Way back in the days of Watergate, most newspaper-business watchers would have said that The Washington Post and The New York Times were neck-and-neck as the two top general-interest papers in the country.
Some people would have said, based on the Post’s astonishing scoop that eventually brought down President Richard Nixon, that the Post was the superior paper.
No more. Oh, no. In horse racing parlance, The Times has proved to be the equivalent of the great Secretariat, while The Post has been exposed as a sprinter that folds after three-quarters of a mile.
Consider:
:: While The Times has had some employee buyouts, The Post is in its fifth round of buyouts since 2004.
:: Based on a flexible “pay wall,” The Times last year launched a well-thought-out campaign to increase online subscriptions. Since then, the paper has added more than 450,000 digital subscriptions.
:: The Post, on the other hand, “hasn’t jumped into the world of online subscriptions and has suffered for it,” The Motley Fool, a multimedia financial-services company, said in an online story Thursday.
:: In reporting its first-quarter results last week, The Post reported a 10 percent drop in weekday subscriptions between the first quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, and a five percent drop on Sunday. “On the plus side,” said The Motley Fool, “newsprint costs dropped 11 percent because no one is buying the paper anymore.”
:: Between last Friday and yesterday, The Post Co.’s stock price fell 10.4 percent, while The Times Co.’s price rose 7.4 percent.
The Post is also showing signs of stumbling on the journalistic side.
Yesterday morning, The Post ran online a 5,500-word story by reporter Jason Horowitz about some of Mitt Romney’s high school escapades, including an incident when he and some friends held down a student they thought was gay and cut his hair off, while the student screamed for help.
Horowitz recounted another incident, based on accounts of students who witnessed the events, in which Romney shouted “atta girl” to a different student at the all-boys’ school. That student later declared that he was gay.
The story generated huge attention and comment on Twitter and other social media, and as of last night the story had drawn more than 5,000 comments under The Post’s online story.
And yet, The Post did not run the story in Thursday’s print edition, although it clearly was ready to go Wednesday night.
The Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalism located in St. Petersburg, FL, quoted Kevin Merida, the Post’s national editor, as saying that President Obama’s historic declaration on Wednesday that he favored same-sex marriage same-sex marriage was a factor in the decision to hold off on running the Romney story in print.
Poynter also quoted Merida as saying, “It’s also just a very long and involved tale, sensitive and complex, and it needed to be edited to our collective satisfaction.”
However, Michael Calderone of The Huffington Post got a slightly different explanation from Steven Ginsberg, the Post’s political editor.
“We’re mindful of the news going on this week, particularly yesterday,” Ginsberg told The Huffington Post. “We thought it was better not to have it in today’s paper.”
“The (Obama and Romney) stories aren’t really about the same thing,” Ginsberg added, “but the perception among some might have been that putting them together would have created an impression we didn’t want to create.”
Ginsberg did not say, as Merida did, that the story needed more editing.
All in all, print subscribers had good reason to be irritated, at the very least, that they didn’t get Horowitz’ story in the printed edition.
As Andrew Beaujon, who wrote The Poynter Institute, said:
“I can’t be the only Post subscriber wondering why I’m paying for the print edition of the Post when something this important flies onto my porch a day after the political world has chewed it over and reacted already.”
Horowitz’s story was scheduled to run in today’s printed edition of the Post.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Fitz,
I agree..the story obviously should have run. Separating the President’s “personal” opinion stated the morning after the North Carolina election banning same-sex marriage was deliberate. Vice President Biden threw the President a fastball down Main Street last weekend to set the stage for our Commander-in-Chief. The Obama Administration does everything for a reason – that can be, at times, a negative thing (motives) and in other instances, to me, not negative.
I do think almost all politicians are thieves.
Looking at the story of Governor Romney participating in an abusive hate crime is something we should all know.
I am an independent – honestly still undecided – so I want to want everything the Washington Post can report. I am a subscriber and to The New York Times. Both newspapers should do their job for the reader and be held accountable. They are slanted to the left, with some others, and Fox News holds up the right.
This new world of all the news being morphed into techno-media outlets will all but kill the daily newspapers — except for those that can adapt.
The news should be reported and reporters be held accountable for the truth.
Decisions made by editors will bear ad rates, subscriber rates along with the reporting. But if clear, honest, unbiased reporting is discussed at the internal news meetings, they can make better decisions, hopefully, for the readers. Then they have a better product — whether it be thrown in my front yard, on a website or an iPAD APP.
Long ago, we were held accountable. Editorials are for opinions, the rest of the newspaper is where we should see unbiased, straight-down-the middle reporting.
I do not live at Disney World; I know we are manipulated by the media in their wagging the dog, from the right and left. I split the difference, except when something is obvious. If Romney (with others) are part of holding a person down on the possibility that he is gay and forcing a haircut, he should withdraw from the race.
Thanks for your reflection and observations, Larry. The one thing I would disagree with you on is that I don’t believe what Romney did in high school would qualify as a hate crime, at least in the legal sense.
It was a mean, stupid, thoughtless stunt through which he intended to show off in front of his buddies and humiliate the kid. He claims he doesn’t remember it…Bull-shit! You can bet he remembers it; he’s just tried to expunge it from his memory. But for people with consciences — and I do believe he’s got one — memories like that never pass.
If a teen is attacked and their hair is violently cut (as they were pinned to the ground) from an assertion of being gay, then I think it is a hate crime or, at the very least, the most severe type of teen bullying.
It may be time to get the sweater vests.
If he was a juvenile, it is a stupid act. In any
case, in today’s media it will be portrayed in whatever fashion produces the most ratings and web hits.
I’ve pretty much given up, Fitz. On journalism and everything else.
Come to jimmycsays for hope, Les…I’ll try to write something uplifting next time — just for you. Meanwhile, I’ve got a great psychiatrist I could refer you to; she’s helped me navigate through the last several years without crashing on the shoals of despair.
Abusive hate crime my ass! If that’s the case then I’m just gonna go to Jeff City and turn myself in. Razzing, teasing, hazing, etc is part of being a stupid immature kid, particularly a male one in the 60’s and 70’s. I’ve been on both sides of the ball. When Joe Namath made it
” fashionable” for men to wear panty hose I gave it a try and actually liked the way it made me feel. Well, one day I was exposed and found myself having my pants removed by some of my friends to display my, dare we say “fetish” to the world. Sh*t happens. It’s part of growing up. Am I proud of all the things I did? NO! Have we all done something that we regret with some pain, shame and regret. I would hope so unless you go by the name of Jesus, or Barack.
By the way, I still have damn sexy legs at 50 and get compliments all the time. In retrospect, I see myself as an early adopter of male compression clothing. Now if I could only find my Hamilton Beach Butter Up Popper??????
The NYT and WAPO are nothing more than left leaning socialist opinion rags with some occasional hard news thrown in to cover up the ideology thingy. Take all the commie lib BS out of the NYT and it’s still a decent paper. The same can’t be said for the Post.
If this was done in an effort to haze, then it only worng for the hazing. I have been involved with hazing and was wrong.
The hazing was done to all of the underclassmen.
Not because they were gay. If someone in high school is singled out and “hazed” because their sexual orientation, it is a hate crime. High school age people may not be prosecuted as an agoup of adults, but it is hate-based bullying.
I have not decided who I am voting, but this will cost Governor Romney any chance at the White House in the 2012 election.
And the respondant on their way to Jeff City, why mention your ass?
Apparently the Post story should have had a little more editing:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/10/Washington-Post-Hit-Piece-Implodes
Jim – Getting back to the point of your blog, The Post appears to have erred in this matter and, as a result, done a disservice to its print subscribers. I say, give your readers the essential information and let them draw their own conclusions one way or the other. Quit trying to put a “spin” on things, quit leaving out critical details in stories, and quit trying to “spoon feed” the truth to the public with this attitude of “We know what’s best for you.” The arrogance needs to end, and ditto for the incompetence.
Rick,
Well put.