BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: WaPo’s Pretend Conservative Resigns — And Rage-Quits X — Over Trump-Musk Alliance.
The Washington Post’s longtime “conservative blogger” Jennifer Rubin announced on Monday that she had resigned from the paper, effective immediately, to launch a new outlet that was “not owned by anybody.”
Rubin, who became an outspoken advocate for Democrats in her efforts to “resist” Donald Trump, lionized President Joe Biden until the very end, and then went so far as to fawn over Vice President Kamala Harris even before she was foisted on the Democratic Party as their de facto nominee.
But the media landscape has begun to change with Trump’s re-election — and even some legacy media personalities and outlets have started to show signs of coming around, resigning themselves to the fact that if they don’t at least attempt to speak to Trump and his allies in good faith, they may find themselves ousted by podcasters, citizen journalists, and other less traditional media outlets.
Rubin, according to her Monday announcement, is having none of that — in addition to launching her new outlet, she declared her intention to leave X altogether in protest of Trump’s alliance with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
“BIG NEWS. I have left the Post. Corporate and billionaire media are failing to meet the moment,” she claimed in her post to X. “With @normeisen.bsky.social I’m launching @contrariannews.bsky.social. We’ll have politics but also cooking, humor, film and even pets. Please subscribe and join the fight. And because I want to be true to my values I am leaving X. I refuse to enable the Elon-Trump presidency.”
Ace of Spades posits that Rubin was likely pushed out of the newspaper:
She demanded other journalists resign in protest when their owners made decisions prioritizing profit and sales over wokeness, but didn’t resign herself.
She’s finally resigned. Except, of course, I don’t believe she “resigned.” I would bet any amount of money that the Washington Post, losing money and readers at such a pace the paper’s existence is literally in danger, looked at its staff and decided to fire the non-performers.
She literally has no constituency at all. Almost no NeverTrumper does. Almost every single NeverTrumper in the country has a high-paid media gig despite having no audience or constituency. They have been paid simply for loyal service to the Democrat/Progressive Cult, and to astroturf a propaganda front against Trump.
And the paper really does have quite the astonishing burn rate: Washington Post traffic craters, loses $100M amid identity crisis as talent, readers flee: reports.
The Washington Post’s readership reportedly cratered during Joe Biden’s presidency — and the Jeff Bezos-owned broadsheet lost $100 million last year alone — as the embattled paper continues to suffer an exodus of top talent.
The left-leaning publication drew about 2.5 million to 3 million daily users to its site last summer, a fraction of the 22.5 million daily visitors at its peak when Biden took office in January 2021, according to internal data shared with Semafor.
The plummeting site traffic led the business to lose around $100 million on weak subscription and ad revenue in 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
WaPo took a hit to its bottom line after reportedly 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions following Bezos’ decision to kill an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris just weeks before the election.
The Washington Post had 54 million digital visitors last November — down from 114 million in November 2020, according to global media analytics firm Comscore.
Leaders at the company have discussed ways to hit a goal of 200 million users, according to the Journal. Executives at the paper once vaunted for its Watergate coverage have suggested using artificial-intelligence tools and news aggregation to reach the goal, the outlet said.
AI “journalists” really would be the next logical step for the beleaguered paper:
