Uncertain staff paper WaPo may recover as Bezos-owned outlet sheds 200,000 subscribers over endorsement fiasco

The Washington Post is reportedly paying a price with its liberal readers after the Bezos-owned paper announced it would not endorse the 2024 presidential race, sending shockwaves through its newsroom.

NPR reported Monday that The Post has dropped more than 200,000 subscribers as it revealed its editorial board will not formally endorse Vice President Kamala Harris after she planned to do so.

According to NPR, it marks a roughly 8% loss of The Post's 2.5 million paid subscribers.

WASHINGTON POST REPORTS LIBERALS CANCEL SUBSCRIBE ON PAPER'S DECISION NOT TO ENDORSE VP HARRIS

A Washington Post veteran tells Fox News Digital that the NPR report was “the talk of the media.”

“People are upset about such a sweet decision,” said an insider. “Recently, [Washington Post CEO and publisher Will] Lewis's team boasted that they had ended the loss of subscriptions and that we had 'green shoots' of 4,000 new subscribers so far this year. That's done in a nanosecond.”

“It's a steep hole to climb out of, and it's only going to get worse once the election is over and a lot of people cancel,” the source added.

When asked if the Post could get out of the hole or if the damage was done, they replied “It doesn't make sense. There's a lot of damage done.”

A spokesman for The Washington Post declined to comment.

WASHINGTON POST UNION, WORKERS DIVIDE DECISION NOT TO ACCEPT PRESIDENTIAL CHOICE, BLAME BEZOS

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks at a rally in Houston, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Three Post reporters wrote Sunday that the positive momentum within the profession “ceased” on Friday when Lewis announced that the “Democracy Dies in Dark” paper would not endorse a presidential candidate. In the past days, attacks on students have been posted social networks about canceling subscriptions in protest, prompting Washington Post reporters to worry about how many subscribers will eventually leave.

“The cancellation movement has entered social media. Instead of using an internal analytics tool to check the traffic of their news, some Post reporters have used it to draw a growing number of subscribers who visit a customer account page that allows them to cancel their subscription,” Post reporters Manuel Roig-Franzia, Herb Scribner and Laura Wagner he wrote in a clip headlined “For The Post, more anger from readers who say they canceled.”

“On social media, sharing screenshots of unsubscribe confirmations became more than just a thing,” Post reporters continued. “It was a political statement from the American left, outraged by reports in The Post and elsewhere that the newspaper's writers wrote an endorsement of the Democratic nominee.”

AHEAD OF NO-PROVEMENT DECISION, WASHINGTON POST CALLED TRUMP 'TERRIFYING' AND 'MORE VIEWING PRESIDENT OF THE AGE'

Washington Post Publisher and CEO William Lewis (Elliott O'Donovan for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The Post also noted that Lewis “wanted to dispel speculation” that the paper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, made the decision to help former President Trump. However, The Post previously reported that Bezos was behind the move “according to four people briefed on the decision.”

Lewis said the decision to end the president's recommendations was “completely internal and no campaign or candidate was ever notified or contacted,” and told concerned employees that “it's wrong for an independent newspaper to tell readers how to vote in a presidential election.”

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The Post announced Friday that it will not give an endorsement in the next or any future presidential election, in what publisher Lewis called “a return to our roots.”

Harris' endorsement was reportedly written up and ready for publication before it was suddenly shelved. The paper, which has been staunchly hostile to former President Trump for years, has endorsed a Democrat for president in every election since 1976, except when it skipped one in 1988.

Brian Flood of Fox News contributed to this report.