I have not met Marcus Brauchli or Katharine Weymouth. And neither has stepped up to discuss much of the why behind Brauchli's selection last week as the Washington Post's Executive Editor. But there are plenty of theories kicking around, and here is mine.
There are three straightforward reasons the Post would break with 40-plus years of tradition and install an outsider in the top editor's job.
Former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal were describing Brauchli last week as brilliant and wonderful to work for. Newshounds aren't normally gushy, so I took note of that level of praise. Brauchli's appointment a little over a year ago, in his mid-40s, to succeed Paul Steiger as the top editor of The Wall Street Journal says the same thing -- extraordinary talent.
So explanation one is that an exceptional candidate happened to be available at the time the Post was looking. And he was available only because Rupert Murdoch wanted his own man (Robert Thomson) and his own stamp on the Journal. Otherwise Brauchli would have been settling in for year two of a long run and thus not have been a candidate.
Some accounts have questioned the wisdom of the
Post's changing editors in the midst of a particularly compelling presidential race. Others asked whether Brauchli will be at a disadvantage lacking a background in local news (much of his work experience was reporting and editing abroad).
My answer would be that those are not the critical issues for the paper they might have been a decade ago. The political unit and metro staffs may not exactly run themselves, but the Post has enough depth in both areas to rock along as Brauchli settles in.
What is critical right now is getting on with the integration of print and online -- and that is where Brauchli brings deep and current experience. Hidden in plaln sight in
the press release announcing his appointment are four prominent references to his role overseeing the
Journal's combo online and print redesign, which debuted in January 2007, and its forerunner at the paper's Asian and European editions 18 months earlier.
My Poynter colleague (and National Advisory Board member) Mario Garcia was consultant on both those projects. In January 2006, he led the Advisory Board and Poynter faculty on an exuberant tour of the new look piloted in Asia and Europe. It was lots more than cosmetics and presentation, aiming at
what Garcia described as "fusion" in which each medium had distinctive content and the two were complementary, even a match to reader patterns of home, community and business use.
Getting the print/online balance right is on the current agenda for all ambitious newspapers. Besides the Journal, The New York Times a few years back and USA Today and Financial Times more recently have undertaken integration of print and online, including moving reporting and editing staffs together physically.
Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com,
told Editor & Publisher last week that such a move is past due at the
Post, where most of the online staff remains across the Potomac in suburban Virginia.
The
Post's online status may be one of a kind, though. The site has long had a big staff and big ambitions, employing stars like videographer
Travis Fox, data journalism whiz
Adrian Holovaty (also a Poynter National Advisory Board member), and hyperlocal specialist
Rob Curley. (The latter two have departed).
As a result the Post's digital operations contribute one of the highest percentages of advertising revenue (now more than 15) in the industry and extends the reach of the Post's journalism dramatically to national and international readers, since the print edition circulates only in the D.C. metro area.
A Post spokesman told me that Brauchli is generally declining interviews until he has been on the job awhile. He did not make an exception for my questions about online/print strategy.
I would have to agree that bringing the best of the Journal experience to the Post's media integration opportunities and challenges is going to take even a guy as quick a study as Brauchli more than a few days of pondering.
Former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal were describing Brauchli...
