Contact Washington Post Support

I subscribed to The Post over an hour ago and have spent most of my time since then trying to get signed in to this app. When I open the app and enter the email address on my WaPo account I get a pop-up telling me that I need to sign in on the website so that the site and the app can share my info. The Boston Globe and The New York Times don’t ask me to jump through hoops like this, but okay. When I sign in on washingtonpost dot com I receive an email telling me that a link has been sent to my email for one-click log in. Okay fine. I go to the email and click. It takes me back to the website and I’m all logged in. Then I go to the app and - lather, rinse, repeat. I was able to log in to the website using my email and password on my laptop, but when I want back to my phone to give it a try - same stupid loop all over again. I do not want to have to log in to a website on my phone. I want and need the convenience of an app. Apparently I’ll not get that here. I don’t currently have a personal laptop or desktop to use for this. I’m glad I got a good promo rate to subscribe. I won’t lose more than a few dollars for this month. I’ll be canceling once I hit “send” on this.

This app doesn’t show comments on the articles. So if you want to see the comments you click on the share to/open with button and click Chrome. But wait, that doesn’t allow you to open in Chrome. You can only bookmark or add it to a reading list. Why can’t you simply open it in Chrome, you ask? I was curious too! So I called their support phone number since there is no option for developer support or feedback and the “developer website” simply links to the newspaper homepage. At the 800 number I got a very nice lady overseas who did not understand my question. I asked for a supervisor who also didn’t understand and said I would have to “search for the article in a mobile browser.” So I called the 202 number and explained that I was a paying subscriber in Virginia and could I please speak to a DC/Virginia based person to ask a question and (now) make a complaint. I got a recording and left a voicemail. Instead of a call I got an email asking me to write what I wanted. I called the 202 back and explained to a nice lady in DC what happened and she said to email back requesting a call. I did so. As for writing what my problem is, I decided to go ahead and write that right here. Under a single star.

No question, WaPo is my go-to news source for All Things DC. It's profoundly satisfying to read well researched, trustworthy journalism in a day of claimed witch hunts and fake news. So why does such a fine media outlet have such a crappy app? The navigation is awkward at best. Ads are often intrusive, disrupting reading. We subscribers get only partial versions of the print or browser-ready WaPo with the apps. Whole sections are missing, to say nothing of less popular articles. And there are no comments. WaPo comments are worth reading if only because some DC insider anonymously posts a news nugget from time to time. Many are thought provoking or witty or both. WaPo's app developers have been aware of these issues with the app for a long time-I mean years. The app developers always promise fixes but seldom do apps change. It's jarring that journalism of WaPo's quality is delivered with the faulty, user hostile classic black or blue app. It's outrageous that the app is unleashed in an unsuspecting world by WaPo publisher Jeff Bezos, the guy who practically invented seamless digital usability with his little ecommerce venture. Fix the problems, man. Deliver apps as good as the WaPo news reporting.