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The Washington Post

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This article is about the newspaper. For the John Phillip Sousa march, see The Washington Post (march).
The Washington Post
File:The Washington Post front page (June 2, 2011).jpg
Front page for Thursday, June 2, 2011
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)The Washington Post Company
PublisherKatharine Weymouth
EditorMarcus Brauchli
Staff writersapprox. 740 journalists[1]
Founded1877
Headquarters1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.,
United States
Circulation507,465 Daily
846,019 Sunday (2011)[2]
ISSN0190-8286
Websitewashingtonpost.com

The Washington Post is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D.C., and oldest extant in the area, founded in 1877. Located in the capital city of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. Daily editions are printed for the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The newspaper is published as a broadsheet, with photographs printed both in color and in black and white. Leonard Downie, Jr., was named executive editor in 1991.

In the early 1970s, in the best known episode in the recent history of The Post, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal; reporting in the newspaper greatly contributed to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. In years since, its investigations have led to increased review of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.[3] The newspaper is also known as the namesake of "The Washington Post March", which John Phillip Sousa composed in 1889 while he was leading the United States Marine Band;[4] it became the standard music to accompany the two-step, a late 19th-century dance craze.[5]

The Post has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes. This includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008, the second-highest number ever given to a single newspaper in one year.[6] The Post has also received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards, among others.

The newspaper is owned by The Washington Post Company, an education and media company that also owns Kaplan, Inc., and many media ventures besides The Post.

Overview

The Post is generally regarded as one of the leading daily American newspapers,[7] along with The New York Times, which is known for its general reporting and international coverage, and The Wall Street Journal, which is known for its financial reporting. The Post has distinguished itself through its political reporting on the workings of the White House, Congress, and other aspects of the U.S. government.

Unlike the Times and the Journal, the Post does not print an edition for distribution away from the East Coast. In 2009, the newspaper ceased publication of its "National Weekly Edition," which combined stories from the week's print editions, due to shrinking circulation.[8] The majority of its newsprint readership is in District of Columbia and its suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia.[9]

The paper's weekday and Saturday printings include the following sections:

  • Main section, containing the front page, national and international news, business, politics, and editorials and opinions
  • Metro section, containing local news
  • Style section, with feature writing on pop culture, politics, fine and performing arts, film, fashion, and gossip, along with advice columns and comics
  • Sports section
  • Classified advertising

Sunday editions largely include the weekday sections as well as Outlook (opinion), Arts, Travel, Comics, TV Week, and the Washington Post Magazine. The "Sunday Style" section differs slightly from the weekday Style section; it is in a tabloid format, and it houses the reader-written humor contest The Style Invitational.

Additional weekly sections appear on weekdays: Health & Science on Tuesday, Food on Wednesday, Local Living (home and garden) on Thursday, and Weekend, with details about upcoming events in the local area, on Friday. The latter two are in a tabloid format.

The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The Post is one of a few U.S. newspapers with foreign bureaus, located in Baghdad, Bogota, Cairo, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Kabul, London, Mexico City, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Shanghai, Tehran, and Tokyo.[10] In November 2009, it announced the closure of its U.S. regional bureaus — Chicago, Los Angeles and New York — as part of an increased focus on "political stories and local news coverage in Washington."[11] A White House watcher points out that nevertheless, the president has a hairstylist in Chicago with many political stories to tell. The paper has local bureaus in Maryland (Annapolis, Montgomery County, Prince George's County, Southern Maryland) and Virginia (Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun County, Richmond, and Prince William County).[12]

As of September 2009, its average weekday circulation was 582,844, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, making it the fifth largest newspaper in the country by circulation, behind USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. While its circulation (like that of almost all newspapers) has been slipping, it has one of the highest market-penetration rates of any metropolitan news daily.[citation needed]

The paper is part of The Washington Post Company, a diversified education and media company that also owns educational services provider Kaplan, Inc., Post-Newsweek Stations, Cable One, the online magazine Slate, The Gazette and Southern Maryland Newspapers, and The Herald, a daily paper in Everett, Washington. The company also distributes the free daily Express newspaper in the D.C. area and runs its own syndication service for its columnists and cartoonists, The Washington Post Writers Group.[13]

The Post has its main office at 1150 15th St, N.W., and the newspaper has the exclusive ZIP code 20071.[14]

History

Founding and early period

The paper was founded in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins and in 1880 added a Sunday edition, thus becoming the city's first newspaper to publish seven days a week. In 1889, Hutchins sold the paper to Frank Hatton, a former Postmaster General, and Beriah Wilkins, a former Democratic congressman from Ohio. To promote the paper, the new owners requested the leader of the Marine Band, John Philip Sousa, to compose a march for the newspaper's essay contest awards ceremony. Sousa composed The Washington Post, which remains one of his best-known works. In 1899, during the Spanish–American War, The Post printed Clifford K. Berryman's classic illustration Remember the Maine, which became the battle-cry for American sailors during the War. In 1902, Berryman published another famous cartoon in The Post— "Drawing the Line in Mississippi." This cartoon depicts President Theodore Roosevelt showing compassion for a small bear cub and inspired New York store owner Morris Michtom to create the teddy bear.[15]

Wilkins acquired Hatton's share of the paper in 1894 at Hatton's death. After Wilkins' death in 1903, his sons John and Robert ran The Post for two years before selling it in 1905 to John Roll McLean, owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer. During the Wilson presidency, The Post was credited with the "most famous newspaper typo" in D.C. history according to Reason magazine; The Post intended to report that President Wilson had been "entertaining" his future-wife Mrs. Galt, but instead wrote that he had been "entering" Mrs. Galt.[16][17] When John McLean died in 1916, he put the paper in trust, having little faith that his playboy son Edward "Ned" McLean could manage his inheritance. Ned went to court and broke the trust, but, under his management, the paper slumped toward ruin.

Meyer-Graham period

The Washington Post 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. In 1946, Meyer was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law Philip Graham.

In 1954, The Post consolidated its position by acquiring and merging with its last morning rival, the Washington Times-Herald. (The combined paper would officially be named The Washington Post and Times-Herald until 1973, although the Times-Herald portion of the masthead became less and less prominent after the 1950s.) The merger left The Post with two remaining local competitors, the afternoon Washington Star (Evening Star) and The Washington Daily News, which merged in 1972 and folded in 1981. The Washington Times, established in 1982, has been a local rival with a circulation (as of 2005) about one-seventh that of The Post.[18]

The Monday, July 21, 1969, edition, with the headline "'The Eagle Has Landed' — Two Men Walk on the Moon."

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. She described her own anxiety and lack of confidence based on her gender in her autobiography, and she did not assign duties to her daughter at the paper as she did to her son. She served as publisher from 1969 to 1979 and headed The Washington Post Company into the early 1990s as chairman of the board and CEO. After 1993, she retained a position as chairman of the executive committee until her death in 2001.

Her tenure is credited with seeing The Post rise in national stature through effective investigative reporting, most notably to ensure that The New York Times did not surpass its Washington reporting of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate scandal. Executive editor Ben Bradlee put the paper's reputation and resources behind reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who, in a long series of articles, chipped away at the story behind the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington. The Post's dogged coverage of the story, the outcome of which ultimately played a major role in the resignation of President Richard Nixon, won the paper a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In 1972, the "Book World" section was introduced with Pulitzer Prize winning critic William McPherson as its first editor.[19] It featured Pulitzer Prize winning critics such as Jonathan Yardley and Michael Dirda, the latter of whom established his career as a critic at The Post. In 2009, after 37 years, "Book World" as a standalone insert was discontinued, the last issue being Sunday, February 15, 2009.[20] However, book reviews are still published in the Outlook section on Sundays and in the Style section the rest of the week, as well as online.[20]

In 1980, The Post published a dramatic story called "Jimmy's World",[21] describing the life of an eight-year-old heroin addict in Washington, for which reporter Janet Cooke won acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize. Subsequent investigation, however, revealed the story to be a fabrication. The Pulitzer Prize was returned.

Donald Graham, Katharine's son, succeeded her as publisher in 1979 and in the early 1990s became both chief executive officer and chairman of the board. He was succeeded in 2000 as publisher and CEO by Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr., with Graham remaining as chairman.

Post-Graham period

In 1996, the newspaper established a web site.[22]

The Post was slow in moving to color photographs and features. On January 28, 1999, its first color front-page photograph appeared. After that, color slowly integrated itself into other photographs and advertising throughout the paper.

In February 2008, Jones was named chairman of the newspaper, and Katharine Weymouth became publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive officer of Washington Post Media, a new unit that includes The Washington Post and the formerly independent washingtonpost.com.

On July 7, 2008, it was announced that former Wall Street Journal editor Marcus Brauchli would become the paper's top editor, succeeding Leonard Downie, Jr. in September.[23]

In 2010, the paper cited its local focus as a reason for running its first-ever front page advertisement: the Capital One ad was being run to draw attention to the rebranding of Chevy Chase Bank, a bank Capital One bought in 2009. According to the Post's vice president of advertising, the page one advertisement is a "very local, useful-information-for-our-readers type of campaign."[24]

Political stance

In the mid-1970s, some conservatives called The Washington Post "Pravda on the Potomac" due to its perceived left-wing bias in both reporting and editorials,[25] This characterization referred to the official newspaper of the Soviet communist party. Since then, the appellation has been used by both liberal and conservative critics of The Post.[26][27] In 1963, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover reportedly told President Lyndon B. Johnson, "I don't have much influence with The Post because I frankly don't read it. I view it like the Daily Worker."[28][29]

As Katharine Graham noted in her autobiography Personal History, the paper long had a policy of not making endorsements for political candidates. However, since at least 2000, The Washington Post has occasionally endorsed Republican politicians, such as Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich.[30] In 2006, it repeated its historic endorsements of every Republican incumbent for Congress in Northern Virginia.[31] There have also been times when The Post has specifically chosen not to endorse any candidate, such as in the 1988 presidential election when it refused to endorse then Governor Michael Dukakis or then Vice President George H.W. Bush.[32] On October 17, 2008, The Post endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States.[33]

The Post's editorial positions on foreign policy and economic issues have seen a definitively conservative bent: it steadfastly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, warmed to President George W. Bush's proposal to partially privatize Social Security, opposed a deadline for U.S. withdrawal from the Iraq War, and advocated free trade agreements, including CAFTA.[citation needed]

In "Buying the War" on PBS, Bill Moyers noted 27 editorials supporting George W. Bush's ambitions to invade Iraq. National security correspondent Walter Pincus reported that he had been ordered to cease his reports that were critical of Republican administrations.[34]

In 1992, the PBS investigative news program Frontline suggested that The Post had moved to the right in response to its smaller, more conservative rival The Washington Times, which is owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate owned by the Unification Church which also owns newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America. The program quoted Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the conservative activist organization the Moral Majority, as saying "The Washington Post became very arrogant and they just decided that they would determine what was news and what wasn't news and they wouldn't cover a lot of things that went on. And The Washington Times has forced The Post to cover a lot of things that they wouldn't cover if the Times wasn't in existence."[35] In 2008, Thomas F. Roeser of the Chicago Daily Observer also mentioned competition from the Washington Times as a factor moving The Post to the right.[36]

On March 26, 2007, Chris Matthews said on his television program, "Well, The Washington Post is not the liberal newspaper it was, Congressman, let me tell you. I have been reading it for years and it is a neocon newspaper".[37] It has regularly published an ideological mixture of op-ed columnists, some of them left-leaning (including E.J. Dionne, Ezra Klein, Greg Sargent, and Eugene Robinson), and some on the right (including George Will, Marc Thiessen, Robert Kagan, Robert Samuelson, Michael Gerson, and Charles Krauthammer).

In November 2007, The Post was criticized by independent journalist Robert Parry for reporting on anti-Obama chain e-mails without sufficiently emphasizing to its readers the false nature of the anonymous claims.[38] In 2009, Parry criticized The Post for its allegedly unfair reporting on liberal politicians, including Vice President Al Gore and President Barack Obama.[39]

In a November 19, 2008 column, The Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell stated: "I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo".[40] Responding to criticism of the newspaper's coverage during the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, Howell wrote: "The opinion pages have strong conservative voices; the editorial board includes centrists and conservatives; and there were editorials critical of Obama. Yet opinion was still weighted toward Obama. It's not hard to see why conservatives feel disrespected".[40]

Commentator Glenn Greenwald has called its Op-Ed page the "leading outlet for neoconservative and related right-wing advocacy".[41]

Notable contributors (past and present)

Sources not listed here can be found on the referenced pages

Executive officers and editors (past and present)

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Honors and achievements

Main article: List of prizes won by The Washington Post

References

  1. ^ "Contact The Washington Post reporters, columnists and bloggers". The Washington Post.
  2. ^ "eCirc for Newspapers". Audit Bureau of Circulations. September 30, 2011.
  3. ^ "Walter Reed and Beyond". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  4. ^ 1889 from the paper's corporate history
  5. ^ John Philip Sousa Collection from the website of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  6. ^ Kurtz, Howard (April 8, 2008). "The Post Wins 6 Pulitzer Prizes". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 8, 2008.
  7. ^ http://www.mondotimes.com/1/world/us/51/474/6821
  8. ^ "Post's National Weekly Edition to Close". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
  9. ^ "The Washington Post's Circulation and Reach". Washington Post Media. Retrieved March 2, 2009.
  10. ^ "Washington Post Foreign Bureaus". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
  11. ^ "Washington Post to close three regional bureaux". BBC News. November 25, 2009. Retrieved November 25, 2009.
  12. ^ "Washington Post Bureaus". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 25, 2009.[dead link]
  13. ^ The Washington Post Company: Company profile Retrieved 2011-06-02.
  14. ^ http://www.zip-codes.com/zip-code/20071/zip-code-20071.asp
  15. ^ Clifford K. Berryman Cartoon Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University
  16. ^ Charles Paul Freund (2001). "D.C. Jewels: The closing of a historic shop is a triumph of meaning over means". Reason. Retrieved November 5, 2009. ...Mrs. Edith Galt, who became the second wife of Woodrow Wilson ... She also figures in the most famous newspaper typo in D.C. history. The Washington Post ... Intending to report that Wilson had been entertaining Mrs. Galt in a loge at the National, early editions instead printed that he was seen entering her there. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  17. ^ Gene Weingarten (July 11, 2006). "Chatological Humor* (Updated 7.14.06)". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 5, 2009. The Post said that the President spent the afternoon "entertaining" Mrs. Galt, but they dropped the "tain" in one edition. Wilson LOVED it.
  18. ^ "Times circulation climbs to buck trend". The Washington Times. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  19. ^ ""Views From Publisher's Row", Marie Arana-Ward (then-deputy editor of "Book World"), The Washington Post, June 1, 1997
  20. ^ a b Letter from the editor, The Washington Post, Sunday, February 15, 2009; Page BW02
  21. ^ Janet Cooke (September 28, 1980). "Jimmy's World". Uncp.edu. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  22. ^ Official website
  23. ^ Kurtz, Howard (July 7, 2008). "The Post's New Executive Editor Once Headed Wall Street Journal". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 7, 2008.
  24. ^ "'Washington Post' Front-Page Ad: A First, for Now", September 14, 2010. Editor & Publisher.
  25. ^ Bruce Bartlett, Partisan Press Parity?, The Washington Times, March 13, 2007.
  26. ^ James Kirchick, "Pravda on the Potomac", The New Republic, February 18, 2009.
  27. ^ William Greider, "Washington Post Warriors", The Nation, March 6, 2003.
  28. ^ Beschloss, Michael (1997), Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964, New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 32, ISBN 0684804077.
  29. ^ Branch, Taylor (1999), Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965, New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 180, ISBN 0684848090.
  30. ^ "Wrong Choice for Governor". The Washington Post. October 26, 2006. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  31. ^ "For Congress in Virginia". The Washington Post. October 30, 2006. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  32. ^ "Post Makes No Endorsement". The New York Times. Associated Press. November 2, 1988.
  33. ^ "Barack Obama for President". The Washington Post. October 17, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  34. ^ "Transcript: "Buying the War"". PBS. April 25, 2007. Retrieved December 13, 2009.
  35. ^ "Frontline: The Resurrection Of Reverend Moon". MediaChannel.org. January 21, 1992. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  36. ^ Thomas F. Roeser. "How the Liberal Media Stonewalled the Edwards". Chicago Daily Observer. August 18, 2008
  37. ^ 12:27 p.m. ET (March 26, 2007). "Hardball with Chris Matthews for March 23". msnbc.com. Retrieved April 4, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  38. ^ Robert Parry (November 29, 2007). "WPost Buys into Anti-Obama Bigotry". Consortium News. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  39. ^ "Framing Obama – by the WPost". Robert Parry. Consortium News. March 19, 2009
  40. ^ a b Howell, Deborah (November 16, 2008). "Remedying the Bias Perception". The Washington Post.
  41. ^ Glenn Greenwald (November 6, 2009). "Pulsating diversity of views on the Post Op-Ed page". Salon.com.
  42. ^ "First Person Singular". The Washington Post. February 4, 2007.
  43. ^ "David Rankin Barbee: A biographical sketch". The David Rankin Barbee Papers. Georgetown University Libraries. In 1928 he came to Washington, D.C. as a feature writer for the Washington Post. His column Profiles earned a large and loyal audience.

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