Get out the bottle rockets and cherry bombs; a formerly great newspaper is mounting a big comeback.
With all the grim news about the newspaper industry, it’s great to hear something positive, and David Carr of The New York Times gave credit where credit was due in his most recent “Media Equation” column.
The paper he singled out was none other than The Washington Post, which took journalism to a new plateau when it broke and put a stranglehold on the Watergate story in the 1970s.
During the last 10 to 15 years, however, with the proliferation of free, online content, The Post drifted down to yawning status, even as its once-biggest competitor, The Times, stamped itself as a genuine national newspaper, along with the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Recently, though, The Post has mounted a major comeback. A major scoop was the story of how deeply the White House fence jumper was able to penetrate the White House, after the Secret Service had issued a statement making it sound like he was apprehended just inside the door.
In retrospect, The Post’s turnaround can be tied to its expose in 2013 about the longer-than-understood reach of the National Security Agency. Based on information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, The Post laid bare for the public the existence of several global surveillance programs that further shattered Americans’ sense of diminishing personal privacy.
Then, a little over a year ago, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, bought The Post for $250 million and took it private. That move prompted speculation about what direction Bezos might take The Post.
At the time, though, Bezos, who is 50, gave a strong indication that the newspaper would not stray far from its longtime course of striving to be one of the nation’s foremost newspapers.
“…the key thing I hope people will take away from this (ownership change),” Bezos said, is that the values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners.”
This week, Carr summarized what Bezos has done to turn things around:
“Did Mr. Bezos have some digital lightning in a bottle that altered the math of modern journalism? Far from it, but his willingness to finance hiring new employees — over 100 so far this year — has created an atmosphere of confidence and financial stability.”
In other words, Carr said, Bezos “has financed excellence and stayed out of the way.”
(Editor’s note here: Are you paying attention, Kansas City Star? The Post improved dramatically with an infusion of money and new talent, not by cutting staff and spending less.)
In that atmosphere of stability, the quality of the journalism has improved with Terrance Gore-like speed.
Martin Baron
Another factor in The Post’s comeback, Carr said, was the 2013 hiring of editor Martin Baron, who had established himself as a strong leader at several other papers he worked at earlier.
In Carr’s story, Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, credited Baron with cultivating an enthusiastic atmosphere in The Post’s newsroom. “Marty is a very good newsman,” Rosenstiel said, “a no-nonsense, really bright guy who believes in the power of news, and that is highly contagious in a newsroom. Momentum matters a lot in a news organization.”
Amen, brother. There are so many newsrooms now — including The Star’s — where the employees are running scared because ownership has not been willing or able to invest in their newsrooms to insure aggressive pursuit of the news.
As a journalist (oh, yeah, JimmyC still has his press pass; it’s just homemade now), I am thrilled to see that The Post is on the rebound.
And on a personal note, it’s gratifying to know that two former former KC Star reporters, Tom Jackman and Joe Stephens, are with a paper that is headed in the right direction. Jackman is one of several reporters who covers Virginia for The Post, and Stephens is an enterprise/investigative reporter. Currently, Stephens divides his time between writing for The Post and teaching journalism at Princeton.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I have read every story, but the Washington Post coverage of events in Ferguson was some of the best. They staffed up for it and it showed in their excellent content that readers could trust.
You’re a great newspaper reader, Tom, and that’s a good testimonial to Carr’s commentary.
Agreed. The Secret Service pieces have been great. I have also enjoyed reading the “Gray Lady’s” (NYT’s) continued coverage of Ferguson even when no protests / unrest are happening!
What is an enterprise reporter? Thanks in advance.
Sorry for using “reporter speak.” Enterprise stories are those that do not involve coverage of breaking news. A reporter develops an in-depth story, playing it off the news in most cases, but taking it well beyond the actual news event or development itself. For example, after the fence jumper penetrated the White House, The New York Times did an excellent enterprise story — also called a “takeout” — on the two tiers of the Secret Service. One tier is the agents, the highest level and best trained people, and the other is a class of “officers,” who are on a lower level and whose assignments are not as critical. It was the “officers” whom the fence jumper got by when he made it into the White House.
And Laura Bauer’s series on the Ellingson drowning would fall into
that category? Or is a series called something else??
Another good question, Gayle. Pretty soon you’re going to be able to go down to
The Star and apply for a job, confident, at least, that you know some of the key terminology.
There’s a distinction between enterprise and investigative reporting. In investigative reporting, you’re trying to expose something — like negligence by the trooper and cover-up by the Highway Patrol — and you decide to throw one or more reporters at it and spend just about whatever time it takes to uncover what you think is going on under the surface. (Sometimes you come up blank.) Laura’s stories would be called an “expose,” while the NYT’s story about the two tiers of Secret Service personnel is enterprise. The NYT didn’t set out to uncover wrongdoing or cover-up; they just put a microscope on a situation that most people weren’t aware of.
Guess I’m just naturally curious!
Wow, there are many layers to this reporting business. Thank you for the additional information.
The essence of any newspaper has to be its original reporting. Rare is the blogger who has the time to do anything more than compile a few clippings and perhaps opine on them.
Opinion writers, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen, rarely, if ever change anyone’s mind and compete in the marketplace with every blogger out there, many of whom are better informed about an issue than those on the paper.
Worse yet, editorial writers lower the credibilityof the paper’s journalists in the field by suggesting to readers that the reporting will follow the paper’s editorial stance.
I continue to be astounded at the business model being pursued at 18th and Grand. Fire reporters and their support staff while keeping high priced editorial writers? Are you kidding me? You miss significant events in the lives of your readers so you can make sure to publish the latest tedium from people whose flatulent drivel is utterly predictable? (Is it really a mystery to anyone what Lewis’ next column will be about, and would anyone notice if you fired him and started publishing a collection of his “best” of?)
More highly prized than editorial writers should be the journalists’ support staff. Derek Donovan is far more valuable in his role as librarian than he is in whatever idiotic name they’re calling him now publishing laughable apologia that no one buys. Worse yet as the paper’s voice of journalistic purity he’s engaged in more unethical conduct than any reporter I’ve read.
You want to talk about influence? In 1996 when i moved to WYCO and later took over the party The Star had a free library you could research. I went in and read everything Rick Alm ever wrote about WYCO. My file of his articles and columns was my perception of reality and now that’s gone, a valuable service to the community that added credibility and influence to the paper and it’s gone.
Do we really need to talk about the importance of copy editors in maintianing the image of the newspaper? A good copy editor could cut what I’ve just written in half and say the same thing only more interesting.
I don’t know what idiot is establishing The Star’s priorities, or designing its business model, but if they’ve ever considered suicide, it’s probably a good choice.
Congratulations to The Post, even a biased news story has some value in at least establishing some baseline facts that a reader can work from and it’s good to see that they’re trying to give their readers solid value for their investment.
You know your editorial board has a credibility problem when they endorse a candidate and his opponent’s followers share the endorsement on social media. Currently happening on facebook and Twitter after The Star’s editorial board endorsed scandal ridden Greg Orman for senate.
Scandal-ridden? Please do share. I’m not social-media prone.
Very close relationships to a guy currently in prison for insider trading (Rajat Gupta). He originally claimed to be far more distant from his affairs, but instead was very close. In a lawsuit where he is accused of stiffing Everlast for 30 million dollars. Defaulted on a 250 million dollar loan to raise shrimp in Nevada. Lots of money in the Caymans. Google any of it for more discussions. I suspect we’ll hear more in the coming days.
Also claims to be an independent, but isn’t lots of donations to Obama, Harry Reid, etc. Ran against Roberts in 2008 as a Democrat. Refuses to tell anyone who he will caucus with, what his positions are on various issues, currently fleeing from all but the most sympathetic media.
Didn’t he make the donations when he was a Democrat? And weren’t most people something else before they were an Independent?
http://cjonline.com/news/2014-09-21/ormans-link-jailed-investor-deeper-first-portrayed
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article2141489.html
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article1945418.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/kansas-2014-elections-greg-orman-pat-roberts-111616.html
Couple of observations, one is a correction, I was wrong, it was not 250 million, it was 2.5 million.
The second is that I found no links to The Star for any of these stories, raising once again the issue of how strong the firewall between newsgathering adn editorial is at The Star. (Note, there may be links, but they were not listed among the top on these issues which may suggest other problems with their news coverage.)
Thank you. All those things you mentioned I had heard or read, just didn’t know which, if any, were accurate or exaggerated. I’ll follow up with the links you provided.
Gayle, you may be correct about the timing of the donations, but what speaks volumes is Orman’s support from the Democrat Party, the campaign staffers that work only with Democrats, etc. Holding him out as an Independent is a tough sell.
Personally, I don’t know how the Kansas Democrat Party goes forward when they takled their own Senate candidate. Not exactly an enticement to carry the banner.
That said, we’ve hijacked this wonderful post. Apologies to Fitz for getting off topic.
*tackled* Damnit, Fitz can’t you get us a copy editor to clean our stuff up?
PS – you can get The Washington Post and The Boston Globe for $39 a year on your IPAD. NYT is still $120…not sure what The Star is, but as a retired newspaper guy, The Globe and the Post got my cash… The Star and the Times, no.
Thanks for the pricing guide, Luncher.
Shameless thread derailment…GO ROYALS!!!!!!!
I’ll get on that train: top o’ the eighth and they’re doing it again!
Hard to believe, isn’t it? The Royals played a perfect game, and Ned managed a perfect game.