Washington Post loses more than 200,000 subscriptions following non-endorsement

NEW YORK (AP) - More than 200,000 people have canceled subscriptions to The Washington Post since the newspaper announced its decision last week not to endorse a candidate for president, a published report said Monday.

NPR reported the figure, citing "two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters."

The reported loss of subscriptions of that magnitude would be a blow to a news outlet that is already facing financial headwinds. The Post had more than 2.5 million subscribers last year, the bulk of them digital, making it third behind The New York Times and Wall Street Journal in circulation.

A Post spokeswoman, Olivia Peterson, would not comment on the report when contacted by The Associated Press.

The Post’s editorial staff had reportedly prepared an endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris before announcing instead Friday that it would leave it up for readers to make up their own minds. The timing, less than two weeks before Election Day, led critics to question whether Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had been concerned about whether Republican Donald Trump might retaliate if he were elected president.

The Post’s retired former editor, Marty Baron, had denounced the decision on social media as "cowardice, with democracy as its casualty."

Some journalists, including Post columnist Dana Milbank, urged readers not to express their anger at the decision by canceling subscriptions, for fear it could cost reporters or editors their jobs.

The Post’s decision came only days after the Los Angeles Times also said it would not endorse a presidential candidate, which the newspaper has acknowledged has cost them thousands of subscribers.

An article on the Post’s website about the fallout from the non-endorsement had more than 2,000 comments, many of them from readers saying they were leaving.

"I am unsubscribing after 70 years," wrote one commenter, claiming to have lost hope and belief that the Post would publish the truth.