The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All America’

Deck compares the 200 million goal to the effort to put a man on the moon — and it’s a big goal: The Post has fewer than three million digital subscribers; The Times, the industry leader, has about 11 million.

Most publications in the same group as The Washington Post do not reach 200 million people, according to data from the analysis company Comscore. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Axios and Politico generated fewer than 100 million monthly viewers for the first half of 2024, both paid and unpaid, although they saw audience growth around the presidential election. – national.

The Post’s new policy specifically mentions “employers,” not “writers,” suggesting that companies may adopt different methods of paying readers. Internal data released by The Post shows that the newspaper reaches millions of subscribers on platforms such as Apple News, social media and podcasts. These audiences tend to be younger, but they are harder to monetize, as most advertising dollars and marketing fees go to other platforms.

This is not the first time in recent years that The Post has set out to expand its audience. Shortly after Mr. Bezos bought the newspaper in 2013, he told Post employees to take advantage of the “gifts of the Internet,” such as global reach, to grow their readership. After that, The Post launched a segment called “Morning Mix,” featuring clickable stories from around the world that were popular with readers.

The deck that Ms. Watford describes intelligence as the key to The Post’s success, the people said. It describes The Post as “an AI-driven platform for news” that provides “vital news, opinion and insights to Americans everywhere, how and when he wants.” It also lays out three pillars of The Post’s overall plan: “great journalism,” “happy customers” and “making money.” The Post lost about $77 million in 2023.

But many aspects of The Post’s new mission have nothing to do with emerging technology. There is a list of seven principles published by Post owner Eugene Meyer in 1935. They include: “The newspaper tells the whole truth” and “the duty of the newspaper is to its readers and to the public.” “generally, not for the private benefit of the owner.”