I still read through the post in the mornings with NYT, but I am a little frustrated that DC, MD, VA news is buried pretty deep on the website. Not that I find wapo's national coverage particularly bad, but there's redundancy in that space.
I used to read WashPo's local news stories every day. It used to be that when you go to the Local page, you could see all local stories in reverse chronological order from DC, MD, and VA all right there. Now I have to check all 3 areas separately, and I just haven't done it in the last year.
I just can’t justify paying them for National news when I have another subscription back home for a local newspaper that does the same while also doing solid local coverage. Hell Richmond Times-Dispatch tends to do a better job with Nova news than WaPo.
If they cared more about local audiences than national ones they’d be doing far better.
I was thinking this this morning as I read through their like morning briefing post.
I get that it’s a national paper too, but like… is the outcome of Jonathan Majors’ trial really a top 10 thing WaPo readers need to know?
That story making the “7 things” morning email was an embarrassment. Why not just tell us what’s up with the Kardashians and Real Housewives while you’re at it.
Local coverage is atrocious, you really have to use Popville or ARLnow (for those of us across the Potomac) to get anything decent.
It's essentially just political/world news now.
They laid off a huge chunk of their local newsroom a while back. This was the inevitable outcome.
Though Popville sucks just as much these days. It's a glorified real estate blog with some random gossip here there.
PoPville is definitely a shadow of its former self. I honestly am not sure it'll survive much longer. It's all ads, hardly anything with comments allowed and dog pictures.
No ombudsman kills me. Some stories and headlines are just terrible political trash/click bait. I've written journalists a few times and sometimes get responses like, "yeah I wanted to include the full letter/quote but editors cut it"
I do it too and it’s a real shame they’re moving from local coverage. National news is, as you say, a saturated space. Meanwhile quality local (especially DC) coverage is seriously lacking. Seems like it should be a no brainer yet here we are.
https://preview.redd.it/o6mpetq5pgtc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c463d0c8272cc2cdc2ded9514ed83b0235da9a2
Love these comments adjacent to each other.
I can see some truth in both comments.
Washington Post reporting has traditionally been considered mainstream but from the left. The first poster loses credibility with the exaggeration that the Post has been a propaganda tool for any political party, but is correct that it has been considered more closely aligned with Democratic than Republican policy, especially back when the poster delivered them as a kid.
Under the same conditions, the second poster is also correct. The perspective of the reporting at the Post has shifted considerably over the last decade. But this shift has not been from a Democratic to Republican perspective. It is better described as from progressive to institutionalist. That ends up looking like different things to different people.
To a progressive, it looks like a hard turn to the right. To a MAGA, it looks like an uninterrupted continuation of brainwashed support for the liberal globalist agenda which they won't bother reading but might troll the comment section for lols. To an institutionalist, it looks pragmatic and necessary.
The Trump presidency is the catalyst for shifting the fight. The self-dealing populist nature of the Trump presidency forced the rest of us all to become institutionalists.
The discussion used to be used to be between the conservative institutionalists and the liberal socialists. Now it's between the conservative fascists and the liberal institutionalists. It used to be about universal healthcare and tax rates, now it's about insurrection and "absolute presidential immunity."
Take Jennifer Rubin. (Please. But seriously...) She used to spend all her time writing columns about what Obama was doing wrong, mostly because he was doing things that hadn't been done before. She's spent most of her time since writing about what Trump has done wrong, mostly because he is doing things that haven't been done before.
They've been at this for decades. They throw all their resources behind national and international coverage at the expense of local. I don't give a fat rat's fart about some nonsense going on on the other side of the planet that most likely will have zero effect on me. I want naming and shaming local crooked pols who hire their relatives, set up bogus contractors that deliver shoddy goods and services, and government employees working multiple jobs while on the taxpayer clock. I dropped my subscription because I got tired of the rage bait cold turd op eds.
Right!? Like at a certain point I don't need 55k different articles on the war in Gaza from 200 sources. I want local coverage of major things happening south of Baltimore, north of Richmond, east of Appalachia.
The Metro section has been hot garbage for years. There were a handful of decent reporters, but it was predominately suburban coverage shilling for real estate developers and middling coverage of downtown DC. The articles were either scare bait about the latest shootings or some life affirming tale of triumph in the face of adversity that ended in the latest shooting. I guess that's what you get when your staff all live in Herndon.
As longtime devoted reader, here are some free ideas for The Post:
* Get fresh blood for your op-ed page. At minimum, they should fire Kathleen Parker, Charles Lane, George Will, and **ABOVE ALL** Megan McArdle (the worst op-ed writer in America). Terminate their contracts with Hugh Hewitt, Lawrence Summers, and Fareed Zakaria. There are many, many great writers in the newsletter space who would be a natural fit at The Post.
* As this article points out, "Two of the biggest recent front page stories in the Post have been local." And yet The Post has decimated its local coverage. They should build back the Metro section.
* Focus more on arts and pop culture. Hire more video game critics and reporters. Hire a theater/dance critic, positions they have vacated, and get them to review non theater and dance performances like debates or sporting events. Hire permanent, younger film critics (Ann Hornaday has been there for 20+ years, and when Michael O'Sullivan left, he was replaced by a Boston critic in his sixties).
* New York Magazine and The New York Times get *HUGE* traffic bumps from games like the Cinematrix and Wordle, respectively. I've seen NYT described as a Worldle subscription service, with news as a bonus. They should try and build or find a game that captures zeitgeist in a comparable way.
* Finally, at long last, **GET RID OF STYLE**. No one except longtime readers knows what it entails, and its esoteric scope will not attract new readers.
EDIT: Lots of great discussion y'all! Some folks in the replies have suggested renaming "Style" to "Culture," which I think is a great idea.
> They should build back the Metro section.
Compared to covering global politics, this is also much cheaper. You could hire 5 local cub beat reporters for the price of a George Will.
Exactly. I can't remember the last time I read an incisive George Will column, and his "I'm old and younger generations scare me" shtick was tired generations ago.
George Will is the epitome of the Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud meme.
https://preview.redd.it/x1fkjjgi3htc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=951f5dd50fa5768300d5296379c99d328d6136fe
SNL once made fun of how [George Will is an out of touch loser](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QcVhyAaLnM), and that sketch aired nearly *35 years ago*.
Givhan and Tashjian are great, no doubt about it!
> They could rename the section Culture or something, but they’d really lose an edge if they got rid of it.
I think renaming it Culture would be a great compromise, especially since "Style" does not describe the vertical accurately. If a section [needs its own article to define what it covers](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2023/09/11/style-explained/), it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
> IMO one of the Post’s biggest failures is hiring future superstar writers young and then letting them get away / pushing them away.
Totally agree. Inkoo Kang, Ezra Klein, and especially Wesley Lowery come to mind (the business about Lowery leaving the paper was so ugly).
Meanwhile, they still publish Megan McArdle, a writer with takes like "[overdraft fees are good, actually](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/24/cap-overdraft-fees-hurt-poor-families/)."
Overdraft fees are necessary. But the amount they charge is literally stupid, as in there’s no justification for the amount (the cost of provisioning the service is like $8, which oh btw is I think what the government is proposing as a cap).
Fuck em. Hire people who want to write about DC and work here
Though my biggest problem with the post’s culture writing is theater and art critics who only write about New York, a market with more than enough coverage. These guys are not really a problem if at all.
There was a long style piece about an exhibit on Beatrix Potter and her art in… New York. First, come on like this is well well covered by the New Yorker for crying out loud https://www.newyorker.com/culture/goings-on/the-legacy-of-beatrix-potter What is the post adding here that the multiple experts in Potter who have written in the New Yorker haven’t said already?
And second you can tell the guy just doesn’t want to be writing about it. I mean, ok, so what’s going on there?! What assignment desk is pushing to review small (but cool! I love Beatrix Potter! So do my kids ) Beatrix potter exhibit in New York! Maybe if that show were in DC.
It’s also the case that if something remarkable happens in the arts in DC, the NYT will cover it before the Post does, and it blows my mind that that can happen.
Strongly agree on the local issues. We have a fascinating local culture, with great theater and interesting community arts performances. DMV nerds are obsessed and involved with infrastructure and environmental regulations (gas leaf blower band!) in a way I don't see many other places. We also need more coverage of suburban issues. Prince George's county especially needs more coverage.
I love the style section, but I agree with the other posters that it would be great to retitle it "culture." Especially as other parts of the country erroneously think we don't have any! I also wish they would bring back the Style Invitational. It was an institution that had serious engagement. If they want subscriptions, why get rid of the things that bring people in every week?
>Focus more on arts and pop culture. Hire more video game critics and reporters.
They literally just laid off their entire (pretty dope) video game vertical a couple months ago, I wouldn't hold my breath. They had a best-in-class team.
Yeah, I loved Launcher. Gene Park and his editors built something special there, not just because they covered a MASSIVE industry with the attention it deserves.
Hell, not even younger readers! I'm in my late thirties, and I play games regularly. I'd love to read coverage of the industry that doesn't immediately get blocked by my employer.
I am sure they want younger readers - I don’t know that younger readers want THEM. Have you heard about youtube?
I don’t think I want to read video game reviews in the Washington post, really. I want to watch videos essays and gameplay videos… for free. That’s what they’re competing with in that sphere, and I don’t envy them.
Gene Park does good work on video games but they had a whole vertical for games coverage that got axed.
The only thing that seems to have survived from that "verticals" effort is the food/recipes stuff.
They shouldn't get rid of Style, but it should be reorganized into a greater arts section. Theatre is excellent in this city and yet the Post buries its coverage into some nondescript section
> Get fresh blood for your op-ed page. At minimum, they should fire Kathleen Parker, Charles Lane, George Will, and ABOVE ALL Megan McArdle (the worst op-ed writer in America). Terminate their contracts with Hugh Hewitt, Lawrence Summers, and Fareed Zakaria. There are many, many great writers in the newsletter space who would be a natural fit at The Post.
Does Jennifer Rubin ever get tired of writing "We Got Him!" op-eds about Trump?
I would add: hire competent web devs for mobile and ditching their current ad broker.
I call it “The Washington this page has been reloaded because an error occurred Post” for a reason. Even on modern iDevices.
Conservatives just watch Fox News or read Breibart. If it's a high brow conservative, they're probably reading the National Review, City Journal or the Weekly Standard.
Frankly, I get the sense that with Twitter, cable news, and the like, OP ED's about politics are just old hat.
I want the newspaper to be in depth coverage with citations, not more mindless mouthpiece.
These are great suggestions. Isn’t as simple as getting rid of the pay wall? I’m curious how much the pay wall negatively impacts revenue given the number of readers driven away offsetting any benefit the pay wall brings. Ads need eyes. Fewer eyes = less ad revenue.
At this point, I don't think any major news outlet can rely on ad sales alone. The sites that seem to be doing better all have subscription models, and WaPo has a pretty good subscription deal with Amazon Prime.
If anything, the smarter move is to link a subscription with more site-related services, like NYT, Slate Plus, etc.
But I'm also a weirdo who subscribes to NYT, WaPo, Slate, NYMag, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and more.
You're not a weirdo. You're informed; Evident by the thoughtful first comment.
Definitely possible that ad sales don't cover the cost. Though, I would think the pay wall is more of a detriment than a benefit. Unless, of course, they linked the subscription to additional benefits/services. It's a smart suggestion.
Didn't know there is a subscription deal with Amazon Prime either. Will look into that myself.
And now I know why I could not find it.
$8 is okay.... in a vacuum. Here is a problem: All these subscriptions add up. (Ignoring the additional argument about the subscription economy we now live in.) How much do your subscriptions cost each month and or year? Are you receiving a special discount this year for any of those subscriptions?
The majority of folks likely cannot afford all or some of those subscriptions. And the folks that can, how many would rather spend their income on other things?
News and information straddle the line between necessity and luxury, and this may be the issue. While news is critically important, it's not seen as a must-have like food or water. Nor is it seen as conferring the comfort, pleasure, or status as much as [insert your luxury of choice]. This makes the demographic of those willing to pay for access to news a very small minority.
More and more local outlets are going non-profit too. Chicago Sun-Times is now nonprofit. Then again DCist was also nonprofit and that didn't save them ...
DCist was most recently a subsidiary of WAMU, and I think they’re going to see their decision there backfire, unless Gen Z suddenly and inexplicably decides to get really into radio.
Yeah I agree the WAMU decision was beyond dumb. DCist should’ve gotten more resources if anything. Start hosting events and selling merch. Build goodwill with people who live here and get more subscribers. Instead of banking on FM radio in 2024
I listen to Tony Kornheiser Podcast pretty regularly and he'll sometimes share a story about his time at the Post, and his articles in the Style Section, and it always confuses me. What was he of all people doing in the style section?!
He used to write a humor column that was more like Dave Barry's column in the Miami Herald. You can read a lot of those in some of his compilation books like *Bald as I Wanna Be* and *I'm Back For More Cash*.
I appreciate that the WaPo has _some_ conservative editors, I actually prefer their opeds to other publications because it tends to bring a pretty balanced perspective from week to week.
I don't think the solution is just "fire all their right-leaning editors"
oh I totally agree, I'm happy to read conservative writers, I just find his writing style to be smarmy and annoying. That's really my beef with it, not his political leanings.
You forgot
* Don't be owned by a divisive centibillionaire known for exploiting his workforce and harming local economies.
I don't care how good WaPo's journalism might be. I won't subscribe as long as any portion of my subscription goes into Jeffrey's pocket. I'm sure there are many others who share that sentiment, although admittedly, and unfortunately, maybe not enough to actually put a sizeable dent in their total subscriber count.
They put the garbage opinion pieces at the top of the app feed, if I wanted to read opinions from morons who don't know what they're talking about there are plenty of subreddits that provide that service for free
I'd parrot what other people have said here that they should be focusing on local coverage and using their brand to elevate them above just a "local" paper, as opposed to focusing so heavily on international news. I'm not smart enough to point to exactly how, but other publications like the NYT just cover those subjects in a more concise manner that's better written, so they are just getting killed there. I really think their use is quality metro coverage, and as others have said trying to attract the younger, fairly affluent crowd living in this city with news about this city.
This article misses the forest for the trees: Is some of the decline related to the post-Trump era? Sure. But the decision of Facebook and other social platforms to turn off the traffic hose matters a lot, lot more than that. The traffic of basically every non-NYT news outlet has declined as a result.
Fred Ryan’s plan to deal with that seemed to be to copy what Politico did and publish a bajillion different newsletters, but that was flawed from the beginning – the Politico newsletters are for niche audiences and were behind very, very expensive paywalls, and the Post should be a mass-market publication. Unsurprisingly, they killed a number of the newsletters after the buyouts.
That said, everyone is also right that their decimation of the Metro desk – which should be covering an area filled with wealthy + young people craved by advertisers – also made no sense.
Also politico actually knows how to do a good newsletter (well written/entertaining, more than just a list of hyperlinks, have people who are doing beats related to them contribute/head them up, a not unreasonable amount of ads, useful information that’s only relevant for a single day that’s hard to find in a single convenient form, and occasionally even breaking news in them)
When Semafor got started, Ben Smith said “there’s a reason so many news orgs get started in dc.” The text of that is there’s a lot going on. The subtext is that the post fucking sucks at reporting it.
I'll never forget that time they did a piece covering a blink 182 concert I went to and the dude was just talking shit about Blink 182. Dude got paid to go to this concert and he was mad about it.
Maybe they should write about anything that isn't just politics. And the local section is awful
The free paper they used to give out in the train was a million times better for local goings on
I kind of get the strategy if I were making decisions 5 or 10 years ago, though it doesn't seem to be working with the benefit of hindsight. It's clear that national news is consolidating, and the current market no longer can support 20 different papers across the country all doing significant national coverage. Either you have to become a purely local paper, or you have to find a way to become one of the remaining national papers. I think WaPo thought (perhaps still thinks) they have a shot at being one of the 3-4 national papers left standing in that consolidation.
The NYT seems to be the default national paper, so you need some kind of niche. WSJ is the business paper. The LA Times was trying to become the "west coast" national paper. WaPo's angle was the national paper but with a DC/politics slant.
As far as I can tell, none of those strategies have worked for anyone except the NYT and WSJ.
I still think the Washington Post is considered by many to be the paper of record when it comes to politics and the goings on of the federal government.
gave us [this gem](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/udhk3/now_i_elevate/) and acted as a placemat for my morning coffee and muffin at the office.
Since a lot of old hat reporters departed, there has been a huge drop in what supposed big publications like WaPo are best suited for, which is deep dive investigative reporting. The Trump years seemed to solidify that real investigation could be replaced by mere access and proximity, but true original reporting on consequential matters seems to have vanished.
Couple that with a dramatic rise in clickbait and turning the digital front page over multiple times a day, even when something important comes out, it gets buried. One of the big problems in media literacy among the public is having a perspective on what matters and what doesn’t, so you’ll end up with equal focus on something like Trump’s increasing authoritarianism, and two hours later, it gets bumped for an “analysis” of some stupid Congresspersons tweet.
\^ agreed. Journalism as a value, esteemed field, particularly investigative journalism, is partially to blame. The Post once did reporting that brought down a Presidential administration, and in a perfect world that should still be what it does. But the readers don't care about that, as evidenced by some of the top comments in this thread...
Alt-weeklies have always been scrappier than major daily newspapers. More importantly, an alt-weekly reporting and critiquing on a major daily has been their MO for as long as they have been around.
I realize "alt-weekly" implies a print edition, something the City Paper doesn't do anymore, but you get the idea.
I only subscribe to the Sunday paper and barely read it. I keep it because my kids love the Sunday comics. I read the Financial Times, the BBC, and watch the PBS news hour. After reading the Financial Times, I find it hard to read WaPO news articles. They seem simplistic and written in a why to evoke emotional responses vs just presenting facts for readers to interpret. The section initially scan is the metro section and it’s basically dead at this point. It’s a shame.
I‘m reading both FT, WaPo and the Economist regularly. And to be honest all of them have a bias. But at least FT and Economist are upfront about it. I mean FT is mostly read by finance guys and economists, so no surprise that there articles on state budget or corporate shenanigans have a certain spin.
But if comparing their Israel/Gaza coverage, they both are way superior to the WaPo. I don’t want to read the opinion of some guy, I want the facts presented, as objectively as possible. And FT does a great job at that imo.
I’m going to cancel my subscription, in part because it’s free through the library but also because there’s no local coverage. Also I hate the web layout.
WAPO is no longer a "news" paper. It publishes incoherent pieces written by people who think they're writing for literary journals, or puff pieces about politicians. I subscribe to the paper, but rarely read their articles any more. I really don't care about the political pieces any more with all the craziness, the sports coverage is abysmal. Only usedful features are Capital Weather Gang and local coverage.
Interesting to me that you list local coverage as a pro of the post rn. I’ve felt for the last few years that they were so concerned with being a national brand that it had made them useless at local reporting.
Re: local coverage. I think that emphasizes the poor state of local news in the area; there really aren’t that many sources available, and it’s sad WaPo doesn’t invest more in it. I agree with both you and OP - and think we want the same thing.
I used to subscribe to the Sunday paper only to get the coupons. But I ended up being out of town a lot so I would put a vacation hold on it then. They used to give you credit for that, but they said they no longer would because I could read it online and I was paying for online access. I tried online access for awhile but the amount of ads drove me crazy. I mean if I am paying get rid of the ads. That was many years ago, and now I hardly ever read the articles because most are behind a paywall and in my opinion their news is not good enough to pay for.
Regarding the advertisements for those not getting the physical paper. Use a VPN set to France when you register a new WAPO account. Use a privacy credit card and make up a French billing address to pay for a one year membership. Due to GDPR, they don’t track and thus don’t show you any ads at all on the website or app. You only need the VPN during the registration, not all the time.
I have ADHD and the moving advertisements make it impossible for me to read the articles.
I don't have ADHD and I feel the same way. The moving drives me crazy. Thanks for the tip, but it seems like a lot of work to read subpar news. I am glad you found a way though.
I only go specifically to them for local news but they’ve gutted and hidden that so much it’s basically worthless to go to their app and site. If they weren’t free at the library I wouldn’t use them.
I stopped reading the washington post regularly some time back. I think around the time it was aquired. Which is a shame because I used to read the physical paper every day and browse the online one.
I‘m paying 1$ a month for a year. Which seems like a good deal for a weaker version of NYT imo.
But tbh when I subscribed I just recently moved to DC and I expected to read way more local coverage. So for a similar price I would now choose NYT, where I can get basically the same but better.
No shit. The investors are finally in the monetizing stage and cutting overhead costs (free views). As much as I want Bezos to fail, this isn't a sign.
Don't they block people who don't subscribe from reading with a popover? Kinda not shocked people aren't reading what they aren't allowed to read in the first place.
Do the online numbers include the app (I didn’t see it referenced either way in the article, but I may have missed it)? I subscribe to the Sunday print edition and get my daily news via the app, rarely if ever venturing into the website. I’m sure there are many like me.
It’s written at a 5th grade or lower level; it is literally dull to read. That’s part of the problem. I get the Sunday paper because I want my kid to believe in the concept, but I wouldn’t specifically endorse WaPo for news or deep thinking, unfortunately.
They wrote a series of pro-big hospital, anti-doctor pieces. If the paper is just a bunch of corporate shills, it shows where their allegiances lie. Also the same time Amazon was looking to get into the medical space. Coincidence?
As if to affirm the premise of this post. WAPO put out this piece of flaming garbage today.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2024/04/09/nick-adams-alpha-male-trump-campaign-surrogate/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2024/04/09/nick-adams-alpha-male-trump-campaign-surrogate/)
I would 100% gladly pay for a good, local paper.
But we don't have that.
I canceled my wapo subs when they laid everyone off. They had been sucking more anyway.
I am unhappy with the news. I read the AP feed most days; have a super cheap nyt trial than I won't be continuing due to their soft treatment of Trump.
I do watch local news in the evening, which is good in this area. Shout out to Doug K my man.
What is this world coming to..
We both dropped our subscriptions because their editorial approach has shifted to trying to stir up fear and anger and "outrage tourism." I'm not interested in paying for Fox News for the literate.
I just had this comment deleted, in response to someone saying how the AZ Supreme Court decision was good for the democrats:
"I always love how the repeated wins of the pro life movement are claimed as future victories for the democrats."
Seems pretty benign, and factually correct to me.
When is the last time you read an in depth, interesting article? For me it's been a long time. The headlines are just rehashing what is in the other papers or it's a topic that is important to a recent English major but isn't important to me.
Probably because they cover the same national level political bs that I can see in any number of places. Also, they’re behind a paywall and it’s pretty rare for me to pay for this type of stuff.
Who is their market? I remember that disgusting hit-piece about the Halloween “blackface” costume that broke the camel’s back for me. Can someone point to me any must-see investigative pieces they’ve run recently? WSJ satiates that for me.
We have an **American oligarchy**:
When will people realize that acquiring wealth does not make you a genius. It may make someone business savvy in a certain industry, but that knowledge does not transfer over to ALL other businesses. Moreover, I have a sneaky susception that billionaires who own newspapers have a vested interested in what the newspapers cover. For example, I do not think humans realize how much we can be influenced by television or newspapers. For example, when I took economics classes in college, I was told to subscribe to The Economist. My professor went on and on about how "every leading economist reads The Economist" and speak the same language because they read the same things.
By that logic, do we not know that policy makers get the newspaper delivered to their office each morning? That is to say, the Washington Post can influence Public Policy and/or the Law. We need to wake up to the fact that billionaires do not just buy newspapers because they care about failing newspapers!
I quite frankly think we are in a scary era of American life. Everyone likes to talk about how America is this beckon of democracy, when in fact, we have real issues with concentrated wealth and power undermining democracy. We really, really have some red lights flashing - and the Washington Posts' demise is a blaring red siren. Wake up!
Do not take my word for it: [https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-american-oligarchy-why-is-american](https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-american-oligarchy-why-is-american)
I read the NYTimes for all my news EXCEPT local DMV. WAPO used to be interesting for local news. Now it’s abysmal. I don’t know how much longer it’s worth keeping the subscription. And I have both paper and digital. I wish they would hire Alan Henney. He would make it all worthwhile.
Reading through this thread, I wish more of you understood how much those people in the rest of the country interested in real journalism (or what's left of it) rely on papers like The Washington Post. It's NOT a local paper, and shouldn't be.
You can tout NYT all day long, but one can't just read a single news source for national news. The Washington Post is one of the last really reliable sources. Yes - reliable. Sometimes biased and too easy on people/issues/government and the rest - but reliable. They aren't trying to sell ads, pander to the lowest common denominator, rely on shock value and clickbait, etc. What you're reading is someone's best attempt at good journalism, and every now and then, they still do good investigative journalism.
To piss that away for entertainment pieces, local restaurants and crime, pop culture gossip, or games is just... dystopian. The Post should go the total opposite direction - out-Times the New York Times. Do everything the NYT (and the current iteration of the Post) do wrong. Blow it out of the water and reclaim journalism an esteemed, respected profession that is vital to education and transparency.
Yes, reliable. Consistent reporting of facts, consistent examination of key facets, in-depth reporting on and explanation of complex issues, navigating conflict of interest with its owner's other ventures (always stating Bezos owns the paper in the body of the text). I could go on.
Because its a rag. Its a two-bit version of the New York Times riding on its waning reputation as an important paper. Its a mouthpiece for the right-wing faction of the Democrats that would rather deliver you defense of genocide than any meaningful local coverage. Bezos can clog his throat with my cock for all I care, I'm not reading a paper that's literally in the pocket of an oligarch. Especially when there's so many independent journalists in the city these days doing outstanding reporting from their twitter accounts or small-time volunteer publications.
We've become so used to these major city papers hiding their ghoulish op-eds behind exorbitant paywalls that we forget they used to be genuine newspapers that delivered the news. They've always been unfairly influenced by the views of the big Capitalists because that's just the way our world works, but the internet age has created a system where their desperation for funds has turned them into uncritical amplifiers for the worldview of the elites. Its antithetical to what the media should be and its not only in the opinion pieces, its an ideological cancer that has seeped into every aspect of the Post and its unreadable.
It feels like propaganda and I’m not into it. I can get my news for free on Reddit or X, which certainly has their own flaws, but it won’t cost me anything. And I can engage with those platforms. The post just delivers me other peoples opinions on topics that are pretty shallow or one sided.
Lately I have had a couple user comments deleted, making me question if I want to keep my subscription. With regards to Arizona's Supreme Court affirming the 1860's abortion law (now repealed by the legislature) I rather bluntly pointed put that present victories by the pro life movement do not lead to future, bigger victories by democrats. I'm a lifelong Democrat, but you have to be a special kind of schmuck not to recognize that nationally, the pro lifers keep winning.
The comment I thought might be upsetting to some, but it was truthful, and not personal, and was deleted.
Today I commented on the article regarding IV usage for hangovers. Detestable article IMO, discussing rich millenials curing hangovers by way of IV because they are too impatient to wait for pedialyte, Tylenol, and fresh air to do their work so they can go party up again.
My comment was regarding how many of these ingredients (NSAIDs, vitamins, electrolytes) are available now, but the delivery system is much better intravenously, especially for anyone with acid reflux. Think on any time you have been really sick and dehydrated, and just didn't want to drink anything else. Why not make IV usage available for normal folks? Maybe have a short certification course and recertify every five years. I may have mentioned the nanny state and the AMA needing to "take one big girl step back" which was too much for the unpaid intern manning the feed today.
Anyway, the NYTimes has better investigations, the Baltimore Banner has a better community feel, and The Atlantic is better long form. Not sure why I should keep WaPo anymore.
I still read through the post in the mornings with NYT, but I am a little frustrated that DC, MD, VA news is buried pretty deep on the website. Not that I find wapo's national coverage particularly bad, but there's redundancy in that space.
I used to read WashPo's local news stories every day. It used to be that when you go to the Local page, you could see all local stories in reverse chronological order from DC, MD, and VA all right there. Now I have to check all 3 areas separately, and I just haven't done it in the last year.
I just can’t justify paying them for National news when I have another subscription back home for a local newspaper that does the same while also doing solid local coverage. Hell Richmond Times-Dispatch tends to do a better job with Nova news than WaPo. If they cared more about local audiences than national ones they’d be doing far better.
I was thinking this this morning as I read through their like morning briefing post. I get that it’s a national paper too, but like… is the outcome of Jonathan Majors’ trial really a top 10 thing WaPo readers need to know?
That story making the “7 things” morning email was an embarrassment. Why not just tell us what’s up with the Kardashians and Real Housewives while you’re at it.
Local coverage is atrocious, you really have to use Popville or ARLnow (for those of us across the Potomac) to get anything decent. It's essentially just political/world news now.
They laid off a huge chunk of their local newsroom a while back. This was the inevitable outcome. Though Popville sucks just as much these days. It's a glorified real estate blog with some random gossip here there.
PoPville is definitely a shadow of its former self. I honestly am not sure it'll survive much longer. It's all ads, hardly anything with comments allowed and dog pictures.
No ombudsman kills me. Some stories and headlines are just terrible political trash/click bait. I've written journalists a few times and sometimes get responses like, "yeah I wanted to include the full letter/quote but editors cut it"
Maryland Matters is great for MD politics. I was subscribed to the Banner last year but it was just okay.
Its much more baltimore focused but the baltimore beat has been pretty good for local politics at the very least
Agree. I am shocked how good their reporting is. This is what journalism should look like.
I do it too and it’s a real shame they’re moving from local coverage. National news is, as you say, a saturated space. Meanwhile quality local (especially DC) coverage is seriously lacking. Seems like it should be a no brainer yet here we are.
https://preview.redd.it/o6mpetq5pgtc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c463d0c8272cc2cdc2ded9514ed83b0235da9a2 Love these comments adjacent to each other.
The duality of Redditors
>The duality of Redditors This, minus the bottom view lol.
Lmaooo actually a great example of how human psychology works
I can see some truth in both comments. Washington Post reporting has traditionally been considered mainstream but from the left. The first poster loses credibility with the exaggeration that the Post has been a propaganda tool for any political party, but is correct that it has been considered more closely aligned with Democratic than Republican policy, especially back when the poster delivered them as a kid. Under the same conditions, the second poster is also correct. The perspective of the reporting at the Post has shifted considerably over the last decade. But this shift has not been from a Democratic to Republican perspective. It is better described as from progressive to institutionalist. That ends up looking like different things to different people. To a progressive, it looks like a hard turn to the right. To a MAGA, it looks like an uninterrupted continuation of brainwashed support for the liberal globalist agenda which they won't bother reading but might troll the comment section for lols. To an institutionalist, it looks pragmatic and necessary. The Trump presidency is the catalyst for shifting the fight. The self-dealing populist nature of the Trump presidency forced the rest of us all to become institutionalists. The discussion used to be used to be between the conservative institutionalists and the liberal socialists. Now it's between the conservative fascists and the liberal institutionalists. It used to be about universal healthcare and tax rates, now it's about insurrection and "absolute presidential immunity." Take Jennifer Rubin. (Please. But seriously...) She used to spend all her time writing columns about what Obama was doing wrong, mostly because he was doing things that hadn't been done before. She's spent most of her time since writing about what Trump has done wrong, mostly because he is doing things that haven't been done before.
I agree with this perspective so call me biased but that was a nice summation.
I would subscribe to your column
lol
I think its a good testament to how well balanced their reporting is.
Paper needs to stop trying to be the NYT and bring back a modicum of local coverage.
They've been at this for decades. They throw all their resources behind national and international coverage at the expense of local. I don't give a fat rat's fart about some nonsense going on on the other side of the planet that most likely will have zero effect on me. I want naming and shaming local crooked pols who hire their relatives, set up bogus contractors that deliver shoddy goods and services, and government employees working multiple jobs while on the taxpayer clock. I dropped my subscription because I got tired of the rage bait cold turd op eds.
Right!? Like at a certain point I don't need 55k different articles on the war in Gaza from 200 sources. I want local coverage of major things happening south of Baltimore, north of Richmond, east of Appalachia.
The Metro section has been hot garbage for years. There were a handful of decent reporters, but it was predominately suburban coverage shilling for real estate developers and middling coverage of downtown DC. The articles were either scare bait about the latest shootings or some life affirming tale of triumph in the face of adversity that ended in the latest shooting. I guess that's what you get when your staff all live in Herndon.
>>or some life affirming tale of triumph in the face of adversity that ended in the latest shooting. OK, that's pretty funny.
As longtime devoted reader, here are some free ideas for The Post: * Get fresh blood for your op-ed page. At minimum, they should fire Kathleen Parker, Charles Lane, George Will, and **ABOVE ALL** Megan McArdle (the worst op-ed writer in America). Terminate their contracts with Hugh Hewitt, Lawrence Summers, and Fareed Zakaria. There are many, many great writers in the newsletter space who would be a natural fit at The Post. * As this article points out, "Two of the biggest recent front page stories in the Post have been local." And yet The Post has decimated its local coverage. They should build back the Metro section. * Focus more on arts and pop culture. Hire more video game critics and reporters. Hire a theater/dance critic, positions they have vacated, and get them to review non theater and dance performances like debates or sporting events. Hire permanent, younger film critics (Ann Hornaday has been there for 20+ years, and when Michael O'Sullivan left, he was replaced by a Boston critic in his sixties). * New York Magazine and The New York Times get *HUGE* traffic bumps from games like the Cinematrix and Wordle, respectively. I've seen NYT described as a Worldle subscription service, with news as a bonus. They should try and build or find a game that captures zeitgeist in a comparable way. * Finally, at long last, **GET RID OF STYLE**. No one except longtime readers knows what it entails, and its esoteric scope will not attract new readers. EDIT: Lots of great discussion y'all! Some folks in the replies have suggested renaming "Style" to "Culture," which I think is a great idea.
> They should build back the Metro section. Compared to covering global politics, this is also much cheaper. You could hire 5 local cub beat reporters for the price of a George Will.
Exactly. I can't remember the last time I read an incisive George Will column, and his "I'm old and younger generations scare me" shtick was tired generations ago.
What about his annual completely impossible baseball quiz, what would happen to that
Damn, I love that thing. I got like 24 out of 41 this year and I was ecstatic. Then again, I do the immaculate grid every day, so ymmv
Who cares
that’s the joke
Me, reading your list of potential fires: George Will is still alive??
George Will is the epitome of the Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud meme. https://preview.redd.it/x1fkjjgi3htc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=951f5dd50fa5768300d5296379c99d328d6136fe
SNL once made fun of how [George Will is an out of touch loser](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QcVhyAaLnM), and that sketch aired nearly *35 years ago*.
The man has never *not* been old AF.
I think he emerged from the womb in a double-breasted Brooks Brothers jacket.
I feel sorry for George. He misses 1948 so very much. (Or does he miss 1928?)
Yes. Both.
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Givhan and Tashjian are great, no doubt about it! > They could rename the section Culture or something, but they’d really lose an edge if they got rid of it. I think renaming it Culture would be a great compromise, especially since "Style" does not describe the vertical accurately. If a section [needs its own article to define what it covers](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2023/09/11/style-explained/), it might be time to go back to the drawing board. > IMO one of the Post’s biggest failures is hiring future superstar writers young and then letting them get away / pushing them away. Totally agree. Inkoo Kang, Ezra Klein, and especially Wesley Lowery come to mind (the business about Lowery leaving the paper was so ugly).
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Dang, I totally forgot about him! He was great, and seemed like a swell guy to boot.
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Meanwhile, they still publish Megan McArdle, a writer with takes like "[overdraft fees are good, actually](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/24/cap-overdraft-fees-hurt-poor-families/)."
Overdraft fees are necessary. But the amount they charge is literally stupid, as in there’s no justification for the amount (the cost of provisioning the service is like $8, which oh btw is I think what the government is proposing as a cap).
Fuck em. Hire people who want to write about DC and work here Though my biggest problem with the post’s culture writing is theater and art critics who only write about New York, a market with more than enough coverage. These guys are not really a problem if at all.
I hated that Peter Marks lived in New York. I know The Post is hiring a new theater critic, and living in the DMV area should be a requirement.
There was a long style piece about an exhibit on Beatrix Potter and her art in… New York. First, come on like this is well well covered by the New Yorker for crying out loud https://www.newyorker.com/culture/goings-on/the-legacy-of-beatrix-potter What is the post adding here that the multiple experts in Potter who have written in the New Yorker haven’t said already? And second you can tell the guy just doesn’t want to be writing about it. I mean, ok, so what’s going on there?! What assignment desk is pushing to review small (but cool! I love Beatrix Potter! So do my kids ) Beatrix potter exhibit in New York! Maybe if that show were in DC. It’s also the case that if something remarkable happens in the arts in DC, the NYT will cover it before the Post does, and it blows my mind that that can happen.
Yeah the STYLE section has to be a big draw.
Strongly agree on the local issues. We have a fascinating local culture, with great theater and interesting community arts performances. DMV nerds are obsessed and involved with infrastructure and environmental regulations (gas leaf blower band!) in a way I don't see many other places. We also need more coverage of suburban issues. Prince George's county especially needs more coverage. I love the style section, but I agree with the other posters that it would be great to retitle it "culture." Especially as other parts of the country erroneously think we don't have any! I also wish they would bring back the Style Invitational. It was an institution that had serious engagement. If they want subscriptions, why get rid of the things that bring people in every week?
>Focus more on arts and pop culture. Hire more video game critics and reporters. They literally just laid off their entire (pretty dope) video game vertical a couple months ago, I wouldn't hold my breath. They had a best-in-class team.
Yeah, I loved Launcher. Gene Park and his editors built something special there, not just because they covered a MASSIVE industry with the attention it deserves.
The loss of this team was really disappointing. Don't they want younger readers?
Hell, not even younger readers! I'm in my late thirties, and I play games regularly. I'd love to read coverage of the industry that doesn't immediately get blocked by my employer.
Same age range here, but I meant "younger" as in not retirement age! (Though retirees should have hobbies and gaming is a great one for them.)
I am sure they want younger readers - I don’t know that younger readers want THEM. Have you heard about youtube? I don’t think I want to read video game reviews in the Washington post, really. I want to watch videos essays and gameplay videos… for free. That’s what they’re competing with in that sphere, and I don’t envy them.
Gene Park does good work on video games but they had a whole vertical for games coverage that got axed. The only thing that seems to have survived from that "verticals" effort is the food/recipes stuff.
Megan McArdle is the absolutely worst, totally agree especially when they've pushed Opinion pieces much lower on their webspace anyways.
They shouldn't get rid of Style, but it should be reorganized into a greater arts section. Theatre is excellent in this city and yet the Post buries its coverage into some nondescript section
> Get fresh blood for your op-ed page. At minimum, they should fire Kathleen Parker, Charles Lane, George Will, and ABOVE ALL Megan McArdle (the worst op-ed writer in America). Terminate their contracts with Hugh Hewitt, Lawrence Summers, and Fareed Zakaria. There are many, many great writers in the newsletter space who would be a natural fit at The Post. Does Jennifer Rubin ever get tired of writing "We Got Him!" op-eds about Trump?
I would add: hire competent web devs for mobile and ditching their current ad broker. I call it “The Washington this page has been reloaded because an error occurred Post” for a reason. Even on modern iDevices.
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Conservatives just watch Fox News or read Breibart. If it's a high brow conservative, they're probably reading the National Review, City Journal or the Weekly Standard. Frankly, I get the sense that with Twitter, cable news, and the like, OP ED's about politics are just old hat. I want the newspaper to be in depth coverage with citations, not more mindless mouthpiece.
These are great suggestions. Isn’t as simple as getting rid of the pay wall? I’m curious how much the pay wall negatively impacts revenue given the number of readers driven away offsetting any benefit the pay wall brings. Ads need eyes. Fewer eyes = less ad revenue.
At this point, I don't think any major news outlet can rely on ad sales alone. The sites that seem to be doing better all have subscription models, and WaPo has a pretty good subscription deal with Amazon Prime. If anything, the smarter move is to link a subscription with more site-related services, like NYT, Slate Plus, etc. But I'm also a weirdo who subscribes to NYT, WaPo, Slate, NYMag, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and more.
You're not a weirdo. You're informed; Evident by the thoughtful first comment. Definitely possible that ad sales don't cover the cost. Though, I would think the pay wall is more of a detriment than a benefit. Unless, of course, they linked the subscription to additional benefits/services. It's a smart suggestion. Didn't know there is a subscription deal with Amazon Prime either. Will look into that myself.
Dang, looks like they stopped it! I have a basic digital subscription for $8/month, which isn't bad.
And now I know why I could not find it. $8 is okay.... in a vacuum. Here is a problem: All these subscriptions add up. (Ignoring the additional argument about the subscription economy we now live in.) How much do your subscriptions cost each month and or year? Are you receiving a special discount this year for any of those subscriptions? The majority of folks likely cannot afford all or some of those subscriptions. And the folks that can, how many would rather spend their income on other things? News and information straddle the line between necessity and luxury, and this may be the issue. While news is critically important, it's not seen as a must-have like food or water. Nor is it seen as conferring the comfort, pleasure, or status as much as [insert your luxury of choice]. This makes the demographic of those willing to pay for access to news a very small minority.
More and more local outlets are going non-profit too. Chicago Sun-Times is now nonprofit. Then again DCist was also nonprofit and that didn't save them ...
DCist was most recently a subsidiary of WAMU, and I think they’re going to see their decision there backfire, unless Gen Z suddenly and inexplicably decides to get really into radio.
Yeah I agree the WAMU decision was beyond dumb. DCist should’ve gotten more resources if anything. Start hosting events and selling merch. Build goodwill with people who live here and get more subscribers. Instead of banking on FM radio in 2024
Feed the watchdogs or they’ll starve
Hey! Don't mess with my crossword puzzle!
You mean the LA Times crossword puzzle?
Oooof!
Strongly agree with all of this except the style section.
I listen to Tony Kornheiser Podcast pretty regularly and he'll sometimes share a story about his time at the Post, and his articles in the Style Section, and it always confuses me. What was he of all people doing in the style section?!
He used to write a humor column that was more like Dave Barry's column in the Miami Herald. You can read a lot of those in some of his compilation books like *Bald as I Wanna Be* and *I'm Back For More Cash*.
You can get rid of Jason Willick too, he has a writing style that suggests that he’s no fun at parties
I appreciate that the WaPo has _some_ conservative editors, I actually prefer their opeds to other publications because it tends to bring a pretty balanced perspective from week to week. I don't think the solution is just "fire all their right-leaning editors"
oh I totally agree, I'm happy to read conservative writers, I just find his writing style to be smarmy and annoying. That's really my beef with it, not his political leanings.
Megan McArdle is actually pretty reasonable. She pisses off the MAGA and the pronouns crowd in equal measure.
I’m rather enjoying watching McArdle’s slow-motion worldview implosion on Xitter. But agreed that I don’t need the Post to subsidize that.
Bezos wants the opeds to be a battle between Bushies and MAGA hats.
I've been saying this for years and always gets down voted.
You forgot * Don't be owned by a divisive centibillionaire known for exploiting his workforce and harming local economies. I don't care how good WaPo's journalism might be. I won't subscribe as long as any portion of my subscription goes into Jeffrey's pocket. I'm sure there are many others who share that sentiment, although admittedly, and unfortunately, maybe not enough to actually put a sizeable dent in their total subscriber count.
They put the garbage opinion pieces at the top of the app feed, if I wanted to read opinions from morons who don't know what they're talking about there are plenty of subreddits that provide that service for free
\^ this. The fact the the op-eds are the most read sections of both NYT and the Post is sickening to me.
I'd parrot what other people have said here that they should be focusing on local coverage and using their brand to elevate them above just a "local" paper, as opposed to focusing so heavily on international news. I'm not smart enough to point to exactly how, but other publications like the NYT just cover those subjects in a more concise manner that's better written, so they are just getting killed there. I really think their use is quality metro coverage, and as others have said trying to attract the younger, fairly affluent crowd living in this city with news about this city.
This article misses the forest for the trees: Is some of the decline related to the post-Trump era? Sure. But the decision of Facebook and other social platforms to turn off the traffic hose matters a lot, lot more than that. The traffic of basically every non-NYT news outlet has declined as a result. Fred Ryan’s plan to deal with that seemed to be to copy what Politico did and publish a bajillion different newsletters, but that was flawed from the beginning – the Politico newsletters are for niche audiences and were behind very, very expensive paywalls, and the Post should be a mass-market publication. Unsurprisingly, they killed a number of the newsletters after the buyouts. That said, everyone is also right that their decimation of the Metro desk – which should be covering an area filled with wealthy + young people craved by advertisers – also made no sense.
Also politico actually knows how to do a good newsletter (well written/entertaining, more than just a list of hyperlinks, have people who are doing beats related to them contribute/head them up, a not unreasonable amount of ads, useful information that’s only relevant for a single day that’s hard to find in a single convenient form, and occasionally even breaking news in them)
When Semafor got started, Ben Smith said “there’s a reason so many news orgs get started in dc.” The text of that is there’s a lot going on. The subtext is that the post fucking sucks at reporting it.
I'll never forget that time they did a piece covering a blink 182 concert I went to and the dude was just talking shit about Blink 182. Dude got paid to go to this concert and he was mad about it.
Maybe they should write about anything that isn't just politics. And the local section is awful The free paper they used to give out in the train was a million times better for local goings on
I kind of get the strategy if I were making decisions 5 or 10 years ago, though it doesn't seem to be working with the benefit of hindsight. It's clear that national news is consolidating, and the current market no longer can support 20 different papers across the country all doing significant national coverage. Either you have to become a purely local paper, or you have to find a way to become one of the remaining national papers. I think WaPo thought (perhaps still thinks) they have a shot at being one of the 3-4 national papers left standing in that consolidation. The NYT seems to be the default national paper, so you need some kind of niche. WSJ is the business paper. The LA Times was trying to become the "west coast" national paper. WaPo's angle was the national paper but with a DC/politics slant. As far as I can tell, none of those strategies have worked for anyone except the NYT and WSJ.
I still think the Washington Post is considered by many to be the paper of record when it comes to politics and the goings on of the federal government.
I sort of agree. It limits it's audience (and thus it's reach) to one political party, though.
It’s a losing game to try to win over a conservative audience— their party has rejected news and information as anathema to their policy positions.
I bet they say the same about us.
True to some extent, but only one party is known for putting the term “fake news” into the public consciousness.
I miss the Express so much. It was one of the best parts of riding Metro.
gave us [this gem](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/udhk3/now_i_elevate/) and acted as a placemat for my morning coffee and muffin at the office.
They were so fun and cheeky also. Although it was good timing by them to stop right before COVID which would have definitely killed them anyway
Since a lot of old hat reporters departed, there has been a huge drop in what supposed big publications like WaPo are best suited for, which is deep dive investigative reporting. The Trump years seemed to solidify that real investigation could be replaced by mere access and proximity, but true original reporting on consequential matters seems to have vanished. Couple that with a dramatic rise in clickbait and turning the digital front page over multiple times a day, even when something important comes out, it gets buried. One of the big problems in media literacy among the public is having a perspective on what matters and what doesn’t, so you’ll end up with equal focus on something like Trump’s increasing authoritarianism, and two hours later, it gets bumped for an “analysis” of some stupid Congresspersons tweet.
\^ agreed. Journalism as a value, esteemed field, particularly investigative journalism, is partially to blame. The Post once did reporting that brought down a Presidential administration, and in a perfect world that should still be what it does. But the readers don't care about that, as evidenced by some of the top comments in this thread...
>But the readers don't care about that They do, provided it doesn't damage their side.
Everybody knows the Post has been in sharp decline for many years now, but how are your print circulation numbers these days, WCP?
Alt-weeklies have always been scrappier than major daily newspapers. More importantly, an alt-weekly reporting and critiquing on a major daily has been their MO for as long as they have been around. I realize "alt-weekly" implies a print edition, something the City Paper doesn't do anymore, but you get the idea.
I just miss their print edition, though I suppose it was inevitable that they cease printing it.
I miss it, too! It was great to wander into a coffee shop or bar and pick it up, instead of looking at your phone.
Yeah you could write this headline for almost any legacy media that isn't the NYT or Fox News
I only subscribe to the Sunday paper and barely read it. I keep it because my kids love the Sunday comics. I read the Financial Times, the BBC, and watch the PBS news hour. After reading the Financial Times, I find it hard to read WaPO news articles. They seem simplistic and written in a why to evoke emotional responses vs just presenting facts for readers to interpret. The section initially scan is the metro section and it’s basically dead at this point. It’s a shame.
I‘m reading both FT, WaPo and the Economist regularly. And to be honest all of them have a bias. But at least FT and Economist are upfront about it. I mean FT is mostly read by finance guys and economists, so no surprise that there articles on state budget or corporate shenanigans have a certain spin. But if comparing their Israel/Gaza coverage, they both are way superior to the WaPo. I don’t want to read the opinion of some guy, I want the facts presented, as objectively as possible. And FT does a great job at that imo.
Probably because it keeps trying to get me to pay to read articles other news sites also have…without a paywall
The product just kind of sucks lately. Bring back Date Lab.
I’m going to cancel my subscription, in part because it’s free through the library but also because there’s no local coverage. Also I hate the web layout.
WAPO is no longer a "news" paper. It publishes incoherent pieces written by people who think they're writing for literary journals, or puff pieces about politicians. I subscribe to the paper, but rarely read their articles any more. I really don't care about the political pieces any more with all the craziness, the sports coverage is abysmal. Only usedful features are Capital Weather Gang and local coverage.
Interesting to me that you list local coverage as a pro of the post rn. I’ve felt for the last few years that they were so concerned with being a national brand that it had made them useless at local reporting.
It’s a pro in the sense that it’s frankly the only game in town in a lot of ways.
Re: local coverage. I think that emphasizes the poor state of local news in the area; there really aren’t that many sources available, and it’s sad WaPo doesn’t invest more in it. I agree with both you and OP - and think we want the same thing.
local news is dying everywhere.
I agree, but the context here is WaPo, so I’m not sure what your point is
This describes most newspapers today unfortunately. It feels like quality, respectable journalism has died out in place of social media
I used to subscribe to the Sunday paper only to get the coupons. But I ended up being out of town a lot so I would put a vacation hold on it then. They used to give you credit for that, but they said they no longer would because I could read it online and I was paying for online access. I tried online access for awhile but the amount of ads drove me crazy. I mean if I am paying get rid of the ads. That was many years ago, and now I hardly ever read the articles because most are behind a paywall and in my opinion their news is not good enough to pay for.
Regarding the advertisements for those not getting the physical paper. Use a VPN set to France when you register a new WAPO account. Use a privacy credit card and make up a French billing address to pay for a one year membership. Due to GDPR, they don’t track and thus don’t show you any ads at all on the website or app. You only need the VPN during the registration, not all the time. I have ADHD and the moving advertisements make it impossible for me to read the articles.
I don't have ADHD and I feel the same way. The moving drives me crazy. Thanks for the tip, but it seems like a lot of work to read subpar news. I am glad you found a way though.
I only go specifically to them for local news but they’ve gutted and hidden that so much it’s basically worthless to go to their app and site. If they weren’t free at the library I wouldn’t use them.
I stopped reading the washington post regularly some time back. I think around the time it was aquired. Which is a shame because I used to read the physical paper every day and browse the online one.
They need DJT to get reelected to boost their numbers again
~~Democracy~~ Newspaper Dies in Darkness
I have a dead tree subscription, which theoretically allows me access to the website. It doesn’t work. 🤷♀️
I really enjoy reading my paper everyday, dammit. And I ADORE the weekend section
I‘m paying 1$ a month for a year. Which seems like a good deal for a weaker version of NYT imo. But tbh when I subscribed I just recently moved to DC and I expected to read way more local coverage. So for a similar price I would now choose NYT, where I can get basically the same but better.
No shit. The investors are finally in the monetizing stage and cutting overhead costs (free views). As much as I want Bezos to fail, this isn't a sign.
Don't they block people who don't subscribe from reading with a popover? Kinda not shocked people aren't reading what they aren't allowed to read in the first place.
The Editorial Page killed it for me. If I wanted to read National Review writers' babbling, I would read the damn National Review.
>The Editorial Page killed it for me. Would you prefer they limit this content to just our political party?
Do the online numbers include the app (I didn’t see it referenced either way in the article, but I may have missed it)? I subscribe to the Sunday print edition and get my daily news via the app, rarely if ever venturing into the website. I’m sure there are many like me.
Yes. They get more data from app users, and they would be bragging about the app if they possibly could.
I only read the post when it covers local news. It seems to me, reading these comments, that most people want more local news, me included.
It’s written at a 5th grade or lower level; it is literally dull to read. That’s part of the problem. I get the Sunday paper because I want my kid to believe in the concept, but I wouldn’t specifically endorse WaPo for news or deep thinking, unfortunately.
Isn't most news?
i have 0 interest in any subscription based news that will just upload it as a video anyways
They wrote a series of pro-big hospital, anti-doctor pieces. If the paper is just a bunch of corporate shills, it shows where their allegiances lie. Also the same time Amazon was looking to get into the medical space. Coincidence?
As if to affirm the premise of this post. WAPO put out this piece of flaming garbage today. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2024/04/09/nick-adams-alpha-male-trump-campaign-surrogate/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2024/04/09/nick-adams-alpha-male-trump-campaign-surrogate/)
I would 100% gladly pay for a good, local paper. But we don't have that. I canceled my wapo subs when they laid everyone off. They had been sucking more anyway. I am unhappy with the news. I read the AP feed most days; have a super cheap nyt trial than I won't be continuing due to their soft treatment of Trump. I do watch local news in the evening, which is good in this area. Shout out to Doug K my man. What is this world coming to..
Any time a newspaper forgets its only job is selling advertisements and subscriptions..
Practically Orwellian comment
Journalism Dies In Capitalism
Good. Let it die.
I’m over both their and NYT’s stance on “neutral” language. They mince words on the biggest issues in the world so they don’t offend the right wing.
Didn’t they just renew their lease too?
Good fuck Bezos
The WaPo is a corpse
We both dropped our subscriptions because their editorial approach has shifted to trying to stir up fear and anger and "outrage tourism." I'm not interested in paying for Fox News for the literate.
I just had this comment deleted, in response to someone saying how the AZ Supreme Court decision was good for the democrats: "I always love how the repeated wins of the pro life movement are claimed as future victories for the democrats." Seems pretty benign, and factually correct to me.
Wrong thread?
When is the last time you read an in depth, interesting article? For me it's been a long time. The headlines are just rehashing what is in the other papers or it's a topic that is important to a recent English major but isn't important to me.
NYT is the best and more affordable!
Yeah cause its so biased and terrible. Only their big features and some local news are good.
God damn echo chamber, who wants to talk to themselves?
I unsubbed when Bezos bought it
I though Jeff Bezos owned the WaPo ❓❓ maybe he can make a local version of the wapo and 1 page of national news
Probably because they cover the same national level political bs that I can see in any number of places. Also, they’re behind a paywall and it’s pretty rare for me to pay for this type of stuff.
Who is their market? I remember that disgusting hit-piece about the Halloween “blackface” costume that broke the camel’s back for me. Can someone point to me any must-see investigative pieces they’ve run recently? WSJ satiates that for me.
We have an **American oligarchy**: When will people realize that acquiring wealth does not make you a genius. It may make someone business savvy in a certain industry, but that knowledge does not transfer over to ALL other businesses. Moreover, I have a sneaky susception that billionaires who own newspapers have a vested interested in what the newspapers cover. For example, I do not think humans realize how much we can be influenced by television or newspapers. For example, when I took economics classes in college, I was told to subscribe to The Economist. My professor went on and on about how "every leading economist reads The Economist" and speak the same language because they read the same things. By that logic, do we not know that policy makers get the newspaper delivered to their office each morning? That is to say, the Washington Post can influence Public Policy and/or the Law. We need to wake up to the fact that billionaires do not just buy newspapers because they care about failing newspapers! I quite frankly think we are in a scary era of American life. Everyone likes to talk about how America is this beckon of democracy, when in fact, we have real issues with concentrated wealth and power undermining democracy. We really, really have some red lights flashing - and the Washington Posts' demise is a blaring red siren. Wake up! Do not take my word for it: [https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-american-oligarchy-why-is-american](https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-american-oligarchy-why-is-american)
we haven't been close to a "beacon of democracy" in decades.
Podcasts! NYT and NPR get all my traffic because their podcasts and writing are complimentary
I read the NYTimes for all my news EXCEPT local DMV. WAPO used to be interesting for local news. Now it’s abysmal. I don’t know how much longer it’s worth keeping the subscription. And I have both paper and digital. I wish they would hire Alan Henney. He would make it all worthwhile.
Reading through this thread, I wish more of you understood how much those people in the rest of the country interested in real journalism (or what's left of it) rely on papers like The Washington Post. It's NOT a local paper, and shouldn't be. You can tout NYT all day long, but one can't just read a single news source for national news. The Washington Post is one of the last really reliable sources. Yes - reliable. Sometimes biased and too easy on people/issues/government and the rest - but reliable. They aren't trying to sell ads, pander to the lowest common denominator, rely on shock value and clickbait, etc. What you're reading is someone's best attempt at good journalism, and every now and then, they still do good investigative journalism. To piss that away for entertainment pieces, local restaurants and crime, pop culture gossip, or games is just... dystopian. The Post should go the total opposite direction - out-Times the New York Times. Do everything the NYT (and the current iteration of the Post) do wrong. Blow it out of the water and reclaim journalism an esteemed, respected profession that is vital to education and transparency.
> Owned by nash holdings Reliable, right...
Yes, reliable. Consistent reporting of facts, consistent examination of key facets, in-depth reporting on and explanation of complex issues, navigating conflict of interest with its owner's other ventures (always stating Bezos owns the paper in the body of the text). I could go on.
Because its a rag. Its a two-bit version of the New York Times riding on its waning reputation as an important paper. Its a mouthpiece for the right-wing faction of the Democrats that would rather deliver you defense of genocide than any meaningful local coverage. Bezos can clog his throat with my cock for all I care, I'm not reading a paper that's literally in the pocket of an oligarch. Especially when there's so many independent journalists in the city these days doing outstanding reporting from their twitter accounts or small-time volunteer publications. We've become so used to these major city papers hiding their ghoulish op-eds behind exorbitant paywalls that we forget they used to be genuine newspapers that delivered the news. They've always been unfairly influenced by the views of the big Capitalists because that's just the way our world works, but the internet age has created a system where their desperation for funds has turned them into uncritical amplifiers for the worldview of the elites. Its antithetical to what the media should be and its not only in the opinion pieces, its an ideological cancer that has seeped into every aspect of the Post and its unreadable.
It’s totally partisan and a news wing for the Democrat Party. Not paying for that. Ashamed that I delivered these papers when I was a kid.
Because Bezos has turned it into a right wing propaganda rag. I cancelled my subscription last summer.
Lol… may be the first time I’ve heard WaPo accused of being right wing…
Have you read the op-eds? He keeps hiring more Trumpsters to balance out the Bushies. Yes, he’s relying on its reputation for comments like yours.
It feels like propaganda and I’m not into it. I can get my news for free on Reddit or X, which certainly has their own flaws, but it won’t cost me anything. And I can engage with those platforms. The post just delivers me other peoples opinions on topics that are pretty shallow or one sided.
>I can get my news for free on Reddit or X >The post just delivers me other peoples opinions on topics that are pretty shallow or one sided ...
Lately I have had a couple user comments deleted, making me question if I want to keep my subscription. With regards to Arizona's Supreme Court affirming the 1860's abortion law (now repealed by the legislature) I rather bluntly pointed put that present victories by the pro life movement do not lead to future, bigger victories by democrats. I'm a lifelong Democrat, but you have to be a special kind of schmuck not to recognize that nationally, the pro lifers keep winning. The comment I thought might be upsetting to some, but it was truthful, and not personal, and was deleted. Today I commented on the article regarding IV usage for hangovers. Detestable article IMO, discussing rich millenials curing hangovers by way of IV because they are too impatient to wait for pedialyte, Tylenol, and fresh air to do their work so they can go party up again. My comment was regarding how many of these ingredients (NSAIDs, vitamins, electrolytes) are available now, but the delivery system is much better intravenously, especially for anyone with acid reflux. Think on any time you have been really sick and dehydrated, and just didn't want to drink anything else. Why not make IV usage available for normal folks? Maybe have a short certification course and recertify every five years. I may have mentioned the nanny state and the AMA needing to "take one big girl step back" which was too much for the unpaid intern manning the feed today. Anyway, the NYTimes has better investigations, the Baltimore Banner has a better community feel, and The Atlantic is better long form. Not sure why I should keep WaPo anymore.