The Washington Post appears to be facing an existential crisis.
The troubled left-wing newspaper, which is owned by former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has reportedly seen its traffic crater by nearly 90 percent since 2021.
It has also seen a considerable decline in revenue despite Bezos making clear that he will not subsidize its losses.
Semafor reports:
Over the last four years, web traffic has cratered. According to internal data shared with Semafor in recent weeks, the Post’s regular daily traffic last year sunk to less than a quarter of what it was at its peak in January 2021.
That month, the Post briefly reached a high of around 22.5 million daily active users following the attack.
But by the middle of 2024, its daily users hovered around 2.5-3 million daily users.
Last year, Washington City Paper noted that the Post had stopped publicly disclosing its traffic numbers in press releases, after a 60% decline in monthly traffic.
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Post’s revenue fell from $190 million in 2023 to $174 million last year.
Having once positioned itself at the heart of the anti-Trump resistance, the iconic Washington newspaper most famous for breaking the Watergate Scandal is currently embroiled by internal turmoil as its activist employees lash out at Bezos’s own political pivot.
A former Trump critic, Bezos has recently taken a much more sympathetic tone towards Donald Trump and sent him enthusiastic congratulations following his landslide election victory in November.
Following his victory, Bezos also traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president-elect and has even donated $1 million to his inauguration fund.
Hellbound and Down 