The Washington Post Is Running Out Of Readers Willing To Pay

I could hardly believe it when I saw The Washington Post’s new average daily paid circulation figure that made the rounds in recent days — a number so low that I first thought it must surely be missing a digit.

97,000.

That figure comes via the Alliance for Audited Media, and it reveals that The Washington Post’s average paid daily circulation has dropped below 100,000 for the first time in 55 years. To put that in perspective: 97,000 is the sort of figure you’d expect to see from a mid-size regional paper like The Minnesota Star Tribune or The Seattle Times. Not from a globally recognized newsroom with multiple Pulitzers to its name.

The Washington Post’s vanishing readership

Well, who cares about print anymore anyway, you might think. But there’s a difference between being the most important thing – and being important. Print falls in the latter category, because not only does the physical version of a newspaper or magazine still brings in revenue – when you think about it, an outlet’s circulation is also a kind of proxy metric that reflects the strength of a media brand’s connection to its audience. The more people who love it, in other words, the more people are willing to pay for it.

Five years ago, the Post was selling 250,000 papers a day. On Sundays, it now barely crosses 160,000 (both of those numbers, again, are from the Alliance for Audited Media data). That decline suggests, at a time when trust and relevance are more important than ever for media institutions, the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper seemingly comes up short on both counts. What’s more, these numbers coincide with a new bout of contraction: The Post has also confirmed it’s eliminating the Metro section, folding local news coverage into a combo of Metro, Sports, and Style.

No one should need a memo to understand what’s happening here.

The Post is shrinking, both physically and in terms of its relevance. Once a D.C. powerhouse with national ambition, it’s now in retreat, dealing with a collapse in readership and constant editorial instability. You could also argue that there remains something of a disconnect between the paper’s mission and its audience. As one reader wrote on X, “Local coverage of Virginia is a joke, and Politico, Axios and others eat their lunch” on Capitol Hill reporting. Another noted that the Post tried to become a national rival to The New York Times and failed — abandoning its identity as a regional and D.C. insider paper in the process.

One theory worth considering: The Post’s overarching problem may very well be baked into the newspaper’s brand itself.

For all its award-winning journalism and ambitious national coverage, The Washington Post still carries the weight and limitations of, well, its name. My suspicion is that, because of its name, it probably remains too closely associated with Beltway politics, the federal government, and D.C. power players. That makes it an obvious read for lawmakers and lobbyists, but a tougher sell for someone in, say, Des Moines.

The New York Times has certainly rebranded itself as a national lifestyle enterprise, with features like games and cooking-related content that augment its journalism. But while New York is a hub for media, entertainment, politics, and business, Washington D.C. is kind of a one-note town.

Making matters worse, the Post has been hemorrhaging top talent in recent months, including Metro veterans and key editors. So, to recap: It’s dealing with sagging newsroom morale and tension surrounding Bezos’s editorial direction, neither of which helps the subscriber crisis, branding problem, and leadership challenge that the paper is facing all at once. It’s hard to see how the Post pulls itself out of this nosedive – and the circulation numbers suggest it’s running out of time.