The Washington Post has lost over 75,000 digital subscribers since billionaire owner Jeff Bezos announced a revamp of the newspaper’s opinion pages to align with libertarian views and exclude dissenting perspectives, according to a report.
The Amazon founder’s announcement, which some took as going full MAGA, was met with considerable backlash, including the immediate resignation of opinions editor David Shipley, reported NPR. According to insiders, Shipley tried and failed to dissuade Bezos from making the change.
However, Shipley wasn’t the only journalist to jump ship. Longtime WaPo figureheads David Maraniss, associate editor, and former executive editor Marty Baron promptly left following Bezos’s decision.
In a note, Bezos’s directed staffers that the newspaper’s opinion section should be writing “every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” He reportedly added, “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
According to Bezos the need to “bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section” that covers “all views” is obselete. He added, “Today, the internet does that job.”
Baron later told on Zeteo News that Bezos’s move was “craven” and occurred because he is “basically fearful” of President Donald Trump. And this reportedly isn’t the first time Bezos’ fear has cost WaPo thousands of subscribers.
The last wave of cancellations from furious readers came in October when Bezos killed the newspaper’s plans to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Between that time and Election Day, over 300,000 WaPo subscribers canceled their subscriptions. This accounted for more than 12% of its digital subscribers, who represent the majority of the paper’s paid circulation, reported NPR.
A WaPo executive disclosed the newspaper attempted to make up the loss by boosting its circulation at highly discounted rates, reported NPR. However, based on the subscription drop reported, the newspaper has incurred a net loss of at least a couple hundred thousand subscribers, according to the exec.
