Report: Establishment Media’s Readership Collapses Up to 48% Without Trump’s Presidency

The establishment media’s online readership has reportedly collapsed without the aid of Donald Trump’s America First presidency.

The Hill, Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Vox Media have lost a large percentage of monthly unique visitors since Trump led the nation, according to Comscore data cited by the Journal.

Politico’s readership has reportedly declined the greatest amount at 48 percent. The Post‘s page views are reportedly fewer by 28 percent, followed by the Times at 15 percent, then the Journal and Vox Media at nine percent.

As Trump is canceled on Twitter and Facebook, reducing his ability to immediately create a headline for the establishment media to print, the amount of the Post’s digital subscribers has reportedly declined by nearly 300,000.

 

According to the report, only three of the Post’s ten most-read articles on the home page in 2021 were political coverage. Whereas in 2019, just about all the 50 most-read articles on the home page were political “news.”

Traffic from nonsubscribers to the Post has also reportedly decreased 35 percent in the last two years. “Active subscribers are coming less often, and when they do come, they consume fewer pageviews,” a Post internal document reported stated.

“Traffic from subscribers is growing, but not fast enough to make up that difference,” the Journal analyzed. “From October 2019 to October 2021, digital subscribers increased by 56%, but subscriber page views only increased by 6% during that period.”

The Post defended their failing paper by attempting to wean itself off Trumpian headlines.

“We’ve been deliberate in our strategy work and are seeing the results of our investments across the company, particularly with the growth of the newsroom, the broadening of our coverage and the sophistication of our storytelling tools,” a Post spokesperson told the Journal.

The Post’s statement also indicated its hired a third party to audit and study the paper’s news coverage of Joe Biden’s presidency.

“This was a third-party study done to help identify potential motivations to subscribe, and we are not focused on just one of them,” the spokesperson said. “Rather, we are using the data as a whole to think about where we invest and grow in 2022.”

The study reportedly showed the publication is struggling with subscribers under the age of 55. The Journal reported only 14 percent of the Post’s subscribers are 55 or younger. “Our paid product is not attractive to younger people,” the study allegedly reads.

Among those most interested in the paper are reportedly described by the study as “affluent, urban married men with kids, more multi-ethnic, skew liberal/Democratic.”

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø.