Valentine's Day at Washington Post: About 54 Laid Off

Fishbowl DC reported on Friday that the Washington Post quietly gave layoff notices to about 54 people in a move that touched every department in the newspaper. Betsy Rothstein wrote:

Internal sources appropriately place the number at 54, though a publicist hasn’t confirmed the exact number. Every department facing cuts was asked to keep the news to their department only, as to not make it look like a mass layoff. We’re told those given pink slips include Beth Jacobs, General Manager of Mobile, and Ken Dodelin, Director of Mobile Products. Sources say the entire Mobile Product Management and IT Project Management staffs have been eliminated. “[CIO and VP Shaliesh] Prakash thinks these are ‘inefficiencies’ – that is the exact word he uses for human beings who are not useful according to him,” said a source who spoke only on condition of anonymity. “Get rid of experienced people to save money, under the garb of streamlining is the new trend inside the Post.” The news comes on the heels of the NYT, which recently offered buyout packages to 30 employees. That target number wasn’t reached; it isn’t clear how many employees were let go.

Here is the memo that was distributed internally as reported by Rothstein:

WaPo memo: As you know, evaluating our structure and reducing costs is an ongoing priority. As part of a broader restructuring across the commercial side, we identified several areas where we believe we can operate differently. As a result, and after careful consideration, we are planning to eliminate some positions, effective April 30, 2013. The employees affected by this position elimination have already been notified, and will have the opportunity to participate in a Separation Incentive Program that will include both separation payments and a company contribution to be used towards health insurance premiums. I will share more and take your questions at our upcoming all-hands tomorrow, Feb 14th, 2013. I fully recognize that situations like this are stressful and thank you for your understanding as we work through this process. – Shailesh Prakash VP Digital Product Development and CIO

Philly Inquirer’s Loeb Bounces Back to Washington Post as Local Editor

 Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli announced today that Vernon Loeb, Philadelphia Inquier's deputy managing editor/news, is returning to the Post as local editor.

Loeb's resume is a document of back-and-forth adventures betwen the two papers. Previously, he was a reporter for the Post. He started that stint in 1994 after leaving the Inquirer for the first time.

Romenesko posted the memo earlier today:

From: Marcus Brauchli

Sent: 01/05/2011 12:17 PM EST

To: NEWS

Subject: A New Local Editor

To the Staff:

We are pleased to announce that Vernon Loeb will be returning to The Post as Local Editor.

Vernon joins us from The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has been deputy managing editor for news, overseeing the metro, business, health & science and national/foreign desks, as well as the newsroom’s interactions with Philly.com. It’s his second stint at the Inquirer, having previously covered the statehouse and City Hall and done a tour as a correspondent in Southeast Asia.



Loeb



The last time he decamped from Philadelphia, in 1994, it was also to The Post, where he covered the second round of Marion Barry as mayor, before moving to the National Staff to cover the CIA and the Pentagon. He left The Post after a decade to run California investigations for the Los Angeles Times.



Vernon is a tremendously talented, high-energy journalist, whose enthusiasm for what we do is infectious. In his new job, he will drive our coverage of the region, ensuring we are serving our readers, both print and digital, the smartest, freshest and most authoritative news and features on the issues that matter most to them. It’s a good match: this is a highly competitive market, and Vernon is an intensely competitive editor.

He will start on Feb. 1 and report to Liz Spayd.



As part of this transition, Senior Web Editor Jane Elizabeth and the PostLocal.com team will soon join the Local staff, with Jane spearheading Local digital initiatives and reporting to Vernon. Prior to joining the Post as Local Web News Editor a year ago, Jane was a senior editor at The Virginian-Pilot, supervising teams covering the military, politics and government, as well as medicine, health, environment, transportation, religion and consumer issues. At the Post, she has been instrumental in PostLocal.com’s growing success. This move, which will combine our Local content creation and web teams into one seamless operation, is aimed at ramping up our Local efforts across all platforms. David Marino-Nachison will continue to be Local Innovations Editor.

Vernon is married to Patricia Ford Loeb, a distinguished public and commercial radio reporter and editor. They have four children – one out of college, one in, and twins who are seniors in high school. Loeb has been known to run a marathon or two (54 actually, ed.) and is an ardent Phillies fan.



Please join us in welcoming Vernon back to the newsroom.

Marcus

Liz

Raju

WaPo's Ezra Klein: The Constitution Is Confusing and Hard to Understand

I'm confused by Washington Post's Ezra Klein's contention that the Constitution, "written over 100 years ago," is confusing and hard to understand.

For starters, I thought it was written long before the Civil War. But even more perplexing is the notion that it is confusing. I'll give you the meaning behind the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is open to some debate. But what's confusing about this?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Could it be Sections 8, 9 and 10 that is confusing some? It does seem to be a problem for many inside the Beltway. Those three sections define the powers of Congress, the limits on Congress and the powers of the states.

Maybe it's just that Klein can't understand old documents. It's that four score and seven type of prose that is so tough to digest in the 21st Century.

The only people who have trouble understanding this wonderful document are those working to undermind it. There are some inside the Beltway who need to listen to it when it is read.

WaPo Partners With Intersect.com to Interview Participants at Stewart's Rally This Weekend

The Washington Post announced that it will join with Intersect.com in an effort to get on-the-ground answers from participants in Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on the National Mall this weekend.

Rally patrticipants will "help us cover the rally and answer reporters' questions about the event."

Comedy Central estimated in its permit application for the rally that as many as 25,000 people would attend the event, which is scheduled for Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. More than 220,000 people had RSVP’d for the event on Facebook as of late Monday, but it’s difficult to gauge how many will actually turn out.

The Story Lab team will be filing stories throughout Saturday's events on the Mall via Intersect, a new site designed to collect and present stories live and from the scene. Here on washingtonpost.com and on Intersect's site, we'll be documenting the scene and asking those in attendance and those watching at home to weigh in on the politics vs. entertainment question. Please join us.

SIGN UP: If you’d like to share your own rally stories on Intersect, visit Intersect.com and use the invite code “washingtonpost” to create an account.

Maybe the first question could be: Have you found a port-a-potty yet?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Post's link to Intersect.com is broken on the Post's site. A ticket has been ordered to fix it. Here is a working link to the web site.

Washington Post's 4Q Profit Quadruples

The Washington Post Co. today reported net income of $91.2 million ($9.78 per share) for the fiscal year ended Jan. 3, up from $65.8 million ($6.87 per share) for the fiscal year ended Dec. 28, 2008.

Net income for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $82.2 million ($8.71 per share), up from $18.8 million ($2.01 per share) for the fourth quarter of 2008. Operating income for 2009 increased to $194.0 million, from $174.2 million in 2008. For the fourth quarter of 2009, operating income increased to $146.2 million, from $62.3 million in 2008.

Excluding charges related to early retirement programs, the company’s 2009 and 2008 operating income included $8.1 million and $25.7 million, respectively, of net pension credits. For the fourth quarter of 2009 and 2008, operating income included $2.9 million and $5.9 million, respectively, of net pension credits. Overall, the Company estimates a total net pension credit of $2.0 million in 2010.

Washington Post to Deliver Most of the Remaining Sunday Newspapers Today

Michael Calderone of POLITICO reports that most of those Washington Post readers who did not get their Sunday newspaper because of the storm this past weekend should expect them today.

The Washington Post managed to deliver 400,000 to 450,000 Sunday papers, according to a representative. But for those who didn't get a weekend paper yet, I'm told that 80 percent or more copies still undelivered should arrive by tonight. (In total, there should have been 642,000 delivered this past weekend).

Besides the print edition, the Post's website witnessed a surge in readers, reinforcing the idea that local papers should never overlook the public's appetite for up-to-the-minute traffic and weather.

The Post's site brought in twice the typical weekend pageviews, with a daily average of 16.4 million, according to the Post's statistics. Also, the local page was up 182 percent from a recent weekend, and the mobile site clocked in an additional 500,000 views Saturday.

'Mad Bitch Beer' Video Gets Yanked From WaPo Site

After facing heat from the PC police, most notably the Columbia Journalism Review, Talking Points Memo and MediaMatters, The Washington Post has pulled Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza's latest edition of "Mouthpiece Theater" in which the pair mocked the now-famous "Beer Summit" with thoughts of what brews other political leaders might drink had they been invited.

Most notably, Milbank says, "we won't tell you who's getting a bottle of 'Mad Bitch' beer" as picture of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was flashed on the screen.

Washington Post Communications Director Kris Coratti emailed TPM the following statement.

"The video was a satirical piece that lampooned people of all stripes. There was a section of the video that went too far, so we have removed the piece from our website."

The skit, which is understandably tasteless to some, is an equal-opportunity offender. Both sides get slapped around pretty good. But what was telling was that TPM and MediaMatters seemed to only get worked up about the Clinton reference. While they did indeed mention the barbs thrown at the right, the real anger and protests that lead to the Post pulling the piece surrounded the Clinton reference. For some reason, Sen. David Vitter's drinking a "Happy ending" or the pontiff knocking down an "Angry Monk" didn't seemed to phase anyone one bit. Without a doubt, had Milbank and Cillizza flashed a picture of Sarah Palin instead of Hillary Clinton during the "Mad Bitch Beer" segment, TPM and others on the left would had probably praised the duo for their cutting edge comedy. Mocking someone on the right is generally OK, but please, please, leave the left alone. That's just tasteless.

Washington Post Reports Net Loss of $19.5 Million in First Quarter

The Washington Post Company today reported a net loss of $19.5 million ($2.04 loss per share) for its first quarter ended March 29, 2009, compared to net income of $39.3 million ($4.08 per share) in the first quarter of last year.

Results for the first quarter of 2009 included $13.4 million in accelerated depreciation at The Washington Post (after-tax impact of $8.3 million, or $0.89 per share); $16.9 million in restructuring charges related to Kaplan’s Score and Professional (U.S.) operations (after-tax impact of $10.5 million, or $1.12 per share); and $6.6 million in early retirement program expense at Newsweek (after-tax impact of $4.1 million, or $0.44 per share). Results for the first quarter of 2008 included charges of $24.6 million related to early retirement program expense at Newsweek (after-tax impact of $15.3 million, or $1.60 per share).

Revenue for the first quarter of 2009 was $1,054.1 million, down 1% from $1,063.1 million in 2008. The decrease is due to revenue declines at the newspaper publishing, television broadcasting and magazine publishing divisions, offset by revenue growth at the education and cable television divisions. The company had an operating loss of $19.6 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared to operating income of $66.9 million in 2008. Operating results were down at the newspaper publishing, education and television broadcasting divisions, while the cable division reported improved results for the quarter. The magazine publishing division reported a loss for the first quarter of both 2009 and 2008.

Excluding charges related to early retirement programs, the company’s operating income for the first quarter of 2009 includes $1.3 million of net pension credits, compared to $6.6 million in the first quarter of 2008.

Washington Post Announces Newsroom Reorganization

Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli announced sweeping changes in newsroom operations today in an extensive memo that was made public by Jim Romenesko. In it, Brauchli details "new reporting groups, streamline editing desks and anticipate the impending integration of our print and digital news operations."

Brauchli told staffer that "a single editor ultimately ought to be able to oversee all versions of a story, whether it appears in print, online or on a BlackBerry or iPhone. Space in the newspaper and editing firepower in general should be allocated based on a day’s news priorities, not a predetermined formula."

Here is the complete memo:

From: Marcus Brauchli
Sent: 04/16/2009 09:01 AM EDT
Subject: Announcement on Restructuring

To the staff:

Today, we are beginning a reorganization to create new reporting groups, streamline editing desks and anticipate the impending integration of our print and digital news operations.

The changes reinforce our longstanding belief in great reporting and writing as the vital center of The Post’s journalism. We want to empower journalists and encourage them to work across departments and platforms. In addition, we want to simplify the handling of words, pages, images and new media, building on the prescient move to “two-touch” editing under Len and Phil. Decisions about space and play must happen faster, both in print and online, and in a way that pulls together our now-separate newsrooms. A single editor ultimately ought to be able to oversee all versions of a story, whether it appears in print, online or on a BlackBerry or iPhone. Space in the newspaper and editing firepower in general should be allocated based on a day’s news priorities, not a predetermined formula.

These changes will alter the way we do things, but they will not affect the commitment to journalistic depth, authority and excellence that has defined The Post. Just the reverse: We think these steps will help us to adapt more easily to the economic and technological challenges that face us, while preserving the best of our traditions and values.

Key Personnel Changes:

In keeping with our strategic focus on serving readers in and interested in Washington, we will put most news reporters under two senior editors, a National Editor and a Local Editor. Much first-line editing, copyediting
and production will occur on a new Universal News Desk under another senior editor. Together with the executive editor, the managing editors and the deputy managing editor, these people will form the core leadership of them newsroom.

* Kevin Merida, now Assistant Managing Editor for National News, will become National Editor.

* Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, now Assistant Managing Editor for Sports and Weekend Editor, will become Local Editor.

* Sandy Sugawara, now Assistant Managing Editor for Business, will become Editor of the Universal Desk

These changes, which become effective May 1, will set in motion other personnel moves.

* Scott Vance, now Assistant Managing Editor for News online, will become News Editor when our print and online desks merge, working closely with the National and Local editors to drive coverage across platforms.

* Bill Hamilton remains Enterprise Editor, working for Liz and
helping to guide many major projects into the paper and online.

* Bob McCartney, now Assistant Managing Editor for Metro News, will become a columnist on metropolitan affairs.

* Matt Vita, now Emilio’s deputy, will become Sports Editor.

* Greg Schneider, now Sandy’s deputy, will assume responsibility for Business.

Coverage Groups:

Local, National and Business reporters and editors who “commission” or drive coverage will be organized into coverage groups. Decisions about what we cover and who should handle what story will be made by the leaders of these reporting groups. Each reporting group will be responsible for a specific area of coverage and be led by an editor and probably at least one deputy, who may also write.

To give you an idea how this will work, we recently posted a job running Science, Health and Environmental coverage. That editor will have primary responsibility for coverage of those areas, across the paper and the website, and will oversee the reporters on those subjects. Most stories from these coverage groups will be edited on the universal desk throughout the day. The groups will manage blogs and may edit major projects internally. Other groups will be created around subjects such as National Security, Local Business and Development, Social Issues, and so on. We will announce their formation in coming weeks and post available openings for editors and deputies.

All the news reporting groups will work for Kevin or Emilio. Kevin has run National since January, but already has displayed great talent as a story conceptualizer and the special effectiveness of someone who is both a leader and a role model for many of his reporters. Together with his deputy, Marilyn Thompson, Kevin has been building a highly capable team whose coverage goes beyond the routine and brings real insight.

Emilio, a native of the Washington area, has run sports brilliantly in his second stint here at The Post. His focus on breaking news and exclusives, on strong narratives and the superb work of our columnists and photographers, has made our Sports section the best. He’s also pioneered print-online integration for The Post this year, bringing together our sports journalists in what has been a very useful and successful experiment. We will place great emphasis on developing strong local journalism, especially online.

Emilio’s exceptionally talented and versatile deputy, Matt Vita, will succeed him as Sports Editor. A former national-security editor and
Congressional reporter for The Post and a former foreign correspondent for Cox Newspapers, Matt shares much credit for the Sports department’s recent successes.

Bob McCartney, who has served the paper so well as AME/Metro for the last four years, will become a Metropolitan columnist, one of our leading voices in the community where Bob grew up and has lived and run coverage for so long. His distinguished career as a foreign correspondent, managing editor of the International Herald Tribune and the first AME of the continuous news desk, and as a business editor and a reporter gives him the kind of depth and wisdom that will infuse his writing with authority and insight.

Universal News Desk:

The Universal Desk will ultimately combine what is now spread across departments and two separate newsrooms, bringing together many people now in the ranks of assigning editors, copy editors and the news desk, as well as many producers at the website. It will handle editing tasks large and small, and make decisions about space allocation and story play, deciding what appears where on the paper’s news pages and online. Most stories will be edited on the universal desk, rather than in reporting groups. Stories edited during the day for use online will form the basis for their print versions, and vice versa.

We still have a lot of planning and consultation to do before the desk will be up and running. We invite your input and ideas, and expect to be discussing with many people both downtown and in Arlington what the right organization is.

Anyone who has watched Sandy’s incredibly agile oversight of the business and financial staff, especially the way she and Greg led The Post’s super coverage of the economic and financial crisis, will understand immediately why she is the right person to take on the immense task of creating a new, high-octane news engine.

Greg, a smart, seasoned editor with experience on National as well as Business, will take over the business staff from Sandy and become The Post’s main national economics and business editor. Greg has more than earned this field promotion after the often-heroic hours and exacting editing he put into the business staff’s outstanding coverage of the financial and economic crisis. Like Kevin, Emilio and Sandy, Greg will work with us in mapping out the detailed newsroom structure.

The bridge between the coverage groups and the Universal Desk will be Scott, when he becomes News Editor. Among his many roles will be setting intraday deadlines, guiding our homepage and ensuring that The Post is competitive on all platforms, on all stories that matter to our readers. A veteran of National and the printside before he took on a key news job at washingtonpost.com, Scott has worked with just about everyone here, and to great effect.

Another central figure in the universal desk will be Ju-Don Roberts, Managing Editor of washingtonpost.com, who has steered our digital edition’s continued success and whose print and online experience are vital to re-imagining our editing operations. She’s been a top-class leader and will remain point person for The Post’s digital edition, working with Raju on innovations and development of the best possible website for our readers.

Future Changes:

While we have outlined major changes here, there are many gaps still in our plan. As you will see, there are unanswered questions about some departments, including Style and the presentation, visuals, interactivity and web tools/innovations groups. Working with the new leadership team, we will come back to you with more specifics in coming weeks. We plan to move as quickly as possible to announce further details of the structure of the reporting and editing groups. Some new roles will emerge from this process, and we expect to post those jobs as well.

We are, as you know, embarked on a number of big projects. Most notably, we plan to bring in a new content management system—production software, in plain English—and are rethinking aspects of our newspaper’s design. We expect that system will take a year to go live, but our reorganization anticipates the changes in workflow that will result from a single editing and production system. Design changes in turn will reflect what the new technology and newsroom organization will enable.

We also are on track with plans to meld our print and digital newsrooms over the summer and into the fall. Shirley Carswell, Claudia Townsend, Peter Perl and a small army of others are leading various efforts, and we undoubtedly will have more to say about these plans in coming weeks.

We believe the changes we are undertaking will enhance our competitiveness by focusing our journalistic energy on coverage of core areas and by simplifying editing processes. As we integrate editing and production, print and digital, we will be able to deliver smarter, faster news online, while preserving the writing, depth and range of coverage that define The Post.

Finally, for anyone who gets this far, we have one final tidbit: We’ll hold a town hall meeting at 2 p.m. today in the auditorium to take questions and discuss these plans or any other issues.

Marcus
Liz
Raju

A Touch of Gray in the Post and Times

My friends who are not in journalism often ask me if newspapers, especially the major ones, confer on an agenda that they want to push on any particular day. Of course that's nonsense. Matter-of-fact, what The New York Times and The Washington Post are going to publish with their enterprising projects are closely held secrets.

Or are they????

This morning we were treated with not one, but two prominent feature stores about President Barack Obama's ever-so-slightly increasing touch of gray that he is developing on his scalp. One story was in the Post, the other was in the Times.

Helene Cooper of the Times wrote on the front page:

WASHINGTON — Well, that didn’t take long. Just 44 days into the job, and President Obama is going gray.

It happens to all of them, of course — Bill Clinton still had about half a head of brown hair when he took office but was a silver fox two years later, and George W. Bush went from salt and pepper to just salt in what seemed like a blink of an eye.

But so soon? “I started noticing it toward the end of the campaign and leading up to inauguration,” says Deborah Willis, who, as co-author of “Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs,” pored through 5,000 photographs of the first head over the last year.

Mr. Obama’s graying is still of the flecked variety, and appears to wax and wane depending on when he gets his hair cut, which he does about every two weeks. His barber, who goes by only one name, Zariff, takes umbrage with bloggers who alternately claim Mr. Obama, 47, is dyeing his hair gray (to appear more distinguished) or dyeing it black (to appear younger). “I can tell you that his hair is 100 percent natural,” Zariff said. “He wouldn’t get it colored.”

And for all of his 16 years giving Mr. Obama his “quo vadis” haircut — black parlance from the 1960s for close-cut locks — Zariff said he is not about to start ribbing Mr. Obama. “We do not tease about the gray at all,” he said.

Phillip Rucker of the Post had this to say on his Page C1 story "Obama's Other Gray Matter":

Are times so stressful -- a plummeting economy and two wars -- that our young president is going grayer a mere six weeks into the job?

Maybe 754 days is more like it. That's how long it's been, if you can believe it, since a baby-faced senator stood in the winter chill in Springfield, Ill., to declare his candidacy for president. With each debate, after every primary fight, it seems Barack Obama's tightly clipped hair became just a dash saltier.

"The gray, it's not a whole lot, but he has a few strands," explained Zariff, the president's Chicago barber for 17 years, who goes by a single name. "It's quite normal for his age group."

And it's an article of faith, backed by photographic evidence, that the Oval Office ages the men in it. Look no further than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Obama, 47, foresaw his own arrival at a stage of hair life many men prefer to describe as "distinguished."

"Seniors, listen up. I'm getting gray hair myself," Obama quipped at a campaign stop in Indiana last spring.

"The gray is coming quick," he told supporters a few months later in Colorado. "By the time I'm sworn in, I will look the part."

Same feature, same day, and even the same source? Has Zariff ever gotten such great publicity on one day?

Kurtz: No Standing O for Obama in Washington Post Newsroom

Contrary to the reports on the Internet yesterday, Washington Post editors and reports did not give president-elect Barack Obama a standing ovation yesterday when he worked the newsroom, according to Post media critic Howard Kurtz. But, he writes, there was a mob scene that underscored the fact that Obama is not only the incoming president, but a worldwide celebrity.

Camera phones flashed as Obama, trailed by Post Co. chief executive Donald Graham, began his stroll around the fifth-floor newsroom's perimeter, shaking hands and greeting nearly 200 staffers. "Where are the sportswriters?" he asked. "I want to ask about the Redskins, Nationals and Wizards."

The shouted questions were about what you would expect from the heart of one of the world's great newspapers.

"Did you like Ben's Chili Bowl?" asked Metro reporter Theola Labbe-DeBose, referring to Obama's recent visit to the downtown eatery.

"That half-smoke's all right," Obama said.

Another staffer asked about the family's dog search.

"Haven't decided yet," said Obama, who visited USA Today earlier in the day.

The president-elect had the foresight to ask about the weather. "What's Tuesday looking like?" he wondered.

... Does the episode, which some staffers muttered was a tad embarrassing, mean the paper's staff has a soft spot for Obama? Not really. It means that when an extremely famous and soon to be very powerful person shows up at the office, journalists act like people everywhere. They gawk.

Washington Post: We Were Biased for Obama

Deborah Howell, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, wrote a column in Sunday's paper stating that the Post's coverage of the presidential campaign was lopsided in favor of president elect-Sen. Barack Obama.

My assistant, Jean Hwang, and I have been examining Post coverage since Nov. 11 of last year on issues, voters, fundraising, the candidates' backgrounds and horse-race stories on tactics, strategy and consultants. We also have looked at photos and Page 1 stories since Obama captured the nomination June 4.

The count was lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts' views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.

Bill Hamilton, assistant managing editor for politics, said, "There are a lot of things I wish we'd been able to do in covering this campaign, but we had to make choices about what we felt we were uniquely able to provide our audiences both in Washington and on the Web. I don't at all discount the importance of issues, but we had a larger purpose, to convey and explain a campaign that our own David Broder described as the most exciting he has ever covered, a narrative that unfolded until the very end. I think our staff rose to the occasion."

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics.

She also noted that it didn't stop there. The coverage of Gov. Sarah Palin was exhaustive, while vice president elect-Sen. Joe Biden was virtually ignored.

One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama's running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission. However, I do not agree with those readers who thought The Post did only hatchet jobs on her. There were several good stories on her, the best on page 1 by Sally Jenkins on how Palin grew up in Alaska.

It's a tough and honest self-assessment of one of the most influential newspapers on the planet. It's also indicative of the most papers in America. As noted before, press treatment of Obama has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so. But coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable, and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one—the most unfavorable of all four candidates, according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

How much impact the media had on Obama's election is anyone's guess. Would McCain had won if the media was more balanced in its reporting? How would have Obama been perceived by the public had the media portrayed McCain as a solid leader with years of experience and Obama as a newcomer with limited exposure on the national stage? No one knows.

But what the media can do from this point on is be a fair watchdog of the Obama administration. Some commentators have already professed their loyalty to Obama, which is a mistake for anyone in journalism. After the run-up to the Iraq war, the media was rightly criticized for not being aggressive enough in questioning President Bush's plan. The same is true now. Given the fact that there will be virtually no congressional opposition to the White House in this era of endless buyouts and foreign threats, it's up to the media to examine President Obama's proposals in the coming years. A Democrat-controlled Congress will not shine the light on any Obama proposal, so the media must. The public deserves no less.

Media Coverage of McCain More Negative Than Coverage of Obama, Study Says

Media coverage of Sen. John McCain has been heavily unfavorable since the political conventions, a study reports, more than three times as negative as the coverage of Sen. Barack Obama, Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post writes.

Fifty-seven percent of the print and broadcast stories about the Republican nominee were decidedly negative, the Project for Excellence in Journalism says in a report out today, while 14 percent were positive. The McCain campaign has repeatedly complained that the mainstream media are biased toward the senator from Illinois.

Obama's coverage was more balanced during the six-week period from Sept. 8 through last Thursday, with 36 percent of the stories clearly positive, 35 percent neutral or mixed and 29 percent negative.

McCain has struggled during this period and slipped in the polls, which is one of the reasons for the more negative assessments by the 48 news outlets studied by the Washington-based group. But the imbalance is striking nonetheless.

Sarah Palin's coverage ricocheted from quite positive to very negative to more mixed, the study says. Overall, 39 percent of the Palin stories were negative, 28 percent were positive and 33 percent neutral. Only 5 percent of the coverage was about her personal life. But McCain's running mate remains a media magnet, drawing three times as much coverage as the Democrats' VP nominee, Joe Biden. He was "nearly the invisible man," the group says, and his coverage was far more negative than Palin's. That may be because Biden tends to make news primarily when he commits gaffes.

The project says McCain's coverage started out positive after the GOP convention but nosedived with his frequently changing reaction to the financial crisis. McCain's character attacks against Obama hurt the Democrat but yielded even more negative coverage for the senator from Arizona.

Obama's coverage since the conventions represents a fall to earth from the early primaries of 2008, when the project found that, horse-race stories aside, positive narratives about Obama were twice as frequent as negative ones, 69 percent to 31 percent.

Milbank Reveals Eastern Media Elite Handshake, Does Olbermann Know It?

Dana Milbank offers a funny video report on the Eastern Media Elite at the GOP convention!

Palin's Earmark Total: $27M in Pork

Paul Kane of The Washington Post reports today that Sarah Palin hired a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor.

There was $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project -- all intended to benefit Palin's town, Wasilla, located about 45 miles north of Anchorage.

In introducing Palin as his running mate on Friday, Sen. John McCain cast her as a compatriot in his battle against wasteful federal spending. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, hailed Palin as a politician "with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies -- someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past, someone who's stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money."

McCain's crusade against earmarks -- federal spending sought by members of Congress to benefit specific projects -- has been a hallmark of his campaign. He has said earmarks are wasteful and are often inserted into bills with little oversight, sometimes by a single powerful lawmaker.

Chief Fired by Palin Talks to Washington Post

UPDATE, 7:37 a.m. Eastern, Aug. 30: Here is the Washington Post story on the Palin investigation. It was published on page 11A this morning and is bylined by James V. Grimaldi and Kimberly Kindy.

Monegan, 57, a former chief of the Anchorage Police Department, said in an interview Friday that during his 19 months on the job the governor repeatedly mentioned [Palin's former brother-in-law and state trooper Mike] Wooten but "never directly asked me to fire him."

"I've tried to explain to him," Monegan said, " 'You can't head-hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference.'

"I think he's emotionally committed in trying to see that his former brother-in-law is punished."

Monegan said he was also contacted by three other Palin-appointed officials, including the attorney general, regarding the trooper. Each time, he said, he told the administration officials that he would keep an eye on the trooper, but that unless he violated a rule, nothing could be done.

The Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi caught up with Walter Monegan, the Alaska public safety commissioner who was fired by Gov. Sarah Palin. The dismissal has led to an ethics investigation. Here is a blog post by the editors:

The July firing of Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan by Gov. Sarah Palin, who was announced as John McCain's running mate on Friday, has unearthed a stream of soap-opera-like details about Palin, her husband, her family and top state appointees. The controversy has also cut against Palin's reputation for holding an ethical line and standing up to colleagues in the Republican Party over matters of principle.

Monegan, 57, a respected former chief of the Anchorage Police Department, said in an interview with The Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi on Friday that the governor repeatedly brought up the topic of her ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, after Monegan became the state's commissioner of public safety in December 2006. Palin's husband, Todd, met with Monegan and presented a dossier of information about Wooten, who was going through a bitter custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly. Monegan also said Sarah Palin sent him e-mails on the subject, but Monegan declined to disclose them, saying he planned to give them to a legislative investigator looking into the matter.

Palin initially denied that she or anyone in her administration had ever pressured Monegan to fire the trooper, but this summer acknowledged more than a half a dozen contacts over the matter, including one phone call from a Palin administration official to a state police lieutenant. The call was recorded and was released by Palin's office this month. Todd Palin told a television reporter in Alaska that he did meet with Monegan, but said he was just "informing" Monegan about the issue, not exerting pressure.

"She never directly asked me to fire him," Monegan said.

But he said Todd Palin told him Wooten "shouldn't be a trooper. I've tried to explain to him, you can't head hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference.

"I think he's emotionally committed in trying to see that his former brother-in-law is punished."

The allegation against Palin, "undercuts one of the points they are making that she is an ethical reformer," said Democratic state Sen. Hollis French, who is managing a $100,000 investigation into the firing of Walter Monegan.

McCain Introduces Palin as VP Pick

Here is McCain's introduction of Sarah Palin today in Dayton, Ohio. It's almost a half-hour long.



The Washington Post has a Q and A with Gregg Erickson
columnist and reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and editor at large for Alaska Budget Report taking questions from readers about Palin and her impact on the race.

One interesting sample:

Washington, D.C.: I was an apathetic McCain supporter until this. Now, I am energized. She does not have much experience but she is VP not POTUS. She seems smart, tenacious and just what McCain needs to beat the rap of "more of the same." This is definitely not "more of the same."

Gregg Erickson: You are right: smart and tenacious are good words to describe our governor. She was in Texas this spring when her water broke. Rateher than staying there to have the baby, she jumped on a plan for an 11-hour flight back to Alaska, so her baby would be a "Alaskan-born."

It will be interesting to see what happens when she confronts the national media regarding her positions on Roe v. Wade, airborne wolf hunting, etc.

Obama's Gamble at Invesco

Tonight's speech by Barack Obama in front of more than 80,000 people in Invesco Field is not without risks, and the major media is writing from the same play book. First, Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times explore:

When Senator Barack Obama announced in early July that he would give his nomination address in an outdoor stadium in front of 75,000 people, he wowed members of both parties who saw it as an inspired stroke of campaign image making.

But as he landed here on Wednesday and prepared to become the first presidential candidate in nearly 50 years to accept his party’s nomination on such a big stage, the plan seemed as much risky as bold.

With daunting challenges of logistics, style and substance, the plan was hatched before the Republicans began a concerted drive to paint Mr. Obama as a media sensation lacking the résumé to be president. Now Obama aides are feeling all the more pressure to bring a lofty candidacy to ground level, showing that Mr. Obama grasps the concerns of everyday Americans.

Charles Mahtesian of Politico writes on the same theme:

From the elaborate stagecraft to the teeming crowd of 80,000 cheering partisans, the vagaries of the weather to the unpredictable audience reaction, the optics surrounding the stadium event have heightened worries that the Obama campaign is engaging in a high-risk endeavor in an uncontrollable environment.

A common concern: that the stadium appearance plays against Obama’s convention goal of lowering his star wattage and connecting with average Americans and that it gives Republicans a chance to drive home their message that the Democratic nominee is a narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Eli Saslow of The Washington Post did not want to be left out of the crowd:

His campaign has gambled on the historic moment by creating a stage that will magnify his performance. Succeed here, in front of the largest Democratic National Convention crowd in nearly 50 years, and Obama's speech will be remembered as one of the most powerful moments in modern politics, a perfect launch into the final stage of the general election. Fail, and Obama risks fueling Republicans' criticism that he is an aloof celebrity, fond of speaking to big crowds but incapable of forming genuine connections.

Copy Editors Are Journalism's Unsung Heroes

Every newspaper reader knows what a reporter does, and who an editor is. But they don't know about copy editors, and the critical role they play in journalism. Washington Post metro copy editor Jeff Baron writes an inspired description of his duties in Sunday's editions:

There's more involved than running a spell check. The copy editor needs to be a critical reader: Is the story missing necessary background or other information? Is it fair? Is it libelous? Have crucial questions gone unasked? When the answer is yes, the copy editor is on the phone with the reporter or researching on the Internet to make things right, and to do it on deadline.

Copy editors are the peoples' advocate in the newsroom. While an ombudsman might dissect stories and protect the readers from misinformation, they do it after the fact. Copy editors do it before stories get publish. They work with no fanfare and glory in order to make sure the reader gets the most accurate, fair and complete report of the news. Often they seem to reporters and editors to be nitpicking on deadline. Discussions about a seemingly minor point in a story often get testy. But you, the reader, deserves no less than the best.

A professor once told me it's like buying stereo equipment worth thousands of dollars but only spending $10 on speakers. It will look impressive in your living room, but if you'll have crappy sound. Well, newspapers can invest in editors and reporters (and they should), but without a high-quality copy desk, you'll have a crappy newspaper.

And that's what's happening today in newsrooms across America. Copy desks are being slashed to cut costs, even outsourced to India in some cases. Copy editors are increasingly being asked to do more with fewer resources. The bean counters on the upper floors see them as an unnecessary cost to operations, and an easy target when it's time to make some cuts. Eventually, your local newspaper's quality will suffer with that thinking. This is not just a new technology vs. old technology issue. All this affects your paper's ability to produce a high-quality website, not just the newsprint product.

The news information market is highly competitive. Crap is no longer an option.

I started my journalism career on the copy desk of the 50,000-circulation Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise. It was hard work, lousy hours, and even worse pay (I started at $4.15 an hour). But I loved it. And my experiences there, and at the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, catapulted me into a successful newspaper career in New York at Newsday. I am proud of my experiences on the copy desk, and I am even prouder of the relationships I had with my colleagues. The copy editors I've known are the people who made journalism the great profession it is.

Obama Leads Washington Post Page 1 Coverage by 3-1

Deborah Howell, The Washington Post ombudsman, reported this morning that Obama has had a 3-to-1 advantage in front page coverage in the Post since became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee on June 4.

In overall political stories from June 4 to Friday, Obama dominated by 142 to 96. Obama has been featured in 35 stories on Page 1; McCain has been featured in 13, with three Page 1 references with photos to stories on inside pages. Fifteen stories featured both candidates and were about polls or issues such as terrorism, Social Security and the candidates' agreement on what should be done in Afghanistan.

This dovetails with Obama's dominance in photos, which I pointed out two weeks ago. At that time, it was 122 for Obama and 78 for McCain. Two weeks later, it's 143 to 100, almost the same gap, because editors have run almost the same number of photos -- 21 of Obama and 22 of McCain -- since they realized the disparity. McCain is almost even with Obama in Page 1 photos -- 10 to 9.

This is not just a Post phenomenon. The Project for Excellence in Journalism has been monitoring campaign coverage at an assortment of large and medium-circulation newspapers, broadcast evening and morning news shows, five news Web sites, three major cable news networks, and public radio and other radio outlets. Its latest report, for the week of Aug. 4-10, shows that for the eighth time in nine weeks, Obama received significantly more coverage than McCain.

I'm not surprised. But once again, most of this is not because of an overt bias in the media to promote an agenda. Rather a symptom of reporters and editors, especially in New York and Washington, looking at stories through the same prism because they mostly have the same backgrounds, same education, and same political point of view. By in large, the East Coast journalists I have worked with for decades work hard at trying to maintain a balance in their coverage. The problem occurs when there is a lack of ideological diversity in the newsroom. Too often, journalists who think the same way as their colleagues will not challenge themselves when coverage gets out of whack because they can't see it, not because they are promoting an agenda.