Posted on 11/14/2006 4:34:13 PM PST by abb
11/14/2006 5:40:17 PM
November 14, 2006
To: Newsroom staff
From: Len Downie
Phil and I met yesterday with the newsroom's senior editors to discuss proposals and make decisions as we continue to transform our newsroom, the newspaper and our relationship with washingtonpost.com. We have much more to do to maximize readership of the printed newspaper, build audience on the Web site and further reduce costs in the newsroom.
As you have noticed from developments at other newspapers, readership and economic challenges remain daunting. Our goal is to be the one newsroom that does this right. We must produce high quality, compelling journalism and carry out our public service mission while adjusting our cost structure to shifting advertising revenues.
We are not just cutting costs. We believe that everything we are doing will make the newspaper stronger and increase readership of the printed paper and washingtonpost.com.
We are re-directing newsroom staff and resources to our highest priority journalism in print and on the Web. In form, our priorities include original reporting, scoops, analysis, investigations and criticism. In content, they include politics, government accountability, economic policy and what our readers need to know about the world – plus local government, schools, transportation, public safety, development, immigrant communities, health care, sports, arts and entertainment.
We are moving reporters and editors within and among staffs to accomplish this. In particular, we are moving a number of reporters from general assignment positions to more specific assignments and beats. We also are centralizing reporting and editing of some core subjects across staff lines. Metro now has responsibility for all education coverage. We will build on the model of Sandy Sugawara's cross-staff coordination of immigration coverage to do something similar for that and other core subjects. This may lead to the movement of more reporters and editors around the newsroom.
In the process, we will continue to shrink the newsroom staff through attrition, as low-priority positions become vacant. We also are tightening up the paper's news hole, beginning with the reconfiguration of the financial market tables in today's Business section, which saves two pages of newsprint each day. Other newshole reductions will be scattered throughout the newspaper, so readers will not lose significant content.
We are continuing to renovate sections of the paper to make them more attractive to readers. The re-launches of the Health, Food and Home sections are scheduled for early next year. Work is also well underway on creating a new Style and Arts section in the Sunday paper. The revamped Outlook section is an example of the improvements we are seeking./CONTINUED BELOW
Memo from WP executive editor Downie 11/14/2006 5:39:36 PM
We will make more progress in presenting our coverage more effectively in news sections. We will take a new approach to story length, which remains an important challenge, despite the progress already made in some parts of the paper. We will soon publish story length guidelines for the staff, along with ways to adhere to them. Our goal is for the newspaper to be filled with stories of different sizes and forms – and to provide both reporters and editors the tools to better edit for length. Our philosophy will be that every story must earn its length, so readers will want to read and finish more stories.
As part of this approach, we will better coordinate the preparation of related stories, photographs and graphical elements – and the design of pages on which they will appear. Visual journalism will be given still more importance in the printed paper.
We also are working on ways to expand and increase the impact of our journalism on washingtonpost.com. The re-launches of Health, Food and Home will be accompanied by the launch of a related section of the Web site. Our plans for coverage of the two-year 2008 campaign, which is beginning now, will include both re-direction of newsroom resources for expanded political coverage in the printed newspaper and significant initiatives on washingtonpost.com. In her new role as editor of washingtonpost.com, Liz Spayd will help us think first about the Web site for all of our best journalism.
The senior editors will meet again early next month to take more steps to re-direct resources to provide high quality journalism on key strategic subjects that matter most in print and stand out on the Web. We will have another newsroom staff meeting on Thursday, December 14 to tell you more about what we are doing and answer your questions.
This remains a challenging time, but also one of great opportunity – the opportunity to transform journalism for a new era in The Washington Post and on washingtonpost.com. Even as we reduce newsroom staff and costs, we will have amply sufficient staff and talent to make this transformation.
It is the most important change that I will lead as executive editor. It reminds me of my early days in the newsroom, when Ben Bradlee began boldly transforming the paper during the 1960s and 1970s. The newsroom was well less than half the size it is now, and we were underdogs. But we found our edge, produced original journalism and had fun creating The Washington Post all of you joined. Now, we're taking the next step.
"There was a land of Publishers and Editors called the Newspaper Business... Here in this pretty world Journalism took its last bow... Here was the last ever to be seen of Reporters and their Enablers, of Anonymous Sources and of Stringers... Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization Gone With the Wind..."
With apologies to Margaret Mitchell...
Ping
Downie Announces Major Shifts at 'Wash Post'
Len Downie
By E&P Staff
Published: November 14, 2006 7:15 PM ET
NEW YORK In a surprising memo to staffers today, Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor, announced several general and specific shakeups "to maximize readership of the printed newspaper, build audience on the Web site and further reduce costs in the newsroom."
This includes a plan to "shrink" the newsroom. "tightening up the paper's news hole," cracking down on story length and moving reporters and editors "within and among staffs." The Post is now suffering from regular circulation declines.
Downie called it nothing less than an "opportunity to transform journalism for a new era." He added that it is "the most important change that I will lead as executive editor. It reminds me of my early days in the newsroom, when Ben Bradlee began boldly transforming the paper during the 1960s and 1970s."
In explaining the bold plan, Downie wrote: "We are not just cutting costs. We believe that everything we are doing will make the newspaper stronger and increase readership of the printed paper and washingtonpost.com.
"We are re-directing newsroom staff and resources to our highest priority journalism in print and on the Web....
"We are moving reporters and editors within and among staffs to accomplish this. In particular, we are moving a number of reporters from general assignment positions to more specific assignments and beats. We also are centralizing reporting and editing of some core subjects across staff lines....
"In the process, we will continue to shrink the newsroom staff through attrition, as low-priority positions become vacant. We also are tightening up the paper's news hole, beginning with the reconfiguration of the financial market tables in today's Business section, which saves two pages of newsprint each day. Other newshole reductions will be scattered throughout the newspaper, so readers will not lose significant content....
"We will take a new approach to story length, which remains an important challenge, despite the progress already made in some parts of the paper. We will soon publish story length guidelines for the staff, along with ways to adhere to them."
After discussing changes to benefit the Web site, Downie wrapped it up on this note: "This remains a challenging time, but also one of great opportunity – the opportunity to transform journalism for a new era in The Washington Post and on washingtonpost.com. Even as we reduce newsroom staff and costs, we will have amply sufficient staff and talent to make this transformation.
"It is the most important change that I will lead as executive editor. It reminds me of my early days in the newsroom, when Ben Bradlee began boldly transforming the paper during the 1960s and 1970s. The newsroom was well less than half the size it is now, and we were underdogs. But we found our edge, produced original journalism and had fun creating The Washington Post all of you joined. Now, we're taking the next step."
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
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Cancel your subscriptions. Make it a real challenge.
Trust me, Downie's giving up on maintaining...never mind increasing....the newspaper's profits and its viability as a business unit.
Washingtonpost.com will NOT be a substitute. And, he knows it.
So do his "reporters".
For the first time in a week, I am smiling ;-)
Translation: Our liberal audience in Washington DC, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia expects us to keep hammering away at Republican office seekers, GOP incumbents, and conservative issues, and to leverage all sources of classified information provided to us by Democrat insiders.
Such clarity of thought from one of the supposed "leaders" in the communications industry.
The amount of trouble a company is in is directly proportional to the amount of corporate jargon they spew in their memos and press releases. Judging from this mess, the Compost is just about ready to go under.
Good grief - the only thing missing here is the obligatory reference to "meshing synergies across divergent paradigms to create an integrated vision on a going forward basis."
One of their stated goals is to raise their website traffic.
Let's not help them, 'kay?
This process is also known as arlen sphincter tightening. Where, exactly, is the news hole located?
I always love it when it takes two writers to write one story about some newspaper making staff cuts.
If they edit based on content, they should be able to fit the entire newspaper onto a postcard.
I would be willing to bet that if you ask any "journalist" what the real purpose of a newspaper is, they could not tell you.
I will give them a hint, it is to sell advertising, so it can earn a profit.
At one time it was possible for a newspaper to have a bias, since there were usually at least two newspapers in every city or town, and in the major cities many more then just two. A bias did not hurt, it in fact helped as it made sure you got a loyal readership (of those that share their bias.
The downfall of the print media is that they did not adapt to change. Newspapers took a big hit when television became the media of choice for many advertisers. The golden age of newspapers was in the 1940s. They have been in decline every since.
One of the things that has happened is that a few major corporations began buying up newspapers. This by itself would not be a bad thing for either them or the consumers, except the editorial views (and bias) began to be the same. The consumers were not given a choice. A smarter move would have been to let each newspaper find its own view (bias), perhaps even allowing a conservative voice to be heard.
Rush Limbaugh owes his success to the narrow view newspapers (and others in the main stream media) have that only their view is valid.
Newspaper reading is a habit as much as anything. I continued receiving a daily paper long after I realized that I was not being informed by educated. It was only once I found that the papers were beginning to just sit there unopened and unread that I cancelled. It has been over twenty-five years since I have been a subscriber to a daily paper. It was a habit, I broke that habit, and doubt if I would ever go back.
I am on the front edge of baby boomers. We at least had a reading habit, the Gen-xers less so. So where do these journalist figure new readership will come from?
That is their problem. Those that already agree with their bias view of the world, already subscribe. Changing the format, changing to longer stories, changing to shorter stories will have no effect. I can not believe educated people can be so blind. But that is what happens when you are in a cult, and for liberals, that is what it is. They are true believers, and can not, will not, question the things they take on faith.
Big government is good.
We are not taxed enough.
Abortion is the only choice.
Republicans are evil.
Democrats are Saints
Immigration is good for the nation, legal or otherwise.
Big business is bad.
Global Warming is true.
The ACLU is never wrong.
NOW is never wrong.
All social programs are good.
Income transfer is good.
America is evil, the UN is good.
You see, I do not need to read a newspaper to know what the story will be. Regardless of the issue, it will be slanted to make the left good, the right bad.
But they have forgotten what their job is, to encourage viewers to see the advertising, nothing else. Not to be an advocate, not to inform the people on what they think we should know, not to take sides. They have managed to alienate a good portion of their potential readership, and think by changing the style it will bring them back. It won't.
Good bye printed media, RIP.
Clearly, the only thing to do after the penultimate stage of "reorganization".
We also are tightening up the paper's news hole,This process is also known as arlen sphincter tightening. Where, exactly, is the news hole located?
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