our job at The Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom nonpartisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.” It concluded by saying, “Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be.”
The idea of neutrality did not sit well with the left, including the paper’s leftist staff.
