The Washington Post

The Washington Post is the largest and oldest newspaper in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It gained worldwide fame in the early 1970s for its Watergate investigation by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which played a major role in the undoing of the Nixon presidency. It is generally regarded among the leading daily American newspapers along with The New York Times, which is known for its general reporting and international coverage, The Wall Street Journal, which is known for its financial reporting, and the Los Angeles Times. The Post, unsurprisingly, has distinguished itself through its reporting on the workings of the White House, Congress, and other aspects of the U.S. government.

Unlike the Times and the Journal, however, it sees itself as a regional newspaper, and does not currently print a daily national edition for distribution away from the East Coast. However, a "National Weekly Edition", combining stories from a week of Post editions, is published. ^* The majority of its newsprint readership is in the District of Columbia, as well as in the suburbs of Maryland and Northern Virginia.

As of October 2005, its average weekday circulation was 715,181 and its Sunday circulation was 983,243, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, making it the fifth largest newspaper in the country by circulation, behind The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. While its circulation (like almost all newspapers) has been slipping, it has one of the highest market-penetration rates of any metropolitan news daily.

History

The paper was founded in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins and by 1880, became the first newspaper in Washington, D.C. to publish daily. Nine years later, to promote the paper, its owners requested the then-current leader of the Marine Band, John Philip Sousa, to compose a march for the newspaper's essay contest awards ceremony. The Washington Post endures today as a Sousa classic.

In 1899, during the Spanish-American War, the Post printed Clifford K. Berryman's illustration Remember the Maine. In 1905 Washington McLean and his son John Roll McLean, owners of the Cincinnati Enquirer, purchased a controlling interest. When John died in 1916 he put the paper in trust, having little faith in his playboy son Edward "Ned" McLean with his inheritance. Ned went to court and broke the trust, quickly driving the paper to ruin. It was purchased in a bankruptcy auction in 1933 by a member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors, Eugene Meyer, who restored the paper's health and reputation. Upon his death, in 1959, Meyer was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law Philip L. Graham.

In 1954 the Post acquired its chief rival, the Washington Times-Herald, to become the only morning daily in Washington. Thenceforth its main competition was the Washington Star (Evening Star) until that paper's demise in 1981. Subsequently, the Washington Times, established in 1982, has been a local rival offering a conservative view . As of 2005, the Times had a circulation of around one-eighth of the Post's.

After Graham's death, in 1963, control of the Washington Post Company passed to Katharine Graham, his wife and Meyer's daughter. No woman had ever run a nationally-prominent newspaper in the United States at the time. She was publisher of the newspaper from 1969 to 1979, chairman of the board from 1973 to 1991 and chairman of the executive committee from 1993 until her death in 2001. Katharine Graham's reign is credited with seeing the Post rise in national stature through risk-taking and effective investigative reporting, most notably of the Watergate scandal, but that same risk-taking and aggressive investigative reporting led to the 1980 Janet Cooke scandal (see below). Her son, Donald Graham, was publisher from 1979 to 2000, when Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. took over as publisher and CEO of the Post.

Like The New York Times, the Post was very slow in moving to color photographs and features. The Post finally transitioned into printing to color on January 28, 1999 with its first color front-page photograph. After that, color slowly integrated itself into other photographs on section front pages.

As of 2006 the Post had been honored with 22 Pulitzer Prizes, 18 Nieman Fellowships, and 368 White House News Photographers Association Awards, among others.

It is part of the Washington Post Company, which owns a number of other media and non-media companies, including Newsweek magazine, the online magazine Slate, and the Kaplan test preparation service.

Political leanings

The Post takes the position that its news coverage is politically neutral - an assertion that is not universally accepted. The majority of the paper's political endorsements have historically been awarded to Democratic candidates. It has regularly published some right of center columnists, including George Will, Charles Krauthammer and Michael Kelly. As well, the Post's editorial board has steadfastly supported the invasion of Iraq. Conservatives often cite the Post along with the The New York Times as exemplars of "liberal media bias", whereas, some liberals view the Post as "culturally and politically conservative". ^*

Criticism by Ombudsmen

After the 1981 publication of 'Jimmy's World' (a story for which Post reporter Janet Cooke had been nominated by Bob Woodward for the Pulitzer Prize, which she subsequently won and later returned after it was established the story was a fabrication), Post Ombudsman Bill Green concluded an investigation with several comments and recommendations, including "The scramble for journalistic prizes is poisonous. The obligation is to inform readers, not to collect frameable certificates, however prestigious. Maybe the Post should consider not entering contests."^*

In 1996, the San Jose Mercury News ran a controversial series of articles, which that paper later distanced itself from. In the series, journalist Gary Webb argued that the CIA had knowingly permitted the Contras, the opposition rebel force they helped organize in several central American countries to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandanista government, to traffic in crack cocaine in order to raise funds for arms. The Post ran articles discrediting the Webb series, articles which some critics felt did not fairly address Webb's claims. The Washington Post's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser, agreed with critics that the articles in the Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times had "misdirected zeal", showing "more passion for sniffing out the flaws in San Jose's answer than for sniffing out a better answer themselves." She wrote that there was "strong previous evidence that the CIA at least chose to overlook contra involvement in the drug trade," and added, "Would that we had welcomed the surge of public interest as an occasion to return to a subject the Post and the public had given short shrift. Alas, dismissing someone else's story as old news comes more naturally." Former Post journalist (and longtime critic of the Post since leaving) Robert Parry wrote that the Post's denunciation of Webb was ironic because while the Post "had long pooh-poohed earlier allegations that the contras were implicated in drug shipments," "the newspaper was finally accepting the reality of contra cocaine trafficking, albeit in a backhanded way."

In 1998 the Post printed a series of denials regarding public leaks of depositions given by President Clinton in the Jones v. Clinton case contrary to an Order of the Court. Dr. Deni Elliot of the Practical Ethics Center, after reviewing the matter, concluded that the Post knew the source of the illegal leaks yet "knowingly deceived its readers" by alleging the leaks could have come from the Court or the opposing counsel's office. "The Post," Dr. Elliot wrote in the Organization of News Ombudsmen’s publication, "intentionally lied to its readers in printing this set of denials...None of this sounds like the making of ethical principles". ^*

Notable contributors

Joel Achenbach (writer)
Anne Applebaum (writer)
Carl Bernstein (writer)
Herb Block (cartoonist)
Thomas Boswell (sports columnist)
David Broder (writer)
Tina Brown (writer)
Art Buchwald (writer)
Chris Cillizza (writer; author of The Fix weblog)
Richard L. Coe (theatre critic/writer)
Richard Cohen (writer)
Steve Coll (editor)
Janet Cooke (writer)
E.J. Dionne (writer)
Leonard Downie, Jr. (editor)
Michel duCille (photo editor, photographer)
Dan Froomkin (columnist)
Meg Greenfield (editor)
Mike Grunwald (writer)
Jim Hoagland (writer)
Colbert King (writer)
Tony Kornheiser (writer)
Charles Krauthammer (columnist)
Howard Kurtz (media critic)
Charles Lane (writer)
Colman McCarthy (columnist)
Mary McGrory (writer)
Dana Milbank (writer)
Shirley Povich (writer)
Dana Priest (writer)
William Raspberry (writer)
Ken Ringle (writer)
Christine Sadler (writer)
Tom Shales (writer)
Howard Simons (editor)
Tom Toles (cartoonist)
Jim VandeHei (writer)
Gene Weingarten (writer)
James Russell Wiggins (editor)
Michael Wilbon (writer)
George F. Will (columnist)
Bob Woodward (writer)
Robin Wright (writer)

Executive Officers and Editors - Past and Present

External links