Ten Ways to Keep a Newspaper Strong

(7) When The Post can't cover it all, it can do a better job of putting many stories in local, national and world briefings that can send readers online for details. Not everything has to be in the newspaper. Story selection and page design have to be smart and considerate of readers' time.

(8) Exclusive investigative reporting should be a franchise, concentrating on projects that are intensely meaningful to readers. The Post has not done anything more worthwhile in recent years than uncovering scandalous conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Veterans issues should remain an important topic to cover.

(9) The Post must be a watchdog on local government, business, education, courts, law enforcement and institutions. That historic role must stay strong.

(10) It must also give a strong sense of what it's like to live around the region. Readers like stories that stress the human and humane element of living here. People like to read about people like themselves, not just all the swells in high places.

Readers are the reason the newspaper exists, and The Post has some of the smartest readers -- and leaders -- in the world. How will Weymouth, who is Donald Graham's niece and the namesake of her grandmother Katharine Graham, reconcile all these pushes and pulls? Not easily. Readers and journalists alike should wish her well.

Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or at ombudsman@washpost.com.