Remember that story a while back about how the Washington Post lost 500,000 subscribers since Trump left office?

Now that I know they have a TikTok channel, I am surprised that they weren’t picking up subscribers instead of losing them. I would have thought that the tweens and perverts who inhabit that wretched hive of scum and villainy would have flocked to become paying subscribers to the Post.

How could they resist, with content like this?

The Treasury Department says it is taking action to prevent a default that could do ‘irreparable harm’ to the economy.

Read more, from @jacobbogage 👇https://t.co/BHnP8scQ8V

— Dave Jorgenson 📈 (@davejorgenson) January 20, 2023

Not exactly Schoolhouse Rock, is it?

I would perhaps be more gracious about the Post’s juvenile humor, of which there is a vast quantity over at their TikTok page, were it not for the fact that they employ Taylor Lorenz, perhaps the witchiest bad girl of social media and just plain evil. The Post has put a particular spotlight, and not a flattering one, on others in the social media world so they deserve to get some not-so-loving attention in return.

And nothing I can say or do would be 1/1000th as mean as what Lorenz spews out. I just don’t have enough evil lurking in my soul.

All I could think of after I watched that abomination was: this is why the Washington Post is losing readers. Not their TikTok content specifically, but rather their inability to successfully adapt to the current marketplace.

As much as I get infuriated by the New York Times, they provide a substantial amount of value to their subscribers. They provide a broad base of content for their readers, know how to cater to different audiences with different products, and even manage to get people who hate their guts to send them dough.

People like me, who regularly use their Cooking section, The Wirecutter, and even read some of their stories to yell at the screen in impotent rage. They clearly know how to run a business if they get me to grit my teeth and subscribe.

The Post? Sure, I go there to read stuff and subscribe because I can’t do my job well without getting behind the paywall, but unless you are a political junkie there just isn’t that much to get you there.

Clearly they are trying to figure out the digital content marketplace, and just as clearly they aren’t succeeding. This TikTok content is so off-brand that it can’t help get paying customers, and that is what they need. It serves neither their goal of being a must-read news source nor expands their brand and market.

I tried to find the New York Times on TikTok and came up with nothing. Maybe there is something there, but I didn’t find it. And, I suspect, that it would be a time sink that provided no real benefit to the company.

The Times newsroom may be filled mostly with ideological hacks with an agenda that dovetails with feeding the plebs bugs, but the company itself still knows how to make a buck by selling you recipes and giving you tips on how to make a nice rib roast. And you can play wordle while you cook.

What is wordle, anyway? Ed seems obsessed with it.