The Washington Post reports:

Of all Donald Trump’s prophecies and predictions — that Mexico would pay for a border wall, that the coronavirus would spontaneously disappear, that he would be easily reelected — at least one wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there,” he augured in 2017, “because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.”

Barely two months into the post-Trump era, news outlets are indeed losing much of the audience and readership they gained during his chaotic presidency. In other words, journalism’s Trump bump may be giving way to a slump.

After a record-setting January, traffic to the nation’s most popular mainstream news sites, including The Washington Post, plummeted in February, according to the audience tracking firm ComScore. The top sites were also generally doing worse than in February of last year, when the pandemic became a major international news story. [Continue reading…]