This Sunday, March 12, The Washington Post Magazine will share with readers that it will no longer host the annual Peeps contest or Post Hunt. Below is the editor’s note from Magazine Deputy Editor David Rowell.
One, you try to publish a mix of stories that keep readers eager to come back next week. You have columnists whose personalities readers get to know over a long period of time. And sometimes you step outside the pages themselves and create an event.
For 10 years The Washington Post featured a Peeps contest, in which people from all over created dioramas depicting scenes that reflected the country as they saw it, but populated with marshmallow bunnies and chicks.
Hard journalism this was not, but for us the contest offered its own sweet rewards. As fewer submissions began to come in, though, echoing the decline in readership of this feature, we knew that it was time to let bunnies be free again, and we have ended the Peeps contest run.
For now, another long tradition, the Post Hunt — the wacky brainchild of Dave Barry, Gene Weingarten and Tom Shroder — won’t be found this year in these pages or in the streets of Washington because the Hunt couldn’t get a sponsor. But we want to thank all the many people who puzzled along with us and devoted to it so much energy and support.
-David Rowell, deputy editor