Washington Post loses 250K subscribers over refusal to endorse presidential candidates

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday night that it has lost at least 250,000 digital subscribers since last week, over its refusal to endorse a presidential candidate in future elections. 

The Post's publisher and CEO William Lewis published an op-ed last week that detailed the paper's decision to not endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 election, or any future elections, breaking from decades of tradition. The Los Angeles Times and USA Today have also decided not to endorse a presidential candidate in 2024.

Matt Murray, the executive editor who oversees news coverage at the Washington Post, told staff that he was not sure how many subscribers had canceled their subscriptions and that the full picture on how the decision impacts the paper is not clear yet. 

“There’s a view that the numbers are going to be bumpy and rough for a couple weeks, and we’ll see how they settle down,” Murray said. “I think everybody’s trying to just take a few weeks to see where the numbers all come out.”

The publication said 250,000 number is approximately one tenth of its digital subscribers. The number does not include how many new people have subscribed to the paper, or the amount of people who canceled their subscriptions and later reversed the decision.

Some of the cancellations will also take a while to go into effect, the paper noted. Some of the users have yearly subscriptions that will continue to give them access to the paper until the year expires. Only a few thousand have immediately taken effect, a source told the paper. 

The surge in cancellations also comes after Post owner Jeff Bezos published an op-ed on Monday about his decision, where he argued that media endorsements "create a perception of bias" from that publication.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.