Here at The Washington Post, we’ve decided to make an update to our new slogan. Starting today, our masthead will read: Democracy Dies in Darkness (Including in the Shadow of our Paywall).
Breaking news, America: The newspaper that’s won 47 Pulitzer prizes doesn’t just do this journalism stuff for free. And if you really want to prevent our democracy from going belly-up entirely, maybe stop reading our site in a fucking incognito browser.
(Yes. We know about the incognito browser trick. We didn’t take bullshit from Nixon during Watergate, and we’re not taking it now from you.)
Please, excuse us—the paper that broke the story of the Pentagon Papers—for expecting you to pay for our award-winning reporting. You do realize we work in the exact same office featured in the movie The Post, which hasn’t been renovated since the '70s? A rat ran across my foot while I wrote this. On a typewriter.
We’re busting our assess every day protecting democracy and keeping the public informed, and all we’re asking in return is a subscription of $100 a year. $100 a year to preserve the people's voice in government and expose corruption. To keep a free nation free! For God’s sake, Blue Apron costs more than twice that, and sometimes you forget to even make the meals before the ingredients expire.
Sure, part of our financial troubles might be our fault. We did blow our last $5 million on a SuperBowl ad, but in our defense we had no idea the game was going to turn out to be so boring this year. We didn’t exactly win our Pulitzers for sports reporting.
Now we’re being honest and transparent with our readers, just as we’ve always been. Without the subscribers we need, the world will be deprived of our journalism, and it’s no exaggeration to say the country will immediately implode into an authoritarian regime filled with Amazon Alexas that monitor us in case we speak ill of the government, and yet somehow still can’t correctly identify song titles.
Or, you can give up a few trips to Starbucks a month in order to support the Washington Post, and—again, total transparency here—prevent Congress from declaring WWIII, stop Big Brother from running the white house, and get access to a delicious selection of great dinner recipes via our food section.
But you know what? Don’t subscribe to the Post. Keep on opening articles and scrolling quickly to mid-page, hoping you’ll glimpse a topic sentence before the paywall pops up.
In fact, why not just install an ad-blocker, and then go ahead and waltz on down to the Washington D.C. historical museum and take a huge shit on the constitution itself?
Yeah, go on. Shit on the real American Constitution. We, The Washington Post, just said that.
It’s as if The Hunger Games series taught you people nothing. When democracy collapses, and we’re all rewriting history in some kind of 1984 censoring work camp, don’t come crying to us. Besides, we definitely won’t be checking our email inquiries in that scenario.
Please, don’t let democracy die because you’re standing in the shadow of our paywall. Stand up for us the way we want you to: by giving us money.
Also, did we mention subscribers receive a complimentary water bottle with our new slogan on it? Pretty cool!