Post Co. Names Weymouth Media Chief and Publisher

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 8, 2008

Katharine Weymouth, a granddaughter of the late Washington Post Co. chairman Katharine Graham, has been named chief executive of Washington Post Media, a new division that will oversee The Washington Post newspaper and its online component, washingtonpost.com, the company said yesterday.

Weymouth, 41, will also serve as the newspaper's publisher, the fifth member of the Graham newspaper dynasty to hold that title since her great-grandfather, Eugene Meyer, bought The Post at a bankruptcy sale in 1933. She is the niece of Post Co. Chairman Donald E. Graham and the daughter of Newsweek Senior Editor Lally Weymouth and architect Yann Weymouth.

The newspaper and Web site operate separately and only Graham oversaw both; he also oversees the entire Post Co., which has several business units. In her new job, Weymouth will take responsibility for the paper and Web site from Graham and closely examine the business and advertising departments of the newspaper and Web site, a process that may lead to merging some operations.

"We hope to get under the sheets, look at each other more closely, exchange information more freely and figure out what areas we can be more effective in working closely together and what areas should remain separate," Weymouth said.

The announcement came at the annual state of The Post meeting, which also produced other news: In March, the company will offer an undetermined number of early-retirement packages, or buyouts, to Post newsroom staffers and other employees. Also, the company will close its College Park printing plant over the next two years, moving two of the four multi-story Mitsubishi presses to its larger Springfield plant, which will handle the paper's entire press run with six presses.

The Post offered buyouts in 2003 and 2006, which culled about 120 employees. Buyouts are designed to reduce payroll by offering exit packages to older employees, who tend to have higher salaries. The March buyout offer will be extended to union-covered and management employees, the company said. No details of the plan were released yesterday, but some general information may be available later in the month, the company said, with details to come in March.

Declining print circulation, as well as a number of other circumstances, has led to the closure of the College Park printing site, which opened in 1999. The Post spent $250 million on new presses for its two suburban sites. Post daily circulation peaked at 832,232 in 1993; it now sells an average of 638,000 papers Monday through Saturday. The Post has not decided what it will do with the College Park plant, nor has it determined the status of the plant's approximately 250 full- and part-time employees.

As publisher, Weymouth succeeds Boisfeuillet Jones Jr., 61, who has had the position since 2000. He will become vice chairman of The Post Co., working with Graham on company-wide issues. In addition to the newspaper, The Post Co. owns the Kaplan education company, Cable One cable company, six television stations and several other publications, including Newsweek, Express and Slate.

At yesterday's meeting, Graham pointed out that Weymouth is the only Post Co. executive who has held senior positions at the paper and the Web site, a key qualification as the two media outlets continue to converge.

Graham also noted that "our rate of success with publishers named Katharine has been outstanding."

Weymouth said: "While it is humbling to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors, it is also very exciting. I will do my best to honor their legacy and uphold the tradition they built of journalistic excellence supported by a first-rate business operation."

Weymouth joined The Post in 1996 and has been vice president of Post advertising since 2005. She has served as counsel for both The Post and its Web site in addition to holding other advertising jobs at the paper. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School and practiced law at Williams & Connolly in Washington prior to coming to The Post.

Weymouth is divorced, has three children and lives in the District. She is a niece of Tina Weymouth, the bass guitarist in the new wave band Talking Heads.

The Post, like most newspapers, has been hit hard by declining circulation and advertising revenue, which is migrating to other media, especially the Web. Though ad revenue has increased in recent years at washingtonpost.com, it has declined sharply at the newspaper.

In The Post Co.'s third-quarter 2007 earnings, the most recent to be made public, operating income at the newspaper division was down 50 percent compared to the comparable quarter in 2006, as ad revenue dropped 13 percent at The Post.

"Our shareholders have long understood that we, at The Washington Post, build for the long term," Weymouth said. "Last year, we were hard hit, as were other newspapers, by both local economic factors as well as by the migration of advertising from print to other media, particularly in the classifieds."

Shares of Post Co. stock closed up $1.02 at $758.14 per share yesterday.

Washington Post Media is designed to forge a closer relationship between the business and advertising functions of The Post newspaper and washingtonpost.com, while maintaining separate newsrooms and editorial decision-making. (The Post's newsroom is in the District, the Web site's is in Arlington.)

In the new division, Caroline Little, publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI), Post President Stephen P. Hills and Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. will report to Weymouth, who will report to Graham.

Although relations between the paper and the Web site have been difficult at times, Downie said that is changing.

"The two newsrooms have been working increasingly closely together, as can be seen most recently in coverage of the presidential election campaign in the paper and on the Web site," he said.

"Our unique organization of the last 11 years, with The Post and WPNI reporting separately to me, has been my doing," Graham said at yesterday's meeting. "I apologize to those of you who have been frustrated by this organization, and that has been all of you; its results have been my defense. But everyone on both sides of the river, including Caroline [Little], has now told me to change it somewhat, and I am doing so."

The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, which represents several hundred Post employees, said it is looking forward to examining the terms of the buyout. The Post's newsroom has slightly fewer than 785 full-time equivalent staffers, down from a peak of 908 in 2003.

"The Guild is concerned that the ongoing shrinkage of the newsroom may lead to a decline in the quality of journalism here," said Rick Weiss, a science reporter for The Post and a co-chairman of the Guild's Post unit. "But to the extent that cutbacks are necessitated, we're proud that the union contract here, which protects workers against layoffs, pushes the company down the path of offering voluntary buyouts."

At the College Park plant, nearly 70 of the employees are non-union press operators. The remaining 180 workers are represented by five unions.

Communications Workers of America Local 14201 represents between 30 and 40 mailers at the College Park plant, and President Mark Pullium expects they will be transferred to the Springfield plant. But that will lead to a shuffling of seniority, and he expects some of his workers to be bumped down to "sub" status, meaning they are not guaranteed a full work week, which can lead to a loss of benefits.

"It kind of turns everything into a mess," said Pullium, whose local has worked without a contract for nearly five years and recently bought bus ads in Washington criticizing Graham. "Now with Bo gone, that's another Graham I'm dealing with," he said, referring to Weymouth.

Mike Murphy, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers, which represents six workers at the College Park plant, said his union expected the plant's eventual closing. The workers have a seniority clause in their contracts, Murphy said, which means they are likely to be sent to Springfield.