The Washington Post: is it on the way down?

Gabriel Sherman has an article in The New Republic on the decline of the Washington Post. Following the discussion of the disastrous plan for paid admission to suarees providing access to WP reporters, there is the following:

But, whatever the explanation, one thing seemed undeniable: The Washington Post was a desperate paper, and, in pushing the salons, Weymouth had essentially been casting about for anything, large or small, that might help to save it. Over the past year, the Post has folded its business section into the A-section, killed its book review, revamped its Sunday magazine, and redesigned the entire paper and website, while organizationally merging the print and online editions. Hundreds of staffers have left the Post since 2003, thanks to four rounds of buyouts. In 2008, the Post began losing money; in 2009, its advertising revenue dropped by $100 million. All of this while the paper was under siege from new competitors, national and local. “The common storyline is the Post is flailing,” a senior reporter says. “To me, it’s slightly different. It’s throwing everything up there to see what sticks.” “Everybody feels like we’re lurching,” says another reporter. “A company in chaos” is how a third Post staffer describes the state of the paper.

Clearly the WP is going to have to adapt to the new Information Infrastructure or die. I would hope that it can do so in a way that leaves the major newspaper in the capital of the world's most powerful nation as one of the world's great papers, providing great national and international news coverage as well as serving local needs for the dissemination of information.

The article is correct in its assumption that it is the people involved in the WP who have to make the right decisions, and that those with more power and authority in the organization have more responsibility for making good decisions.

I wish them success in sustaining a great journalistic resource for the nation.