Ask the Post: Managing Editor Raju Narisetti takes your questions

Washington Post managing editor Raju Narisetti takes your questions about the newspaper, Web site and the current state of the news industry.

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Raju Narisetti: Thanks for joining me this Monday afternoon for the next hour or so. Lets get rolling.

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St. Cloud, Minn.: I was very sorry indeed to see the demise of the Washington Post Weekly edition. The Web site is very nice, but I liked being able to sit down with the paper edition!

The Post shifted the remainder of my subscription to Newsweek. I was startled to see how little news the latter contains -- it reads like a collection of opinion columns, mostly written by people who have lots of opinions but don't seem to have much expertise. I hope such foolishness is not the future of print journalism.

Raju Narisetti: Thanks for the comments. I will forward them to Newsweek. In general, many "news" magazines have shifted to more analysis, opinions and columns as newspapers, reacting to the web, have become more of a daily news magazine.

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Foggy Bottom: I have subscribed to the Post for 40 years and use its website as my home page. I would like to urge you to discontinue the practice of allowing "comments" following articles that appear on your Web site. They rarely add value or extend the topic of discussion in useful ways. They are often alarmingly hateful diatribes and the Post is ill served by their presence on its Web site.

Raju Narisetti: Thank you for this observation. I do believe that the web offers a forum/venue to engage readers and comments play a critical role in that. We have guidelines (listed on the site) and have moderators who delete comments that don't meet those guidelines. But ever so often our ability to monitor is outpaced by the sheer volume of comments. We keep searching for both technological and other solutions to this issue. The question often is whether putting higher hurdles--for instance, asking for real names/emails/pictures--of participants will help keep the debate more "civil" or will it reduce the propensity to engage with stories/authors. Any creative suggestions that you have are very welcome.

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Washington, DC: Thanks for this chat. Why does the WP website still show Car Talk on the front page (under Cars)? Apparently the Post does not carry the column in the print edition anymore nor is the link current. It dates to July 2009 which I assume is when the Post stopped paying for Car Talk. I miss it and wish you would bring it back. But if that is not going to happen, the link should be removed.

Raju Narisetti: Thanks for flagging this. We don't remove content from the website unless it violates any of our guidelines. We could, however, note more clearly if something is a link to archived and not current material. Warren Brown still does a popular weekly column in print and his chat online remains quite popular.

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Washington, D.C.: Did you attend the White House State Dinner that was crashed by the Salahis? Any inside scoop you can give us? Were you put in an odd position as an attendant at what turned into a huge D.C. story.

Raju Narisetti: I did attend it. Suspect my being of Indian-origin had something to do with the invite. We wrote so much about this amazing saga that are you sure you want more? :-) I think Reliable Source has done a terrific job so far highlighting the issues involving the Salahis and the dinner as well as another alleged uninvited guest. While fun to read, this incidents also raised serious issues about White House security in general, don't you think?

The dinner was quite relaxed and fun, once you got past the pomp and circumstance. I was able to later help our reporters in terms of vetting some of the information that was being given to them--about the look and feel of the invitation, the procedures inside--but beyond that they really dug out all the facts on their own.

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Alexandria, Va.: Why is searching for new jobs so difficult online from you site?

Raju Narisetti: The job searches part of the jobs section is handled by our business side, Alexandria, VA...if you can give me some specific examples of the problems you have encountered, I will gladly pass them on. I am sure they would very much appreciate this feedback and will also be happy to put them in touch with you via email if you want.

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Alexandria, Va.: I do not find the "Going Out Guide" to be very useful, since most of the (smaller) classical music concerts that are listed in the Weekend section never appear in the Guide. Please do not discontinue those listings in "Weekend", thinking that the "Guide" now serves the same purpose. It does, but it is far less complete.

Raju Narisetti: Thanks. There are no plans to discontinue the listings in Weekend and over time we would like to make sure that everything that is listed in Weekend is also available and easy to find in goingoutguide.com. Both offerings are now under the same terrific editor, Tracy Grant, who is pushing very hard to expand the listings online as well. There are some technical issues--both weekend and goingoutguide have different databases, for instance--that we are trying to resolve as quickly as we can. Question for you--have you checked out revamped goingoutguide feature on our local homepage? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local.html

Please do so and let us know what you think.

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New Local Homepage: How much longer will the "new local home page" still be considered "new"? What's the moratorium on the use of "new" to describe a feature.

Raju Narisetti: Good question...we think of it as a "beta", geekspeak for something that is still very much evolving, often based on feedback from users. And the Local team has a bunch of new features and offerings coming your way via that page. In some ways we hope to always keep it "new" and interesting and useful, even if we stop calling it new.

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Washinton, DC: The PostPoints program is a waste of time for customers and probably a waste of money for the Post. It is almost impossible to earn enough points to generate anything of value. Can we expect any improvements?

Raju Narisetti: All marketing and other programs continue to be looked at very closely, especially in tough economic times, and since it has been around for a while, I suspect it does provide value to participants. But I am afraid it is a business side program and news is not directly involved in how the points are awarded/decided. Am going to forward this to the relevant marketing head.

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washingtonpost.com: The Obamas' first state dinner

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Silver Spring MD: Sir, I am acutely aware of the financial situation facing print newspapers, but do you really think that in the current economic situation and in an era of declining subscriptions it is wise of the Washington Post to RAISE its delivered newspaper charges? I am truly considering dropping my subscription.

Raju Narisetti: Thank you for the question. The reality is that the cost of producing and delivering the news continues to rise. One thing to note is that we have not had a material increase in our Sunday home delivery price in nearly 10 years. The basic home delivery rate in the Washington market is now $.59 per day and $1.85 on Sundays, though as with any publication prices vary depending on subscription type. I do hope that you find that at that price, The Post remains an incredible value, and it does cost less than most other major metro market papers.

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Alexandria, Va.: It is great that so many WaPo editors are willing to host Q&A sessions from time to time, and even nicer that so many maintain blogs. One who has never done either, however, is the person who is in charge of the comics section. The Web site has a very nice Comic Riffs blog, but the editor never participates in it, and the fans there feel (with some justification) that their complaints go not only unanswered but also unheard. An editor's explaining "Here is what we do with the comics and why we do it that way," would be very useful in addressing those issues.

Raju Narisetti: hi...as someone incharge of the Features sections of the paper, I guess I am, ultimately, the editor responsible for the comics section as well. Glad you like Comic Riffs..its author Michael Cavna, in addition to having a day job as an editor in Style, keeps a close eye on all things comics and is actually a pretty good advocate for all the Post comics fans out there. And he still has good reporting chops and "breaks" news about any decisions we are even thinking of making about comics. So feel free to reach out to Michael via Comic Riffs for specific questions about Post comics.

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Bethesda, MD: The Post seems to be behind in bringing news to mobile devices. Without an iPhone, Android or Blackberry app, how do you expect your readers to keep up when away from their desktops?

Raju Narisetti: Hi. Actually our mobile site, which you can access from any of the devices you mention, is pretty good, I think. That is how I start my morning each day. So do try it out. Meanwhile, we should be coming out with an iPhone app in this quarter.

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Richmond, Va.: I would like the Post to consider starting a newspaper in metropolitan Richmond. You already cover Virgina politics and Northern Virginia. It will be easy to have a "Richmond Post" for the Richmond area.

My feeling is there will be a substantial market for a progressive newspaper with high journalistic standards.

Raju Narisetti: Thanks for this...I do feel like we publish a "progressive paper with high journalistic standards" each day. The circulation decision is a complicated one given all the costs and logistics involved in doing a more focused local edition of the Post. Given the current economic climate, I am not sure the business side has the appetite to look at a new Richmond Post but am going to pass this on.

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Arlington, VA: Will The Washington Post have a product available on the new Apple tablet?

Raju Narisetti: Hopefully as soon as Apple lets us offer one. Difficult to predict since we too don't know many of the details behind the tablet.

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Free for All, Va.: The Saturday edition of the Post includes the "Free for All" page in the Letters section, pointing out all manner of embarrassing gaffes at the paper.

Do the writers or editors see those letters before or after publication? Is there a system in place to make sure they know they've been critiqued by sharp-eyed readers? I love reading the section, but wonder if the comments have any effect on the guilty parties.

Raju Narisetti: Letters are handled by an editor whose full time job is to deal with reader letters. They are almost always flagged to relevant reporters/editors and if a letter flags an error, our policy is to run a correction as well.

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Washington, D.C.: With the news that the NYT is going to a paywall at the start of 2011, what is the likelihood that the Post will also? Or is there an expectation that Post traffic will increase as the Times's decreases?

Raju Narisetti: Like most media companies, we believe that our content has value to both readers and advertisers and do want to find ways to get paid for the costs we incur to generate such content--in print and online. Much like subscriptions and advertisements pay for a print paper, it would be good to have a model where both advertisers and readers pay online. But, while we continue to keep a close eye on such announcements as well as some emerging models, no decisions have been made about charging for washington post content online. But, stay tuned.

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Vienna, Va.: I find the web page very slow to load. It takes long enough to first appear, but even then you can't do anything while you sit and wait for all of the ads to load.

Raju Narisetti: Our tech guys keep a close and constant eye on web page loads and find that we are very much in the normal range for news sites. The challenge is that it is very hard to replicate a particular user's experience as that is often dependent on the computer, the bandwidth. How long does it take, by the way? And does it happen just with washingtonpost.com?

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Wilmington, N.C.: Hi, well, I've been living under a rock. Have recently awoken and just have to say I thoroughly enjoy the Web edition. I live in the Carolinas. Enjoy the chats, articles, tweets, fit etc. Thank you for enhancing my life.

Raju Narisetti: hi wilmington...even if the newspaper business finds itself between a rock and a hard place these days in terms of free vs paid content, we do belive we put out a pretty good website. Glad that you are enjoying it.

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McLean, Va.: With the Post's closing its domestic bureaus, including the one in Los Angeles, will you be able to continue covering television and movie entertainment news as closely as you have in the past?

The NBC/Leno/O'Brien saga has America enthralled, and it would be a shame for The Post to have to rely on reprinting second-hand wire-service reports rather than getting the latest from the horse's... er, mouth.

washingtonpost.com: The TV Column

Raju Narisetti: In Lisa de Moraes we have one of the finest tv and entertainment news reporters/columnists. She will continue to cover the industry as closely as she did before and now throw in some strong coverage of the local DC tv scene as well. So no worries on that front. We have, in any given week, between 3-5 reporters/critics/columnists who are focused on the tv industry so you will continue to see robust coverage in the Post that will be supplemented by AP/Reuters and other relevant sources when it makes sense.

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Curious: The online chat hosts often apologize for not answering more questions in the time they have. With the hundreds of questions your most popular hosts get, how do you choose which ones get answered? Is the decision different when a guest star hosts a chat? Does the guest get to choose which questions he wants to answer?

Raju Narisetti: Am afraid you are asking the wrong host...Our stars such as Carolyn Hax probably do have this problem but lowly managing editors typically get dozens of questions and answer almost all of them :-) The reason why some folks who ask questions might feel their questions were not answered is often because a similar question was responded to during the chat. Most hosts get to pick the questions they want to answer and try to cover a broad range of topics.

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Post Apocalypse: What are your thoughts on The New Republic's takedown of The Washington Post? Dana Milbank's response on Sunday was decent if overly defensive. Has the New Republic piece sparked any internal discussions about how to right the ship?

washingtonpost.com: TNR -- Post Apocalypse

Milbank -- Not too bad as apocalypses go

Raju Narisetti: We all know we have been sailing in choppy waters for the newspaper business and how to navigate them well is a constant topic of discussion. We didn't need The New Republic to spark internal discussions especially since there wasn't anything there that wasn't something we were aware of, if that.

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Alexandria, Va.: Mr. Narisetti,

I was recently informed of a change to the price of my home delivery subscription a week after it took effect. Because of the billing cycle, any notification of this change prior to its implementation would have allowed me to cancel my subscription (as I've been considering for 6 months) prior to being billed the higher rate. Is this a standard practice for the Washington Post?

Raju Narisetti: Hi. Am not fully aware of the policy so will flag the circulation dept about this. Feel free to drop them an email as well with your specific information. you can reach them at homedelivery@washingtonpost.com. Other ways to reach them are listed on A4 of today's paper.

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New York, NY: I just wanted to stress how much I love the online content, especially the chats, that you guys offer. I moved out of the DC area almost 10 years ago but still continue to read WaPo online because of these features. Please do all you can to continue to support them, they really make this site stand out from the competition.

Raju Narisetti: thank you. a vast majority of our online readers come from outside the DC area so we are very aware of the need to keep that audience happy as well.

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State College, Pa.: Following up on the mobile site question, here's a comment to forward to your website design team. Displaying a simplified Web site on mobile devices is a good idea, but some thought should go into the browser detection. A few months ago, the simplified Web site started showing up in Opera Mini. Opera Mini is perfectly capable of displaying the full Web site (minus flash), and this capability is the entire purpose of using the browser over the less-capable built-in ones that come with many phones.

If your designers are not able to account for the browser being used, there should at least be a link at the TOP of the mobile site that allows the user to quickly load the full site.

Raju Narisetti: Thanks..have just emailed your comments to the mobile tech/design team as well.

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On Success: I have sampled your On Successblog a few times, maybe every other week, and wonder why the woman reporter, Avis Thomas Lester represents success -- one blog about what she's making for her family's holiday meal, a rip-off of "A Visit From St Nicholas" (talk about stale!) another about her plight at work. The Internet is filled with discourse of all kinds, I would think the Post would want to add quality and rise above the whining, not add to it. What purpose does the On Success blogspot serve?

Raju Narisetti: Hi. Hope you have also engaged the writer on the blog so she is aware of the feedback. It is a relatively new feature/blog that is aimed at highlighting "success" in many areas and not just using traditional definition of success. I will also pass on your comments.

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pay for online post: I subscribe to the paper edition and have for years, but I would pay a little more if I could get the online version with no ads. I go to the Web site several times during the day and it is really annoying sometimes with the invasive ads. I think people would pay a fee to get the same site, just without ads.

Raju Narisetti: Thanks. If, for example, we were to print a paper without any ads, there is simply now way Washington Post would survive unless we charged way, way more per copy each day. In some ways the web is similar. Our standards for "invasive" ads is actually significantly higher than many news sites and I am constantly pushing back, with a fair amount of success, on what I see as really intrusive ads. I do wonder if readers will be willing to pay a substantial premium for a news site without any ads, given everything is free. We get so much pushback on prices for a paper that costs less than $5 a week even as we happily pay $5 for a Starbucks latte. But your larger point about invasive ads is something that the news side is very aware of.

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Washington, DC: A comment about a paywall. I would pay for internet access to the news side of the Post, but not for the op-ed side, since I never vote for any candidates that you endorse in general elections anyway and your opinion columnists only raise my blood pressure. If you're going to force me to pay for the latter to get the former, I won't spend the money. Just my two cents (or zero cents, as the case may be).

Raju Narisetti: thank you. good to know. it is possible some people will only pay for the opinions side and not for the news side (which some could see as a commodity)...i suspect multiple pay models will emerge over the next year or two as we all grapple with this issue of how to fund our news generating costs.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I am happy to pay for a paper and get it delivered.

But the copy editing standards at the Post have slipped alarmingly. I'm not a crankbucket, but when I can't go a day without seeing more than one copyediting problem, I wonder what's up.

Hire back some copy editors, please.

Raju Narisetti: yes it can be aggravating to run into errors in addition to hearing from our ombudsman about it. anecdotally we also hear about this being a bigger problem though the overall number of errors have stayed somewhat flat in recent years (not that status quo is good on this front)...part of the solution might be more copyeditors but given all the growing demands of print and online readers, all of us need to get better at it and not expect the copy desk to fix all the issues..you know, the whole garbage in garbage out issue. its hard to promise more copy editors, given the state of our business, but we do want to be less careless and more responsive to errors.

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Arlington, VA: Not the original poster, but I can say that for me at least, load times are painfully slow -10-15 seconds - and yes, it is just with the Post site. MSN, Yahoo, etc. are much faster.

Raju Narisetti: Could those of you who have complained about loading times send me your emails so I can have someone from tech get back to you. Can't promise it will get resolved for everyone given the number of issues at play but at least we can see if there is a systemic issue at our end. my email is narisettir@washpost.com

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Raju Narisetti: Thank you for taking the time to chat. I was flying solo today in part because all three of us--Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, Managing Editor Liz Spayd--plan to do more chats this year. So join one of them or me in other chats planned for 2010. Raju

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Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.