The Washington Post (WP) is an American
daily newspaper. It 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 newspaper 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. In 2008,
Marcus Brauchli replaced long-time executive editor
Leonard Downie, Jr., serving publisher
Katharine Weymouth.[3]
In November 2012, Weymouth announced that
Boston Globe editor Martin Baron would take over Brauchli's
position on January 2, 2013.[4][5]
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.[6]
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;[7]
it became the standard music to accompany the
two-step, a late 19th-century
dance craze.[8]
The newspaper 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.[9]
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.
On August 5, 2013,
Amazon.com's
Jeff Bezos agreed to purchase the newspaper for $250 million in
cash.[10]
Overview
The Post is generally regarded as one of the leading daily
American newspapers,[11]
along with
The New York Times, and
The Wall Street Journal. 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.[12]
The majority of its newsprint readership is in
District of Columbia and its suburbs in
Maryland and
Northern Virginia.[13]
The newspaper'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 newspaper 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.[14]
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."[15]
The newspaper 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).[16]
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.[17]
The newspaper 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.[18]
In 2011, the company ranked No 470 on the Fortune 500 annual list of
America's largest corporations. It dropped off the list in 2012.[19][20]
The Post has its main office at 1150 15th St, N.W., and the
newspaper has the exclusive
ZIP
code 20071.[21]
History
Founding
and early period
Washington Post building in 1948
The newspaper was founded in 1877 by
Stilson Hutchins (1838–1912) 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 newspaper to Frank Hatton, a former
Postmaster General, and Beriah Wilkins, a former Democratic congressman
from Ohio. To promote the newspaper, 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.[22]
Wilkins acquired Hatton's share of the newspaper 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.[23][24][25]
When John McLean died in 1916, he put the newspaper 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 newspaper slumped
toward ruin.
Meyer-Graham
period
The newspaper was purchased in a bankruptcy auction in 1933 by a
member of the
Federal Reserve's board of governors,
Eugene Meyer, who restored the newspaper's health and reputation. In
1946, Meyer was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law
Philip Graham.
In 1954, the newspaper consolidated its position by acquiring and
merging with its last morning rival, the
Washington Times-Herald. (The combined paper was officially
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 by a subsidiary of the
Unification Church, led by the Rev.
Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012), has been a local conservative rival with
a circulation (as of 2005) about one-seventh that of The Post.[26]
In the late 2000s additional editorially conservative competition
increased with the foundation of the tabloid
"The Examiner" of Washington by the new owners of the old
Hearst paper, the "San
Francisco Examiner" who engineered a swap trading the larger,
more prosperous "San
Francisco Chronicle" for the former Hearst "flagship" paper.
They also started several other tabloid "Examiners" in several
American cities, including briefly for two years in "Baltimore
Examiner" going against the 170-year old "Baltimore
Sun".
After Phil Graham's death in 1963, control of The Washington Post
Company passed to
Katharine Graham (1917-2001), his wife and Meyer's daughter. Few
women had run nationally prominent newspapers in the United States.
Katharine Graham described her own anxiety and lack of confidence based
on her gender in her autobiography. 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 newspaper 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 newspaper'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
newspaper a
Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
In 1972, the "Book World" section was introduced with Pulitzer Prize
winning critic
William McPherson as its first editor.[27]
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, with great reader outcries
and protest, "The Washington Post Book World" as a standalone insert was
discontinued, the last issue being Sunday, February 15, 2009, along with
a general reorganization of the paper, such as placing the Sunday
editorials on the back page of the main front section rather than the
"Outlook" section and distributing some other locally-oriented "op-ed"
letters and commentaries in other sections.[28]
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.[28]
In 1980, the newspaper published a dramatic story called "Jimmy's
World",[29]
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 E. 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.
Katharine Graham Weymouth now serves as publisher and chief executive
officer.
Post-Graham period
In 1996, the newspaper established a
website.[30]
In 2010, the newspaper 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."[31]
In 2013, the newspaper announced that it has plans to start charging
frequent users of its website, with many exceptions (such as for
government employees browsing from work, and for students browsing from
school).[32][33]
As of March 2013, pricing has not been determined yet.
Sale to Jeff Bezos
On August 5, 2013, the newspaper announced its sale to
Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos for $250 million.[34][35]
The purchase is of a personal nature and is not a purchase by
Amazon.com, Inc. The sale is expected to become final within 60 days
from the August 5 announcement.[36]
Bezos is buying The Washington Post newspaper, as well as the
washingtonpost.com website, and several smaller newspapers owned by the
The Washington Post Company. The newspaper will be owned by Bezos’s
new personal private company and will no longer be publicly traded.[citation
needed]
The Post Company is expected to change its name after the sale
becomes final, and will retain control over its other businesses and
real estate properties, such as the
Slate online magazine and
Kaplan, Inc. educational training company.[37]
The operational and editorial leaders of the Washington Post
newspaper, including the CEO-publisher
Katharine Weymouth, executive editor
Martin Baron, and editorial page editor
Fred Hiatt, will retain their positions after the sale.[36]
Political stance
In the mid-1970s, conservatives called the newspaper "Pravda
on the Potomac" because of its perceived left-wing bias in both
reporting and editorials.[38]
Since then, the appellation has been used by both liberal and
conservative critics of the newspaper.[39][40]
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."[41][42]
As Katharine Graham noted in her autobiography
Personal History, the newspaper long had a policy of not making
endorsements for political candidates. However, since at least 2000, the
newspaper has occasionally endorsed Republican politicians, such as
Maryland Governor
Robert Ehrlich.[43]
In 2006, it repeated its historic endorsements of every Republican
incumbent for Congress in
Northern Virginia.[44]
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.[45]
On October 17, 2008, The Post endorsed
Barack Obama for
President of the United States.[46]
On October 25, 2012, the newspaper endorsed the re-election of Barack
Obama.[47]
The newspaper's editorial positions on foreign policy and economic
issues have evinced a definitely conservative bent: it steadfastly
supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, warmed to President
George W. Bush's proposal for partial privatization of
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.[48]
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."[49]
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.[50]
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".[51]
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 newspaper 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.[52]
In 2009, Parry criticized the newspaper for its allegedly unfair
reporting on liberal politicians, including Vice President
Al Gore
and President
Barack Obama.[53]
In a November 16, 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".[54]
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".[54]
According to a 2009 publication, in the blogging community, liberal
bloggers link to the Washington Post and New York Times
more often than other major newspapers; however, conservative bloggers
also link predominantly to liberal newspapers.[55]