Washington Post’s daily digital reader base shrunk during Biden years by nearly 90%, internal data reveals
According to internal data shared with digital news site Semafor, The Washington Post has lost most of its daily digital traffic during President Biden’s time in office.
Though the outlet’s website reached its peak daily online readership towards the start of the Biden administration, it lost nearly every one of those readers by the time it was about to end.
Semafor reported Monday that, "the Post’s daily traffic last year reached a nadir of just a quarter of what it was at its peak in January 2021. That month, the Post had around 22.5 million daily active users. But by the middle of 2024, its daily users hovered around 2.5-3 million daily users."
That is approximately an 87 percent drop in online readership.
As The New York Post reported, the liberal outlet had 114 million readers for the entire month of Nov. 2020. That number dwindled to 54 million digital visitors by Nov. 2024.
The Wall Street Journal last week reported just how much damage this drop-off in readers has done to the paper’s bottom line. The paper has lost around $100 million in subscription and ad revenue in 2024.
The Post’s woes have only increased in recent months. In addition to this massive decline in traffic over the years, the outlet lost 250,000 paid subscribers in one fell swoop after Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos directed it not to endorse a 2024 presidential candidate.
Several prominent Post staffers resigned from the paper following Bezos’ move.
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Washington Post editor at large, Robert Kagan, resigned in the weeks since, as did reporters Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Tyler Page and Leigh Ann Caldwell, columnist Charles Lane and veteran editor Matea Gold.
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from The Post in January after the outlet refused to publish her cartoon depicting Bezos groveling to President-elect Donald Trump.
Prominent Post columnist Jennifer Rubin also announced her resignation on Monday, telling CNN in a recent interview that The Post "has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press."
In her resignation letter, the columnist stated, "I cannot justify remaining at The Post, "Jeff Bezos and his cronies accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy – Donald Trump – at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive."
In addition to these resignations, it was reported that the outlet would lay off 4 percent of the workforce across its business divisions this month.
Representatives for The Washington Post did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.