few can have more ambivalence on the washington post than me. let's try a few dips. my father's father was, among other things, nightclub columnist and editorial page editor for the washington times-herald, which the post bought in 1954, becoming for a time the washington post and times-herald (i still remember the t-h shrinking on their masthead); well my boy was more or less dead of alcoholism by then (i have some of his white house and capitol press credentials). after that, the fam was evening star. my dad was a copy boy/reporter there starting in the fifties. i was a star paper boy, and my brother adam delivered the tabloid daily news, bought out by the star in '72 to create in the customary shrinking way the star news.
so i was a 'copy aide' at the star, working the 6PM-2AM shift in '80-'81 for a new morning edition that was supposed to save the last rival to the post, but which never worked at all. soon after i started, time, inc., bought the star. they had deep pockets, supposedly, and they were going save us and fold us in. like six months later they announced The End. so, by that time, there was only one daily newspaper in dc: the post killed everything. i interviewed for a couple of different jobs at the post but didn't get them; they didn't take the same interviewing approach the star did: 'you spell that s-a-r-t-w-e-l-l? can you start tuesday?' though we did place many stars out of our newsroom everywhere, including the post.* honestly? the post hasn't been as good since it lost all competition.
so the post kind of laid waste to my terrain, like mr. peabody's coal train did to muhlenberg county. but on the other hand, it really is always a great newspaper. honestly i have read it every day, more or less, since i was a small child. that was the thing about the star; even there, everyone read the post. and it has been my homepage since i first got a browser (well, partly for redskins). i think they desperately need a transition away from being folded into the washington establishment, articulating all and only mainstream positions. but there is much great journalism at every level in that newsroom still.
* Writers who worked at the Star in its last days included Nick Adde (Army Times), Stephen Aug (ABC News), Michael Isikoff (Newsweek), Howard Kurtz (The Washington Post), Fred Hiatt (The Washington Post) Sheilah Kast (ABC News), Jane Mayer (The New Yorker), Chris Hanson (Columbia Journalism Review), Jeremiah O'Leary (The Washington Times), Chuck Conconi (Washingtonian), Crispin Sartwell (Creators Syndicate), Maureen Dowd (The New York Times), novelist Randy Sue Coburn, Michael DeMond Davis, Lance Gay, (Scripps Howard News Service):Jules Witcover (The Baltimore Sun), Jack Germond (The Baltimore Sun), Judy Bachrach(Vanity Fair), Lyle Denniston (The Baltimore Sun), Fred Barnes (Weekly Standard), Kate Sylvester (NPR, NBC, Governing Magazine) and Mary McGrory (The Washington Post).
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