Massive Number Of Paid Subscribers Drop The Washington Post After Non-Endorsement

After the shocking announcement that The Washington Post would not endorse a presidential candidate, hundreds of thousands of digital subscribers ditched the outlet.

NPR reports over 200,000 people canceled their subscriptions to the outlet by midday Monday.

#BREAKING: Over 200,000 subscribers have canceled their subscriptions to The Washington Post after Jeff Bezos blocked endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/nwMaJ2dNKX

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) October 28, 2024

NPR reports:

Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.

A corporate spokesperson declined to comment, citing The Washington Post Co.’s status as a privately held company.

“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.”

Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis explained the decision not to endorse in this year’s presidential race or in future elections as a return to the Post’s roots: It has for years styled itself an “independent paper.”

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Few people inside the paper credit that rationale given the timing, however, just days before a neck-and-neck race between Harris and former President Donald Trump.

NEWS: More than 200,000 subscribers have canceled their digital subscriptions to the Washington Post after the revelation that owner Jeff Bezos blocked an endorsement of VP Harris.
That’s about 8 percent of WaPo’s subscriber base – a staggering sum
MOREhttps://t.co/nCJhJrmlq0

— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) October 28, 2024

“Three members of the Post’s nine-member editorial board stepped down on the heels of that decision,” CNBC stated.

Although Lewis said the non-endorsement decision was his call, other reports claimed Bezos decided to scrap the article endorsing Harris.

Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris, paper reports https://t.co/oDZt9GGOzp

— CNBC (@CNBC) October 25, 2024

Per CNBC:

Molly Roberts, David Hoffman and Mili Mitra resigned from the paper’s nine-member editorial board due to the controversial decision about the endorsement, but they are remaining on the Post’s staff, according to public statements and the paper.

That is the same number of editorial board members who resigned from the Los Angeles Times’ board in protest of that newspaper’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate.

A Post spokesperson declined to comment on either the subscription losses or editorial board resignations when contacted Monday by CNBC.

The editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times resigned after the newspaper’s owner refused to endorse a presidential candidate.

UPDATE: Los Angeles Times Editor Resigns After Publication Refuses To Endorse Presidential Candidate

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.