Everything about Washington Post totally explained
The Washington Post is the largest, and most circulated
newspaper in
Washington, D.C. It is also one of the city's oldest papers, having been founded in 1877. It is widely considered to be one of the most important newspapers in the United States due to its particular emphasis on national politics, and international affairs, and being a
newspaper of record. Even so, the
Washington Post has always been defined as a local paper and doesn't print any editions for the outside region beyond that of the DC, Maryland, or Virginia editions for daily circulation.
The newspaper is published as a
broadsheet, with photographs printed both in color as well as in black and white. Weekday printings including the Main Section which includes the First Page, national, international news, politics, and editorials and opinions, followed by the sections on local news (Metro), Sports, Business, Style (innovative feature writing on topics as varied as pop culture, politics, fine and performing arts, film, fashion and gossip), and Classifieds.
The Sunday edition includes all of the weekday sections as well as the weekly sections of Outlook (opinion and editorials), Style & Arts, Sunday Source, Travel, Bookworld, Comics, TV Week, and the
Washington Post Magazine. Beyond the newspaper, the Washington Post under its parent company of
The Washington Post Company is involved with the
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and
Washingtonpost.com.
In 1889,
John Phillip Sousa composed on behalf of the newspaper "
The Washington Post March", which later became one of the most famous
march music pieces. Perhaps the most notable incident in the
Post's history was when, in the early 1970s, reporters
Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein began the media's investigation of
Watergate. This contributed greatly to the resignation of
President Richard Nixon. In recent years, its investigative reporting has led to increased review of the
Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Since
Leonard Downie, Jr. was named executive editor in 1991, the
Post has won 25
Pulitzer Prizes, more than half of the paper's total collection of
47 Pulitzers awarded. This includes six separate Pulitzers given in
2008, the second-highest record of Pulitzers ever given to a single newspaper in one year. The Post has also received 18
Nieman Fellowships, and 368
White House News Photographers Association awards, among others.
2008
General overview
The
Post 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, 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, however, it doesn't 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 its suburbs in
Maryland and
Northern Virginia.
As of April 2007, its average weekday circulation was 699,130 and its Sunday circulation was 929,921, according to the
Audit Bureau of Circulations, making it the seventh largest newspaper in the country by circulation, behind
USA Today,
The Wall Street Journal,
The New York Times, the
Los Angeles Times, the
New York Post and the
New York Daily News. 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.
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 and is credited to have brought the newspaper to worldwide fame.
In 1899, during the
Spanish-American War, the
Post printed
Clifford K. Berryman's classic illustration
Remember the Maine.
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
Washington McLean and his son
John Roll McLean, owners of the
Cincinnati Enquirer. When John 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. 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. 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. More recently,
The Washington Times, established in 1982, has been a local rival with a circulation (in 2005) about one-seventh that of the
Post.
After Graham's suicide in 1963, control of the Washington Post Company passed to
Katharine Graham, his wife and Meyer's daughter. No woman before 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 didn't 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 assure
The New York Times didn't 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.
Also in 1972, the "
Book World" section was introduced.
In 1980, the
Post published a dramatic story called
'Jimmy's World', 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 chief executive officer and chairman of the board, as well. He was succeeded in 2000 as publisher and CEO by
Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr., with Graham remaining as chairman. 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 washingtonpost.com.
Like
The New York Times, 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.
The newspaper established a web site in 1996, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The paper is part of
The Washington Post Company, a diversifeid education and media company that also owns educational services provider Kaplan, Inc.,
Post-Newsweek Stations,
Cable One,
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive,
Newsweek magazine, the online magazine
Slate, The Gazette and Southern Maryland Newspapers, The Herald (Everett, WA) and CourseAdvisor.
The paper runs its own
syndication service for its columnists and cartoonists,
The Washington Post Writers Group.
The
Post has its main office at 1150 15th St, N.W., and the newspaper has the exclusive
zip code 20071.
Political stance
Beginning with
Richard Nixon, conservatives have often cited the
Post, along with The New York Times, as exemplars of "liberal media bias." As the former publisher of the Post, the late Katharine Graham, noted in her memoirs Personal History, the paper long had a policy of not making endorsements for presidential candidates. In 2004, however, that policy changed with the Post's endorsement of Democratic candidate
John Kerry. It also has endorsed Republican politicians, such as Maryland Governor
Robert Ehrlich. In 2006 it repeated its historic endorsements of every Republican incumbent for Congress in Northern Virginia. There have also been times when the
Post has specifically chosen not to endorse any candidate, such as in 1988 when it refused to endorse then Governor
Michael Dukakis or then Vice President
George Bush.
Its editorial positions have taken both liberal and conservative stances: it has 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, among others,
CAFTA.
In
"Buying the War" on PBS, Bill Moyers noted 27 editorials supporting the President's ambitions to invade Iraq. National security correspondent
Walter Pincus reported that he'd been ordered to cease his reports that were critical of Republican administrations.
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. 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'd 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."
On March 26, 2007,
Chris Matthews said on his television program, "Well,
The Washington Post isn't the liberal newspaper it was, Congressman, let me tell you. I've been reading it for years and it's a
neocon newspaper".
In November 2007, the
Washington Post was criticized by independent journalist
Robert Parry for reporting on anti-Obama chain e-mails without sufficiently emphasising to its readers the false nature of the anonymous claims.
It has regularly published a political mixture of op-ed columnists, some of them center-left (including
E.J. Dionne and
Richard Cohen) and some center-right (including
George Will and
Charles Krauthammer)
Ombudsmen
In
1970 the
Post became one of the first newspapers in the United States to establish a position of "
ombudsman," or readers' representative, assigned to address reader complaints about
Post news coverage and to monitor the newspaper's adherence to its own standards. Ever since, the ombudsman's commentary has been a frequent feature of the
Post editorial page.
Notable contributors (past and present)
Executive officers and editors (past and present)
Philip Bennett
Benjamin C. Bradlee
Milton Coleman
Jackson Diehl
Leonard Downie, Jr.
Donald Graham
Katharine Graham
Philip Graham
Fred Hiatt
Stephen P. Hills
Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr.
Colbert I. King
Eugene Meyer
Florence Meyer
Katharine Weymouth
Honors and achievements
Further Information
Get more info on 'Washington Post'.
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