The Washington Post has lost more than 200,000 digital subscriptions since its decision to not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, according to a report bv NPR citing two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters.
Such a number would amounts to around eight percent of the outlet’s 2.5 million digital and print subscribers.
The decision not to endorse was reportedly made by Jeff Bezos, the newspaper’s billionaire owner, after its editorial board had already drafted and was planning to publish an editorial backing Harris.
The decision has led to a handful of resignations, while scores of Post subscribers have taken to social media to share their decision to cancel a subscription. Many of those doing so have noted the newspaper’s “democracy dies in darkness” motto.
Robert Kagan, an editor-at-large at the Post, resigned on Friday, while two members of the Post’s editorial board, Molly Roberts and David Hoffman, said they were stepping down from the editorial board.
Roberts said she was stepping down because “the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is about as morally clear as it gets,” while Hoffman, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote in a note to his editors obtained by The New York Times that he was stepping down from the board but keeping his position. “I refuse to give up on The Post, where I have spent 42 years,” he wrote.
While hundreds of thousands have canceled their subscriptions, others have argued online that canceling an online subscription to the Post hurts its journalists.
