NY Observer > The Washington Post Company http://www.observer.com/taxonomy/term/24257/feed Articles from Observer.com en Black and White, Red All Over: Is 2008 the Worst Year in Modern Newspaper History? http://www.observer.com/2008/media/black-and-white-red-all-over-2008-worst-year-modern-newspaper-history On Wednesday morning at 11 a.m., Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson will be managing a conference call that, from the looks of it, won't be much fun.   They'll be reporting The New York Times Company's second-quarter earnings. Last time they did one of quarterly earnings calls, The Times reported big losses; there was a plan to cut 100 newsroom jobs, some through straight-up layoffs rather than superannuation and retirement deals.   And in the past few weeks, it's only gotten worse: the company's stock has fallen to a decade low, and tumbled more than 15 percent in just this month.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/media/black-and-white-red-all-over-2008-worst-year-modern-newspaper-history#comments Media Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Katharine Weymouth News Corporation Ltd. Rupert Murdoch Sam Zell The Los Angeles Times The New York Times The New York Times Company The Tribune Company The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post The Washington Post Company Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:08:19 -0400 John Koblin 72099 at http://www.observer.com Report: Washington Post Achieves 10 Percent Staff Reduction Through Buyouts http://www.observer.com/2008/report-buyouts-account-10-percent-staff-reduction-washington-post

This holiday weekend will be bittersweet for 100 Washington Post employees: They've each accepted buyouts in order to reduce the newsroom by 10 percent, according to Frank Ahrens of The Washington Post.

After the jump, a partial list of departing staffers, according to Aherns:  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/report-buyouts-account-10-percent-staff-reduction-washington-post#comments The Washington Post Company Fri, 23 May 2008 16:48:11 -0400 Matt Haber 69636 at http://www.observer.com Update: Glasser Out at WaPo; Some Colleagues 'Appeared Joyous' http://www.observer.com/2008/update-glasser-out-wapo-some-colleagues-appeared-joyous

And here's that Susan Glasser update we promised. Adding to Michael Calderone's Politico report that The Washington Post's Assistant Managing Editor Susan Glasser had been let go, The New York Times' David Stout confirms that she was removed "because of poor morale among her subordinates." (In an update to his original item, Calderone wrote, "Glasser’s bedside manner was a problem" and that some Posties "appeared joyous at the news" of her departure.)

In a repeatedly updated post on Mediabistro's FishbowlDC, Patrick W. Gavin gives a timeline of Glasser's career at The Post, while in a blog post on his paper's site, City Paper's Eric Wemple has promised he will be "aggressively updating this story" as it continues.

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/update-glasser-out-wapo-some-colleagues-appeared-joyous#comments Susan Glasser The Washington Post Company Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:45:47 -0400 Matt Haber 68209 at http://www.observer.com Report: Susan Glasser Out at WaPo http://www.observer.com/2008/report-susan-glasser-out-wapo

Politico's Michael Calderone is reporting that Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Susan Glasser is being replaced by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

According to a 'Dept. of Media' column by Eric Wemple in The Washington City Paper from July 18, 2007, "Ever since [her hiring], Glasser’s boss can’t stop talking about her vision. 'Susan is one of our most talented and visionary journalists,' said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. at the time. In a recent interview, he said, 'Susan has a strong vision and that is one of the reasons she got this job, and I’m pleased to see that she’s carrying it out.'"  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/report-susan-glasser-out-wapo#comments Rajiv Chandrasekaran Susan Glasser The Washington Post Company Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:52:12 -0400 Matt Haber 68195 at http://www.observer.com Leroy Comrie, Jon Stewart and the N-Word http://www.observer.com/node/31789 A reader emails to say that the Daily Show is filming a segment right now with City Councilman Leroy Comrie about his resolution against the N-word.

The segment is expected to air tomorrow.

-- Azi Paybarah]]> http://www.observer.com/node/31789#comments Politics Google Inc. The Washington Post Company Tue, 20 Mar 2007 06:30:23 -0400 Observer Staff 31789 at http://www.observer.com The Morning Read: Monday, March 19, 2007 http://www.observer.com/node/31774 Hillary Clinton said that under her presidency, redeployed troops remaining in Iraq would not stop sectarian violence even if it turned into ethnic cleansing.

Hillary is looking for more support among black women.

Andrew Kirtzman takes a long look at Rudy Giuliani in the Washington Post.

Giuliani defended his law firm's connection to the oil company controlled by Hugo Chavez.

Barack Obama's roots in Hawaii are explored.

Obama and Al Sharpton chatted by phone and buried whatever hatchet might have existed.

Eliot Spitzer's argument against the hospital lobby could be a road map for his fight against the teachers union.

Several upstate county governments, which receive state aide, have hired Sheldon Silver's law firm.

The state has been tampering with the natural spring water in Saratoga Springs. Rival studies give top honors to New York and London for financial competitiveness.

The Bloomberg administration is adjusting its strategy on homelessness.

Some legislative staffers in Albany are making six-figure salaries and have access to state-owned cars.

Union leaders in New Jersey say their contract negotiations are being undermined because the governor had a personal relationship with influential labor leader Carla Katz.

And New York's fanciest postal code is getting smaller. -- Azi Paybarah ]]> http://www.observer.com/node/31774#comments Politics Andrew Kirtzman Barack Obama Hillary Clinton The Washington Post Company Mon, 19 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0400 Observer Staff 31774 at http://www.observer.com The Morning Read: Friday, February 23, 2007 http://www.observer.com/node/31545 Rudy Giuliani seeks friendly audiences and doesn't get tough questions on the campaign trail, according to the New York Times.

He's more aggressive on the fund-raising trail, aiming for $10 million in the next six weeks.

Bill Clinton made about $40 million for paid speeches in the last six years, according to the Washington Post.

Eliot Spitzer said that health care unions running ads against him are opposed to changing the state's expensive health care system.

City officials will back away from their plan to cut 17 bus routes as part of a major school transportation overhaul.

Aides to Councilman-elect Mathieu Eugene of Brooklyn said he has a signed lease for an apartment in the district, and that he has repaid himself $30,000 he lent the campaign.

County Executive Tom Suozzi is exempt from a new policy in Nassau that lets only law enforcement personnel use lights and sirens en route to emergencies.

Anthony Weiner filed paperwork for a possible mayoral run in 2009.

And New Paltz Mayor Jason West is running for re-election, but without the slate of candidates he ran with in 2003. -- Azi Paybarah]]> http://www.observer.com/node/31545#comments Politics Bill Clinton Rudolph Giuliani The New York Times Company The Washington Post Company Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:00:00 -0500 Observer Staff 31545 at http://www.observer.com The Morning Read: Friday, February 16, 2007 http://www.observer.com/node/31472 If Eliot Spitzer's plan to flip control of the state Senate to the Democrats works, landlords should beware.

Mike Bloomberg was "curt, testy and defensive" when speaking with reporters yesterday about the snow, according to the Times.

The Daily News editorial board said the mayor can "redeem" himself by throwing out parking tickets.

Christine Quinn's call for education reform and a $300 rebate for renters in a speech yesterday sounded like "a blueprint for a potential mayoral campaign".

City Comptroller Bill Thompson switched his position on a plan for schools to use Randalls Island Park after making an agreement with Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, reports Juan Gonzalez.

City cops can't videotape people at public gatherings anymore, says a federal judge.

Chuck Schumer wants to block the $1.3 billion sale of Starret City in Brooklyn.

Rudy Giuliani will speak at a school founded by the conservative Rev. Pat Roberts.

The Post editorial board said Hillary's hiring of a consulting firm associated with a politician who later endorsed her was "odiferous, but legal."

And in a Washington Post op-ed, writer Marjorie Valbrun asks, "If American blacks can view black South Africans thousands of miles away as brothers in need of their support, why are they having such a hard time seeing Obama as one of their own?"

-- Azi Paybarah]]> http://www.observer.com/node/31472#comments Politics Christine Quinn Eliot Spitzer Michael Bloomberg The Washington Post Company Fri, 16 Feb 2007 04:00:00 -0500 Observer Staff 31472 at http://www.observer.com How Two Jewish Publishers Who Privately Opposed Zionism Folded http://www.observer.com/node/33634 In her 1997 autobiography, the late Katharine Graham of the Washington Post described her father as an assimilating Jew who didn't talk about his Jewishness to his Episcopal-church-going children. He was "involved in Jewish charities, causes, and international issues.

"He was not a Zionist, however, believing strongly that he was an American citizen first and foremost."

That's odd. Her father, the financier Eugene I. Meyer Jr., who bought the Washington Post in the 1930s, is a figure in Zionist history. Behind the scenes, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis turned to Meyer again and again for money to support the Jewish settlement in Palestine. Meyer met with Brandeis's Zionist klatches, personally lobbied his friend FDR on their account, and agreed to head the University Zionist society—an organization to build support among Jews on campus (per Brandeis's letters, edited by Melvin Urofsky and David W. Levy, and Peter Grose's Israel in the Mind of America).

So was Katharine Graham lying about her father?

Well, no. Despite Meyer's support, even Brandeis conceded late in life that "his heart was never in Zionism and he did this largely on my account." So Meyer was merely tithing—to something he didn't believe in. This speaks to an interesting feature of the Israel lobby: It has long counted on support from assimilationist Jews who were lukewarm on the idea but went along under pressure from their nationalist Jewish friends.

Consider Meyer's counterpart at the NYT: former publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger. When Sulzberger died in 1968, the Times obit was emphatic about his views. "[Jewishness] was to him a religion, not a nationality. He did not believe Jews to be a race or a people, and, like Mr. Ochs [his father-in-law], was deeply opposed to the Zionism movement..."

Deeply opposed. Successful assimilating German Jews like Sulzberger and Meyer loved America. They were becoming big deals in the land of opportunity, they didn't quite see the point of Zionism—though they knew that Eastern European Jews who had fled pogroms were excited by it.

Sulzberger flirted with public declarations of his anti-Zionism. According to Thomas Kolsky's splendid history, Jews Against Zionism, in the 1940s, Sulzberger helped draft the mission statement of the anti-Zionist Jewish organization, the American Council for Judaism—which opposed "all philosophies that stress the racialism, the nationalism and the homelessness of the Jews, as injurious to their interests." Wow.

But in the end Sulzberger dithered and didn't sign on publicly. He wanted to, he told the Reform rabbis who headed the group. But till it got a big following, he just couldn't do so. It would hurt the integrity of the newspaper. Chicken.

Besides, the nascent Israel lobby was already on the Times' case, accusing it of being "a transmission belt for anti-Zionist propaganda." This ticked Sulzberger off. He said the viciousness of the Zionists' attacks were a big reason he had converted to anti-Zionism!

What is my point? Here are two powerful Jews, one a non-Zionist, the other anti-, controlling two of the most important newspapers, and both are afraid to express their views. Some may call that professionalism, I call it abdication: they were holding back on a central issue of the time. The publishers of the New Republic and the New York Sun and Commentary would never cheat their readers of their views of Israel, that's their raison d'etre.

Why didn't these men express their views? I think they were ashamed of their assimilation. And they were outplayed by the nationalists in their community. Kolsky says that the Zionists beat the anti-Zionists not on the issues, but by outsmarting them. They put them on the defensive by saying they were unrepresentative or "self-hating." They allowed them to piously play by the rules—no lobbying! the anti-Zionists declared— while the Zionists were working the White House. Give them credit. Today the Israel lobby works the cloakrooms and paints anyone who criticizes the intimacy of the U.S.-Israel relationship as an anti-Semite; and liberal Jews sigh and walk away.

Lately Richard Cohen of the Washington Post admitted regretfully that the creation of Israel was a "mistake." Sixty years ago a group of Reform anti-Zionist Jews were saying just that: that a Jewish state was an anachronism, it would result in endless violence in the Middle East, and would require support from Jews here, which would make those Jews confused about their allegiance. The two publishers evidently shared many of these views but couldn't take a stand.

So what was the position of liberal assimilating Jews in the Zionist movement? Just what Stokely Carmichael said the position of women was in the black power movement: prone.

]]> http://www.observer.com/node/33634#comments Arthur Hays Sulzberger Eugene T. Meyer Israel The Washington Post Company Sat, 06 Jan 2007 07:53:02 -0500 Observer Staff 33634 at http://www.observer.com The Morning Read: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 http://www.observer.com/node/30981 As you may have heard, Joe Bruno held a press conference yesterday afternoon to announce he was under investigation by the F.B.I. Bruno said he made the disclosure after learning that reporters had discovered the existence of the probe.

The Post's Fred Dicker says he was digging around Bruno's consulting firm, Capital Business Consultants.

The Daily News says it's all about his relationship to businessman Jared Abbruzzese.

Flashback: The Times had an investigative piece on Bruno's relationship to Abbruzzese, who is bidding for a contract to operate the state's horse racing tracks, on Saturday.

The investigation "doesn't come as a shock," says the Post editorial page, more in sorrow than in anger.

Bruno's business dealings "demand a close look by Cuomo," says the News' editorial page, more in anger than in sorrow.

The old gang--Peter Powers, Randy Mastro, Howard Safir, Andrew Eristoff--all turned out for Rudy's $2,100-a-plate fundraiser at the Mariott Marquis in Times Square.

Not coincidentally, John McCain released a list of 57 important New York supporters.

Newsday says the turnout for Rudy's event "appeared to fall short" of what was neccessary to raise $1 million.

The Washington Post warns that conservatives and "activists in key primary states are skeptical" about a Rudy run.

Mayor Bloomberg is casting doubt on the city's ability to raise the funds neccessary to host the 2008 Democratic Convention.

Republican Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore is considering a run for president.

Rahm Emmanuel's successor at the DCCC will be Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen.

The Albany DA confirms he is negotiating a plea deal with Alan Hevesi.

"He can either go to Florida or go to Attica," a "high-ranking Democrat" tells the News.

Sheldon Silver is poised to approve the Atlantic Yards project, the Post reports.

Eliot Spitzer isn't getting his first choice to be health commissioner.

Ellis Henican says it's time for Peter Kalikow and the MTA to take over the Long Island Railroad.

--Andrew Rice]]> http://www.observer.com/node/30981#comments Politics Andrew Eristoff Federal Bureau of Investigation Joe Bruno The Washington Post Company Wed, 20 Dec 2006 03:42:56 -0500 Observer Staff 30981 at http://www.observer.com