Washington Post Scrambles to fill the Trump void as a reader tank

When former President Donald Trump made his first appearance after the president, he opened his remarks by saying, “Do you remember me?”

If he told The Washington Post that, the answer would be “yes”.

The Post faces a crisis at the crossroads of the future as it tries to turn its back on all-trumpet political news all the time into other areas, but so far readers don’t buy it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The magazine covered a meeting of top newspaper officials that it said took place last week.

As part of the Post’s review of its past, a document was shared showing a 28% drop in store website traffic in October.

Although decrease free media In the post-Trump era, the Post’s decline was bigger than most, including The New York Times and CNN.

Digital subscriptions are also down. As of October, the Post Office had about 2.7 million digital subscribers after starting the year around 3 million.

The Journal’s report notes that while the paper was generating stories attacking Trump in 2019, most of its top 50 stories were related to politics, while in 2021, only 3 in Its top 10 stories are political.

The Post said it was aware of the changes.

“Knowing that news consumption is cyclical, we have been deliberate in our strategic work and are seeing the results of our investments company-wide, especially with court developments. composing, the expanding reach and sophistication of our storytelling tools,” a Post Office spokesman said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Readers, however, not impressed.

As the Journal reports, traffic to the Post’s website from non-subscribers has dropped 35% over the past two years.

According to the document, subscribers’ page views increased only 6% during that time, which also says the Post is not suitable for younger readers.

“Our paid product is not appealing to young people,” the document says.

The only group it said had “high” interest in the Post was a group called “confident strivers,” which the document describes as “wealthy, urban marry men with children, more ethnically diverse, more liberal/Democratic. ”

Although Post copied similar strategies that its competitors used to enter new areas of coverage, none of them were as successful as expected.

The Post has also explored different advertising methods. The Journal reported that employees discussed using the song “For What It Worth” by the band Buffalo Springfield, but the idea was never carried out.