A Newspaper, and a Legacy, Reordered
ON a Sunday in early December, Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of The Washington Post, summoned some of the newspapers most celebrated journalists to a lunch at his home, a red brick arts-and-crafts style in the suburb of Bethesda, Md. . .
He wanted to know how they thought The Post was covering the 2012 election and what might be improved. The paper, they told him, needed to strike a better balance between the ferocious 24/7 news cycle and more ambitious longer-term projects. Newsroom morale was suffering and needed his attention.
The meeting was an unusual gesture from Mr. Brauchli. In the nearly three and a half years since he became the first outsider to run the paper in seven decades, he has often fought perceptions that he is inattentive to concerns of his staff members.
But Mr. Brauchli is acutely aware of the tension that lies at the heart of his mission a tension being faced not just by newspapers but by media companies in music, film, books, magazines and television. He is charged with maintaining the standards and legacy of a great institution in this case, the newspaper of Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee and Mr. Woodward and Carl Bernstein while confronting the harsh reality that in the digital age, the grandeur is gone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/business/media/the-washington-post-recast-for-a-digital-future.html?hp