The layered semimetal WTe₂ behaves in the monolayer limit as a topological insulator but the nature of the insulating state in the interior bulk is unclear. We study its conductivity as a function of gate doping, temperature, and current direction. Care is needed to eliminate helical edge conduction from the measurements, including along cracks, which we locate by microwave impedance microscopy. The conductivity is found to be highly anisotropic for hole doping and much less so for electron doping. Surprisingly, for hole doping the conductivity is about three times lower along the a-axis, the direction of the tungsten chains, than along the b-axis, perpendicular to the chains. We consider the implications of this observation for the possibility that the state is a kind of excitonic insulator.