Washington Post Hemorrhages 500,000 Subscribers In Biden Era

Mainstream media has been on a deathbed for the better part of a decade as newsrooms shuttered, and more importantly, trust with the American people collapsed because of the frequently biased reporting and spread of disinformation. Legacy media is at the mercy of big corporations and the government and is entirely out of touch with everyday folks. 

The best thing that ever happened to mainstream media was the Trump presidency. The former president kept the American people on the edge of their seats, waiting for the next comments from Trump, which boosted news organizations' views and subscriptions. 

But now, in the Biden era, the painful death of the newsroom has returned, as The Wall Street Journal reported that the Jeff Bezos-owned left-leaning publication The Washington Post had suffered a massive loss of subscribers to the tune of 500,000.

As with several other news organizations, the Post's traffic and subscriptions have fallen after a surge during the Trump presidency and the start of the global pandemic. Ad revenue at the Post is expected to be down this year compared with last year, as marketers rein in spending, according to people familiar with the company's financials.

The Post is on pace to generate around $600 million in revenue in 2022 and has over 2.5 million subscribers, down from three million in January 2021, the people said. The company isn't expecting to make a profit this year, they said. -WSJ 

WaPo's loss of subscribers is absolutely stunning. It might suggest the death of mainstream media could accelerate in 2023, which will only lead to the further decline of journalism jobs. 

The latest report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found more than one-third of journalism jobs will be lost between 2002 and 2031. And this comes as Gallup recently found America's trust in the mass media to report the news "fully, accurately and fairly" is at some of the lowest levels ever. 

The rise of alternative news sites, Twitter, Substack, and other social media platforms is where Americans are now gravitating to get their news these days -- not so much legacy media. We have to remember younger generations are taking over the workforce, and how they consume information is much different than baby boomers opening up paper print in the morning or sitting down at dinner and watching the local television station.

Here are the latest US web news race standings: 

Times are changing; legacy media is dead.