BREAKING: Washington Post has lost nearly 90% of its audience since 2021: report

Data on web traffic over the last few years shared with Semafor shows that the 2024 daily numbers shrank substantially from their January 2021 high. At the beginning of Biden's term in the White House, the site saw 22.5 million daily users. However, in 2024, the average was around 2.5-3 million users a day—a drop of 20 million.

Last year, WaPo stopped disclosing its traffic on press releases after a steep decline by 60 percent. During the same time, the outlet's revenue fell from $190 million to $174 million. The decline of the Washington Post comes amid a greater decline in readership and viewership of legacy media outlets. It was recently reported that CNN had less viewership than the Food Network did in the first week of December 2024.

MSNBC, similarly, has lost ratings, and Comcast is looking to spin off the network. Salary for top talent has been slashed by millions of dollars. Owner Jeff Bezos declined to allow the outlet to publish a blanket endorsement of Kamala Harris for president and has been seeking to diversify the viewpoints published at the outlet by adding conservative columnists. This has lead to an exodus of staffers at the media company in protest.

The outlet has also seen many layoffs over the past year or so. The Washington Post has also called for employees to return to the office as opposed to working remotely or resign their positions.