Do you think the Post's push to be a national paper made the Times up its game? Or did the Post fall short on the news side, making the business side's issues moot? Should the Post have purchased Wirecutter or Wordle?
I think competition always helps you maintain your edge, but the Times has been on a path for some time now, and the Post hasn’t seemed the prime motivation.
It’s certainly Baron’s view that the Post should have diversified its product offerings along the lines the Times did, and it’s hard to disagree.
I'll be interested to see how your "best newspaper book" view holds up after reading Adam Nagourney's new one on the New York Times.
Grimaldi's comment about the ever expanding editing staff hints at the issue I hear most often from other Post alums/staff: the anonymous "reader engagement team" that packages the product online.
It is hard to say because it is such a vague goal as set by Bezos. What does it mean? (Which is why I’m amused that you and Marty are arguing over it.) The vagueness makes it difficult to answer the question of who is. But if you say the Post isn’t, it begs the question of who is. Don Graham’s vision was actually more coherent (a local newspaper that covers the nation and the world). The Globe and Times local coverage is their foundation. Now that the Post plans to cleave local news by one quarter, and it already is a shadow of what it’s local coverage used to be (and Bezos could care less about local), I’m not sure the Post can claim that mantle.
The New York Times’s local coverage is certainly not one of its pillars these days. They would be the first to say that, as they pretty much did when they scrapped Metro.
That’s true. But in Washington, where many people are from elsewhere and not a few think of themselves as there temporarily, not at all clear that local coverage is predominant— as the Post’s own strategy has occasionally indicated over the years.
That (“first choice to read”) also is a pretty vague goal in such a diffuse media environment, and yes indisputably unmet. But has anyone? Can anyone? I suppose Bezos has had big, seemingly unachievable in the past, playing a long game. But now the Post is retrenching the reporting staff while leaving an ever-expanding editing structure untouched.
Not at all sure there is one. But at different moments and for different purposes, candidates include the New York Times, Politico and CNN.
I certainly don’t think that WaPo has a position in its home town anywhere comparable to that of, for instance, the Boston Globe or LA Times in theirs.
It is easy, in hindsight, to sit back and criticize the WP and Marty Baron. But what would the country have done without the sound reporting done during the Trump years by the WP? Similarly, would the WP even have existed during those years without Bezos’ injection of resources? If the WP business is failing today, let’s look at the current quality of its editorship. This mayters. And--as other commentators have mentioned--
Agree that the Post has done much great work, before, during and after Trump. Also agree that Bezos’s capital, and preservation of independence, have been invaluable. Hope the column made all that clear.
Dick, as for readership profile, I suspect it's the same at the NYT. How much of this is either paper's fault, and how much of it is Trumpian-type conservatives simply being differently siloed, and to take the military version of siloing, being "hardened" in their other siloes? (I'm not a subscriber to either one, myself, but, I speak as a leftist, or maybe a left-liberal, not a traditional American liberal. I read both as they pop up on Twitter, Google News, etc., but not more than that, and on foreign policy even more than domestic, it's as much to see what they get wrong as anything.)
Interesting, especially as we are so short on really great papers. Gotta value every one we've got!
So insightful.
Do you think the Post's push to be a national paper made the Times up its game? Or did the Post fall short on the news side, making the business side's issues moot? Should the Post have purchased Wirecutter or Wordle?
I think competition always helps you maintain your edge, but the Times has been on a path for some time now, and the Post hasn’t seemed the prime motivation.
It’s certainly Baron’s view that the Post should have diversified its product offerings along the lines the Times did, and it’s hard to disagree.
I'll be interested to see how your "best newspaper book" view holds up after reading Adam Nagourney's new one on the New York Times.
Grimaldi's comment about the ever expanding editing staff hints at the issue I hear most often from other Post alums/staff: the anonymous "reader engagement team" that packages the product online.
For the sake of argument on a highly subjective assessment: Who/what would you say is the dominant news organization in Washington?
What do you think?
It is hard to say because it is such a vague goal as set by Bezos. What does it mean? (Which is why I’m amused that you and Marty are arguing over it.) The vagueness makes it difficult to answer the question of who is. But if you say the Post isn’t, it begs the question of who is. Don Graham’s vision was actually more coherent (a local newspaper that covers the nation and the world). The Globe and Times local coverage is their foundation. Now that the Post plans to cleave local news by one quarter, and it already is a shadow of what it’s local coverage used to be (and Bezos could care less about local), I’m not sure the Post can claim that mantle.
First, always happy to amuse you.
My point here is that the Post has, I think unquestionably, failed to achieve the goals Marty says in the book that Bezos set out for it.
Note that no one seems to dispute that the other stated goal, to be "Americans first choice for what to read," remains unmet.
The New York Times’s local coverage is certainly not one of its pillars these days. They would be the first to say that, as they pretty much did when they scrapped Metro.
That’s true. But in Washington, where many people are from elsewhere and not a few think of themselves as there temporarily, not at all clear that local coverage is predominant— as the Post’s own strategy has occasionally indicated over the years.
That (“first choice to read”) also is a pretty vague goal in such a diffuse media environment, and yes indisputably unmet. But has anyone? Can anyone? I suppose Bezos has had big, seemingly unachievable in the past, playing a long game. But now the Post is retrenching the reporting staff while leaving an ever-expanding editing structure untouched.
Not at all sure there is one. But at different moments and for different purposes, candidates include the New York Times, Politico and CNN.
I certainly don’t think that WaPo has a position in its home town anywhere comparable to that of, for instance, the Boston Globe or LA Times in theirs.
It is easy, in hindsight, to sit back and criticize the WP and Marty Baron. But what would the country have done without the sound reporting done during the Trump years by the WP? Similarly, would the WP even have existed during those years without Bezos’ injection of resources? If the WP business is failing today, let’s look at the current quality of its editorship. This mayters. And--as other commentators have mentioned--
Agree that the Post has done much great work, before, during and after Trump. Also agree that Bezos’s capital, and preservation of independence, have been invaluable. Hope the column made all that clear.
Dick, as for readership profile, I suspect it's the same at the NYT. How much of this is either paper's fault, and how much of it is Trumpian-type conservatives simply being differently siloed, and to take the military version of siloing, being "hardened" in their other siloes? (I'm not a subscriber to either one, myself, but, I speak as a leftist, or maybe a left-liberal, not a traditional American liberal. I read both as they pop up on Twitter, Google News, etc., but not more than that, and on foreign policy even more than domestic, it's as much to see what they get wrong as anything.)