The Washington Post
Encyclopedia
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

's largest newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, and Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 editions are printed for daily circulation. The newspaper is published as a broadsheet
Broadsheet
Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...

, with photographs printed both in color and black and white.

Perhaps the most notable incident in The Post history was when, in the early 1970s, reporters Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....

 and Carl Bernstein
Carl Bernstein
Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist who, at The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did the majority of the most important news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations, the indictment of a vast number of...

 led the American media's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...

. The newspaper's reporting greatly contributed to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

. In later years, its investigations led to increased review of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
The Walter Reed Army Medical Center was the United States Army's flagship medical center until 2011. Located on 113 acres in Washington, D.C., it served more than 150,000 active and retired personnel from all branches of the military...

. The newspaper is also known as the namesake of "The Washington Post March
The Washington Post (march)
"The Washington Post" is a march composed by John Philip Sousa in 1889. Since then, it has remained as one of his most popular marches throughout the United States and many countries abroad.-History:...

", the 1889 march
March (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...

 composed by John Phillip Sousa while he was leading the U.S. Marine Band
United States Marine Band
The United States Marine Band is the premier band of the United States Marine Corps. Established by act of Congress on July 11, 1798, it is the oldest of the United States military bands and the oldest professional musical organization in the United States...

; it became the standard music to accompany the two-step
Two-step (dance move)
The two-step is a step found in many folk dances, and in various other dances. It seems to take its name from the 19th century dance related to the Polka....

, a late 19th-century dance craze
Dance Craze
Dance Craze is a 1981 British documentary film about the English 2 Tone music genre.The film was directed by Joe Massot, who originally wanted to do a film only about the band Madness, who he met during their first US tour. Massot later changed his plans to include the whole 2 Tone movement...

.

Since Leonard Downie, Jr.
Leonard Downie, Jr.
Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. , was the executive editor of The Washington Post. He held the position for seventeen years, starting September 1, 1991, after serving as managing editor for seven years. Downie announced his retirement as executive editor on Monday, June 23, 2008 which took effect on...

 was named executive editor in 1991, The Post has won 25 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

s, more than half of the paper's total collection of 47 Pulitzers. This includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008
2008 Pulitzer Prize
The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on April 7, 2008, the 92nd annual awards.The Washington Post won six awards, second only to the seven won by The New York Times in 2002. Three organizations were awarded prizes for the first time: Reuters, Investor's Business Daily and the Concord Monitor...

, the second-highest number of Pulitzers ever given to a single newspaper in one year. The Post has also received 18 Nieman Fellowship
Nieman Fellowship
The Nieman Fellowship is an award given to mid-career journalists by The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. This award allows winners time to reflect on their careers and focus on honing their skills....

s and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards, among others.

The newspaper is owned by The Washington Post Company, an education and media company that also owns Kaplan, Inc.
Kaplan, Inc.
Kaplan, Inc. is a for-profit corporation headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan. Kaplan provides higher education programs, professional training courses, test preparation materials and other services for various levels of education...

 and many media ventures aside from The Post.

Overview

The Post is generally regarded as one of the leading daily American newspapers, along with The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, which is known for its general reporting and international coverage, and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, which is known for its financial reporting
Business journalism
Business journalism is the branch of journalism that tracks, records, analyzes and interprets the economic changes that take place in a society...

. The Post has distinguished itself through its political reporting
Political journalism
Political journalism is a broad branch of journalism that includes coverage of all aspects of politics and political science, although the term usually refers specifically to coverage of civil governments and political power....

 on the workings of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

, Congress, and other aspects of the U.S. government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

.

Unlike the Times and the Journal, the Post does not print an edition for distribution away from the East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

. In 2009, the newspaper ceased publication of its "National Weekly Edition," which combined stories from the week's print editions, due to shrinking circulation. The majority of its newsprint readership is in District of Columbia
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 and its suburbs in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 and Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...

.

The paper's weekday and Saturday printings include the following sections:
  • Main section, containing the front page, national and international news, business, politics, and editorials and opinions
  • Metro section, containing local news
  • Style section, with feature writing on pop culture, politics, fine and performing arts, film, fashion, and gossip, along with advice columns and comics
  • Sports section
  • Classified advertising
    Classified advertising
    Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge...



Sunday editions largely include the weekday sections as well as Outlook (opinion), Arts, Travel, Comics, TV Week, and the Washington Post Magazine. The "Sunday Style" section differs slightly from the weekday Style section; it is in a tabloid format, and it houses the reader-written humor contest The Style Invitational
The Style Invitational
The Style Invitational, or Invite, is a long-running humor contest that ran first in the Style section of the Sunday Washington Post before moving to Saturday's Style and later returning to the Sunday paper. Started in 1993, it has run weekly, except for a hiatus in late 1999...

.

Additional weekly sections appear on weekdays: Health & Science on Tuesday, Food on Wednesday, Local Living (home and garden) on Thursday, and Weekend, with details about upcoming events in the local area, on Friday. The latter two are in a tabloid format.

The Post is one of a few U.S. newspapers with foreign bureaus
News bureau
A News bureau is an office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate geographic location or scope of coverage: a ‘Tokyo bureau’ refers to a given news operation's office in Tokyo; foreign bureau is a generic term for a news office set up...

, located in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, Bogota
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

, Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...

, Jerusalem, Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...

, New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

, and Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. In November 2009, it announced the closure of its U.S. regional bureaus — Chicago, Los Angeles and New York — as part of an increased focus on "political stories and local news coverage in Washington." The paper has local bureaus in Maryland (Annapolis
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...

, Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Maryland
Montgomery County is a county in the U.S. state of Maryland, situated just to the north of Washington, D.C., and southwest of the city of Baltimore. It is one of the most affluent counties in the United States, and has the highest percentage of residents over 25 years of age who hold post-graduate...

, Prince George's County
Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland, immediately north, east, and south of Washington, DC. As of 2010, it has a population of 863,420 and is the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation....

, Southern Maryland
Southern Maryland
Southern Maryland in popular usage is composed of the state's southernmost counties on the "Western Shore" of the Chesapeake Bay. This region includes all of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties and sometimes the southern portions of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties.- History...

) and Virginia (Alexandria
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...

, Fairfax
Fairfax, Virginia
The City of Fairfax is an independent city forming an enclave within the confines of Fairfax County, in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Although politically independent of the surrounding county, the City is nevertheless the county seat....

, Loudoun County
Loudoun County, Virginia
Loudoun County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and is part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the county is estimated to be home to 312,311 people, an 84 percent increase over the 2000 figure of 169,599. That increase makes the county the fourth...

, Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

, and Prince William County
Prince William County, Virginia
-National protected areas:* Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge* Manassas National Battlefield Park* Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge* Prince William Forest Park-Government and politics:...

).

, its average weekday circulation was 582,844, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, making it the fifth largest newspaper in the country by circulation, behind USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

. While its circulation (like that of almost all newspapers) has been slipping, it has one of the highest market-penetration rates of any metropolitan news daily.

The paper is part of The Washington Post Company, a diversified education and media company that also owns educational services provider Kaplan, Inc.
Kaplan, Inc.
Kaplan, Inc. is a for-profit corporation headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan. Kaplan provides higher education programs, professional training courses, test preparation materials and other services for various levels of education...

, Post-Newsweek Stations
Post-Newsweek Stations
Post-Newsweek Stations is the official name of the broadcasting division of the Washington Post Company and is a self-contained corporation within that company...

, Cable One
Cable One
Cable ONE is a United States cable service provider and subsidiary of The Washington Post Company, functioning as its own self-contained corporation within its parent company. The company's name and current focus dates back to 1997; prior to that time the company was known as Post-Newsweek Cable...

, the online magazine Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

, The Gazette
The Gazette (Maryland)
The Gazette publishes weekly community newspapers serving Montgomery, Frederick, Prince George's and Carroll counties in Maryland, including a subscription-based weekend edition covering business and politics throughout the state. The group of papers consistently wins awards from the Suburban...

 and Southern Maryland Newspapers, and The Herald
The Herald (Everett)
The Herald is a newspaper based in Everett, Washington. It is owned by The Washington Post Company. The paper serves as a major news source for residents of Snohomish County.-History:...

, a daily paper in Everett, Washington
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...

. The company also distributes the free daily Express
Express (newspaper)
Express is a free daily newspaper distributed in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is in a tabloid format and is printed every weekday and distributed at Washington Metro stations and other locations throughout the Washington metropolitan area. It is owned and printed by The Washington...

 newspaper in the D.C. area and runs its own syndication
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

 service for its columnists and cartoonists, The Washington Post Writers Group
The Washington Post Writers Group
The Washington Post Writers Group is a press syndication service composed of opinion journalists, editorial cartoonists, comic strips and columnists. The service is operated by the Washington Post.-Writers:...

.

The Post has its main office at 1150 15th St, N.W., and the newspaper has the exclusive ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 20071.

Founding and early period

The paper was founded in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins
Stilson Hutchins
Stilson Hutchins was an American newspaper reporter and publisher, best known as founder of the Washington Post.Hutchins was born in Whitefield, Coos County, New Hampshire, on 14 November 1838, the son of Stilson Eastman and Clara Eaton Hutchins...

 and in 1880 added a Sunday edition, thus becoming the city's first newspaper to publish seven days a week. In 1889, Hutchins sold the paper to Frank Hatton, a former Postmaster General, and Beriah Wilkins, a former Democratic congressman from Ohio. To promote the paper, the new owners requested the leader of the Marine Band, John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....

, to compose a march for the newspaper's essay contest awards ceremony. Sousa composed The Washington Post
The Washington Post (march)
"The Washington Post" is a march composed by John Philip Sousa in 1889. Since then, it has remained as one of his most popular marches throughout the United States and many countries abroad.-History:...

, which remains one of his best-known works. In 1899, during the Spanish–American War, The Post printed Clifford K. Berryman
Clifford K. Berryman
Clifford K. Berryman was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist with the Washington Star newspaper from 1907-1949. He was also a cartoonist for The Washington Post from 1891-1907....

's classic illustration Remember the Maine, which became the battle-cry for American sailors during the War. In 1902, Berryman published another famous cartoon in The Post— "Drawing the Line in Mississippi." This cartoon depicts President Theodore Roosevelt showing compassion for a small bear cub and inspired New York store owner Morris Michtom
Morris Michtom
Morris Michtom was a Russian Jewish immigrant, who with his wife Rose invented the Teddy Bear.Mitchtom, who arrived in New York in 1887, was selling candy in his shop at 404 Tompkins Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn by day and making stuffed animals with his wife Rose at night. The Teddy Bear...

 to create the teddy bear
Teddy bear
The teddy bear is a stuffed toy bear. They are usually stuffed with soft, white cotton and have smooth and soft fur. It is an enduring form of a stuffed animal in many countries, often serving the purpose of entertaining children. In recent times, some teddy bears have become collector's items...

.

Wilkins acquired Hatton's share of the paper in 1894 at Hatton's death. After Wilkins' death in 1903, his sons John and Robert ran The Post for two years before selling it in 1905 to John Roll McLean
John Roll McLean
John Roll McLean was the owner and publisher of The Washington Post and The Cincinnati Enquirer. McLean was also a one-time partner in the ownership of the Cincinnati Red Stockings baseball team of the American Association and also the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the Union Association.He was born...

, owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer. During the Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 presidency, The Post was credited with the "most famous newspaper typo" in D.C. history according to Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...

 magazine; The Post intended to report that President Wilson had been "entertaining" his future-wife Mrs. Galt, but instead wrote that he had been "entering" Mrs. Galt. When John McLean died in 1916, he put the paper in trust, having little faith that his playboy son Edward "Ned" McLean
Edward Beale McLean
Edward Beale "Ned" McLean was the publisher and owner of the Washington Post newspaper from 1916 until 1933.Edward McLean was born into a publishing fortune founded by his paternal grandfather Washington McLean, who owned the Washington Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer...

 could manage his inheritance. Ned went to court and broke the trust, but, under his management, the paper slumped toward ruin.

Meyer-Graham period

The Washington Post was purchased in a bankruptcy auction in 1933 by a member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors, Eugene Meyer
Eugene Meyer
Eugene Isaac Meyer was an American financier, public official, publisher of the Washington Post newspaper. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. He was the father of publisher Katharine Graham.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, he was one of eight children of...

, who restored the paper's health and reputation. In 1946, Meyer was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law Philip Graham.

In 1954, The Post consolidated its position by acquiring and merging with its last morning rival, the Washington Times-Herald
Washington Times-Herald
The Washington Times-Herald was an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C.. It was created by Cissy Patterson, when she bought the Herald and the Times from William Randolph Hearst, and merged them. The result was a '24 hour' newspaper, with 10 editions per day, from morning to...

. (The combined paper would officially be named The Washington Post and Times-Herald until 1973, although the Times-Herald portion of the masthead became less and less prominent after the 1950s.) The merger left The Post with two remaining local competitors, the afternoon Washington Star
Washington Star
The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C. between 1852 and 1981. For most of that time, it was the city's newspaper of record, and the longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory and...

(Evening Star) and The Washington Daily News
The Washington Daily News
The Washington Daily News was an afternoon tabloid-style newspaper serving the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. In this case, the term "tabloid" is merely a reference to the paper format and does not imply a lack of journalistic standards....

, which merged in 1972 and folded in 1981. The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...

, established in 1982, has been a local rival with a circulation about one-seventh that of The Post.
After Graham's death in 1963, control of The Washington Post Company passed to Katharine Graham
Katharine Graham
Katharine Meyer Graham was an American publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon...

, his wife and Meyer's daughter. No woman had ever run a nationally prominent newspaper in the United States. She described her own anxiety and lack of confidence based on her gender in her autobiography, and she did not assign duties to her daughter at the paper as she did to her son. She served as publisher from 1969 to 1979 and headed The Washington Post Company into the early 1990s as chairman of the board and CEO. After 1993, she retained a position as chairman of the executive committee until her death in 2001.

Her tenure is credited with seeing The Post rise in national stature through effective investigative reporting, most notably to ensure that The New York Times did not surpass its Washington reporting of the Pentagon Papers
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...

 and Watergate scandal. Executive editor Ben Bradlee put the paper's reputation and resources behind reporters Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....

 and Carl Bernstein
Carl Bernstein
Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist who, at The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did the majority of the most important news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations, the indictment of a vast number of...

, who, in a long series of articles, chipped away at the story behind the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...

 offices in the Watergate Hotel
Watergate complex
The Watergate complex is a group of five buildings next to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. in the United States. The site contains an office building, three apartment buildings, and a hotel-office building...

 complex in Washington. The Post dogged coverage of the story, the outcome of which ultimately played a major role in the resignation of President Richard Nixon, won the paper a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 in 1973.

In 1972, the "Book World" section was introduced. It featured Pulitzer Prize winning critics such as Jonathan Yardley
Jonathan Yardley
Jonathan Yardley is a book critic at The Washington Post, and at one time of the Washington Star. In 1981 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.-Background and education:...

 and Michael Dirda
Michael Dirda
Michael Dirda , a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic for the Washington Post.-Career:Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree, Dirda took a Ph.D. from Cornell University in comparative literature. In 1978 Dirda started writing for the...

, the latter of whom established his career as a critic at The Post. In 2009, after 37 years, "Book World" as a standalone insert was discontinued, the last issue being Sunday, February 15, 2009. However, book reviews are still published in the Outlook section on Sundays and in the Style section the rest of the week, as well as online.

In 1980, The Post published a dramatic story called "Jimmy's World", describing the life of an eight-year-old heroin addict in Washington, for which reporter Janet Cooke
Janet Cooke
Janet Leslie Cooke is an American former journalist who became infamous when it was discovered that a Pulitzer Prize–winning story that she had written for The Washington Post had been fabricated.-Early career:...

 won acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

. Subsequent investigation, however, revealed the story to be a fabrication. The Pulitzer Prize was returned.

Donald Graham
Donald E. Graham
Donald E. Graham is chief executive officer and Chairman of The Washington Post Company. He is also the director and chairman of Facebook Inc.- Early life :...

, Katharine's son, succeeded her as publisher in 1979 and in the early 1990s became both chief executive officer and chairman of the board. He was succeeded in 2000 as publisher and CEO by Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr.
Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr.
Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is Vice Chairman of the Washington Post Company. From 2000 to 2008 he was publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post.-Early life:...

, with Graham remaining as chairman.

Post-Graham period

In 1996, the newspaper established a web site.

The Post was slow in moving to color photographs and features. On January 28, 1999, its first color front-page photograph appeared. After that, color slowly integrated itself into other photographs and advertising throughout the paper.

In February 2008, Jones was named chairman of the newspaper, and Katharine Weymouth
Katharine Weymouth
Katharine Bouchage Weymouth is the publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive officer of Washington Post Media.-Family:...

 became publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive officer of Washington Post Media, a new unit that includes The Washington Post and the formerly independent washingtonpost.com.

On July 7, 2008, it was announced that former Wall Street Journal editor Marcus Brauchli
Marcus Brauchli
Marcus W. Brauchli is executive editor of The Washington Post, overseeing the Post's print and digital news operations. He became editor on September 8, 2008, succeeding Leonard Downie, Jr.-Biography:...

 would become the paper's top editor, succeeding Leonard Downie, Jr.
Leonard Downie, Jr.
Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. , was the executive editor of The Washington Post. He held the position for seventeen years, starting September 1, 1991, after serving as managing editor for seven years. Downie announced his retirement as executive editor on Monday, June 23, 2008 which took effect on...

 in September.

In 2010, the paper cited its local focus as a reason for running its first-ever front page advertisement: the Capital One
Capital One
Capital One Financial Corp. is a U.S.-based bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking and savings products...

 ad was being run to draw attention to the rebranding of Chevy Chase Bank
Chevy Chase Bank
Chevy Chase Bank, F.S.B. was the largest locally-based banking company in the Washington Metropolitan Area. It was acquired by Capital One in 2009 and rebranded as Capital One Bank in 2010. Despite its name, Chevy Chase Bank was a federally chartered thrift regulated by the Office of Thrift...

, a bank Capital One bought in 2009. According to the Post's vice president of advertising, the page one advertisement is a "very local, useful-information-for-our-readers type of campaign."

Political stance

In the mid-1970s, some conservatives called The Washington Post "Pravda on the Potomac" due to its perceived left-wing bias in both reporting and editorials, This characterization referred to the official newspaper
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

 of the Soviet communist party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

. Since then, the appellation has been used by both liberal and conservative critics of The Post. In 1963, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

 reportedly told President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

, "I don't have much influence with The Post because I frankly don't read it. I view it like the Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...

."

As Katharine Graham noted in her autobiography Personal History
Personal History
Personal History is the autobiography of Katharine Graham. It was published in 1997 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1998...

, the paper long had a policy of not making endorsements for political candidates. However, since at least 2000, The Washington Post has occasionally endorsed Republican politicians, such as Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich
Robert Ehrlich
Robert Leroy "Bob" Ehrlich, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 60th Governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007. A Republican, he became governor after defeating Democratic opponent Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a member of the Kennedy family, 51% to 48% in the 2002 elections...

. In 2006, it repeated its historic endorsements of every Republican incumbent for Congress in Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...

. There have also been times when The Post has specifically chosen not to endorse any candidate, such as in the 1988 presidential election when it refused to endorse then Governor Michael Dukakis
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...

 or then Vice President George H.W. Bush. On October 17, 2008, The Post endorsed Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

.

The Post editorial positions on foreign policy and economic issues have seen a definitively conservative bent: it steadfastly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, warmed to President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's proposal to partially privatize Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...

, opposed a deadline for U.S. withdrawal from the Iraq War, and advocated free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...

 agreements, including CAFTA.

In "Buying the War" on PBS, Bill Moyers noted 27 editorials supporting George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's ambitions to invade Iraq. National security correspondent Walter Pincus
Walter Pincus
Walter Haskell Pincus is a national security journalist for The Washington Post. He has won several prizes including a Polk Award in 1977, a television Emmy in 1981, the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in association with other Washington Post reporters, and the 2010 Arthur Ross Media...

 reported that he had been ordered to cease his reports that were critical of Republican administrations.

In 1992, the PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 investigative news program Frontline suggested that The Post had moved to the right in response to its smaller, more conservative rival The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...

, which is owned by News World Communications
News World Communications
News World Communications, Inc., is an international news media corporation. It was founded in New York City, in 1976, by Unification Church founder and leader, Sun Myung Moon. Its first two newspapers, The News World and the Spanish-language Noticias del Mundo, were published in New York from...

, an international media conglomerate owned by the Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...

 which also owns newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America. The program quoted Paul Weyrich
Paul Weyrich
Paul M. Weyrich was an American conservativepolitical activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right. He co-founded the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and the Free Congress Foundation, another conservative think tank...

, one of the founders of the conservative activist organization the Moral Majority
Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States which had an agenda of evangelical Christian-oriented political lobbying...

, as saying "The Washington Post became very arrogant and they just decided that they would determine what was news and what wasn't news and they wouldn't cover a lot of things that went on. And The Washington Times has forced The Post to cover a lot of things that they wouldn't cover if the Times wasn't in existence." In 2008, Thomas F. Roeser of the Chicago Daily Observer also mentioned competition from the Washington Times as a factor moving The Post to the right.

On March 26, 2007, Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews
Christopher John "Chris" Matthews is an American news anchor and political commentator, known for his nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC...

 said on his television program, "Well, The Washington Post is not the liberal newspaper it was, Congressman, let me tell you. I have been reading it for years and it is a neocon
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....

 newspaper". It has regularly published an ideological mixture of op-ed columnists, some of them left-leaning (including E.J. Dionne, Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is a liberal American blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, columnist for Bloomberg, a columnist for Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC...

, Greg Sargent, and Eugene Robinson
Eugene Robinson (journalist)
Eugene Harold Robinson is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist and former assistant managing editor for The Washington Post. His columns are syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group...

), and some on the right (including George Will
George Will
George Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...

, Marc Thiessen
Marc Thiessen
Marc A. Thiessen is an American author, columnist and political commentator, who served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld...

, Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan is an American historian and foreign policy commentator.-Early life and education:Kagan graduated from Yale University in 1980 where he was tapped by Skull and Bones, studied history, and founded the Yale Political Monthly. He later earned an MPP from the John F...

, Robert Samuelson, Michael Gerson
Michael Gerson
Michael John Gerson is an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, a Policy Fellow with the ONE Campaign, and a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as President George W...

, and Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer, MD is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. His weekly column appears in The Washington Post and is syndicated to more than 275 newspapers and media outlets. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New...

).

In November 2007, The Post was criticized by independent journalist Robert Parry
Robert Parry
Robert Parry is an American investigative journalist. He was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work with the Associated Press on the Iran-Contra story and uncovered Oliver North's involvement in it as a Washington-based correspondent for Newsweek. In 1995, he...

 for reporting on anti-Obama chain e-mails without sufficiently emphasizing to its readers the false nature of the anonymous claims. In 2009, Parry criticized The Post for its allegedly unfair reporting on liberal politicians, including Vice President Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

 and President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

.

In a November 19, 2008 column, The Washington Post ombudsman
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...

 Deborah Howell
Deborah Howell
Deborah Howell was a long-time newswoman and editor who served for three years as the ombudsman for The Washington Post.Howell is a Board Member In Memoriam at the IWMF ....

 stated: "I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo". Responding to criticism of the newspaper's coverage during the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, Howell wrote: "The opinion pages have strong conservative voices; the editorial board includes centrists and conservatives; and there were editorials critical of Obama. Yet opinion was still weighted toward Obama. It's not hard to see why conservatives feel disrespected".

Commentator Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator before becoming a contributor to Salon.com, where he focuses on political and legal topics...

 has called its Op-Ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...

 page the "leading outlet for neoconservative and related right-wing advocacy".

Notable contributors (past and present)

Sources not listed here can be found on the referenced pages

  • Joel Achenbach
    Joel Achenbach
    Joel Leroy Achenbach is an American staff writer for the Washington Post and the author of seven books, including A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, The Grand Idea, Captured by Aliens, It Looks Like a President only Smaller, and three compilations of his former syndicated newspaper column "Why...

     (writer)
  • Jaehoon Ahn
    Jaehoon Ahn
    Jaehoon Ahn was a North Korean-born American journalist and researcher. Ahn worked as a researcher for the Washington Post for more than twenty-five years, until 1996. He was also the founding director of Radio Free Asia's Korean language service in 1997 and a board member of U.S...

     (researcher, journalist)
  • Anne Applebaum
    Anne Applebaum
    Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is a journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written extensively about communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has been an editor at The Economist, and a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize
    Pulitzer Prize
    The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

    )
  • Marie Arana
    Marie Arana
    Marie Arana is an editor, journalist and author.Born in Peru, the daughter of Jorge Arana, a Peruvian born civil engineer, and Marie Campbell Arana, she moved with her family to the United States at the age of 9, achieved her B.A. in Russian at Northwestern University, her M.A...

     (editor of Book World)
  • Cathy Areu
    Cathy Areu
    Cathy Areu is an American author, journalist and frequent news analyst who has appeared on HLN's Showbiz Tonight, HLN's Prime News, CNN's Campbell Brown, CNN's AC360, Fox News O'Reilly Factor, MSNBC's Daily Countdown and RussiaToday's CrossTalk...

     (contributing editor, "First Person Singular"
  • Peter Baker
    Peter Baker (author)
    Peter Baker is an American author and newspaper reporter, who has worked for both The Washington Post and The New York Times.He attended Oberlin College, and was a reporter for the student newspaper, The Oberlin Review....

     (White House reporter)
  • Dan Balz
    Dan Balz
    Daniel J. Balz is a journalist at The Washington Post, where he has been a political correspondent since 1978. Balz has served as National Editor, Political Editor, White House correspondent and as the Washington Post’s Texas-based Southwest correspondent. Balz sometimes appears on the news show...

     (national political reporter)
  • Rankin Barbee (writer)
  • Carl Bernstein
    Carl Bernstein
    Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist who, at The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did the majority of the most important news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations, the indictment of a vast number of...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Andrew Beyer
    Andrew Beyer
    Andrew Beyer is an American expert on horse race betting who designed what has become known as the Beyer Speed Figure.In the early 1970s, while working for the Washington Daily News, Beyer did extensive work on the concept of speed figures and wrote books that helped popularize their use...

     (horse racing columnist)
  • Herb Block (cartoonist, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Thomas Boswell
    Thomas Boswell
    Thomas M. Boswell is an American sports columnist.Boswell has spent his entire career at the Washington Post, joining it shortly after graduating from Amherst College in 1969. He became a Post columnist in 1984. Writing primarily about baseball, he is credited with inventing the total average...

     (sports columnist)
  • David Broder
    David S. Broder
    David Salzer Broder was an American journalist, writing for The Washington Post for over forty years. He also was an author, television news show pundit, and university lecturer....

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Tina Brown
    Tina Brown
    Tina Brown, Lady Evans, CBE , is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair...

     (writer)
  • Art Buchwald
    Art Buchwald
    Arthur Buchwald was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Ron Charles
    Ron Charles
    Ron Charles is deputy editor and a weekly fiction critic of The Washington Post "Book World", the book review section of the Post...

     (book critic)
  • Rajiv Chandrasekaran
    Rajiv Chandrasekaran
    Rajiv Chandrasekaran is an Indian-American journalist. He is currently the National Editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1994...

     (editor)
  • Chris Cillizza (writer; author of The Fix weblog)
  • Libby Copeland
    Libby Copeland
    Libby Copeland is a staff writer for the Washington Post. She started her career with the Post in 1998 as an intern in the Style department, and now covers Washington politics. In 2005, she was the Feature Specialty Reporting winner for the large circlulation papers in the annual competition held...

     (writer)
  • Richard L. Coe
    Richard L. Coe
    Richard Livingston Coe , born in New York City, was a theatre and cinema critic for The Washington Post for more than fifty years. Coe was renowned for the astute advice he gave to many pre-Broadway try-out companies...

     (theatre critic/writer)
  • Richard Cohen (columnist)
  • Steve Coll
    Steve Coll
    Steve Coll is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and writer. Coll is currently president and CEO of the New America Foundation. Prior to assuming that post on September 17, 2007, Coll was a staff writer for The New Yorker, and served as managing editor of The Washington Post from 1998 to...

     (editor, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Janet Cooke
    Janet Cooke
    Janet Leslie Cooke is an American former journalist who became infamous when it was discovered that a Pulitzer Prize–winning story that she had written for The Washington Post had been fabricated.-Early career:...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize; the prize was returned after her article was found to be fraudulent)
  • Lisa de Moraes
    Lisa de Moraes
    Lisa de Moraes is an American television columnist. Her writings, titled "The TV Column," appear regularly in the Style section of The Washington Post....

     (television columnist)
  • Ann Devroy
    Ann Devroy
    Ann Devroy was an American journalist working for the Washington Post. She covered the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W...

     (award winning journalist)
  • Helen Dewar
    Helen Dewar
    Helen Dewar was a reporter for The Washington Post for 25 years. She worked at the Post for 43 years, rising through the ranks to cover the United States Senate for a quarter of a century .Eric Pianin, a colleague and editor, noted: "She was also a brilliant student of the Senate...

     (Senate political reporter)
  • E.J. Dionne (columnist)
  • Michael Dirda
    Michael Dirda
    Michael Dirda , a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic for the Washington Post.-Career:Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree, Dirda took a Ph.D. from Cornell University in comparative literature. In 1978 Dirda started writing for the...

     (book critic, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Leonard Downie, Jr.
    Leonard Downie, Jr.
    Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. , was the executive editor of The Washington Post. He held the position for seventeen years, starting September 1, 1991, after serving as managing editor for seven years. Downie announced his retirement as executive editor on Monday, June 23, 2008 which took effect on...

     (editor)
  • Michel duCille
    Michel duCille
    Michel duCille is an American photojournalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He shared his first Pulitzer in the 1986 Spot News Photography category with fellow Miami Herald staff photographer Carol Guzy for their coverage of the November 1985 eruption of Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano...

     (photo editor, photographer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • John Feinstein
    John Feinstein
    John Feinstein is an American sportswriter, author and sports commentator who wrote the top two best-selling non-fiction sports books in history, A Good Walk Spoiled and A Season on the Brink.-Early life:...

     (sports columnist)
  • David Finkel
    David Finkel
    David Louis Finkel is an American journalist. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 as a staff writer at the Washington Post. He is currently assigned to the national staff as an enterprise reporter. He has also worked for the Post's foreign staff division...

     (journalist, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Marc Fisher
    Marc Fisher
    Marc Fisher was a columnist for the Washington Post between 2000 and 2009. He is now the Enterprise Editor for the Post. He attended the Horace Mann School and Princeton University. He worked at the Miami Herald from 1981 to 1986. Since then, he has worked at the Washington Post as a reporter,...

     (writer, editor)
  • Thomas Francis Ford, West Coast correspondent, 1913–18
  • Dan Froomkin
    Dan Froomkin
    Dan Froomkin is the Senior Washington Correspondent for the Huffington Post. His work is now collected . He previously wrote a column for the online version of The Washington Post called White House Watch....

     (columnist)
  • Joel Garreau
    Joel Garreau
    Joel Garreau is an American journalist, scholar and author of Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – And What It Means to Be Human, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier and The Nine Nations of North America.In 2010, Garreau became the Lincoln Professor of Law,...

     (writer)
  • Barbara Garson
    Barbara Garson
    Barbara Garson is an American playwright, author and social activist.Garson is best known for the play MacBird, a notorious 1966 counterculture drama/political parody of Macbeth that sold over half a million copies as a book and had over 90 productions world wide...

     (writer)
  • Robin Givhan
    Robin Givhan
    Robin Givhan is the former fashion editor for The Washington Post. She left The Washington Post in 2010 and is now the fashion critic and fashion correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek. She won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, the first such time for a fashion writer...

     (fashion editor, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Malcolm Gladwell
    Malcolm Gladwell
    Malcolm Gladwell, CM is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. He is currently based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996...

     (writer)
  • Peter S. Goodman
    Peter S. Goodman
    Peter S. Goodman is an American economics journalist and author. Goodman worked for the Washington Post and the New York Times and was hired in September 2010 by the Huffington Post.Goodman graduated from Reed College in 1989...

    , economics
  • Meg Greenfield
    Meg Greenfield
    Mary Ellen Greenfield was a Washington Post and Newsweek editorial writer and a Washington, D.C. insider known for her wit and for being reclusive....

     (editor, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Carol Guzy
    Carol Guzy
    Carol Guzy is a four-time Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post photographer.-Life and career:Guzy grew up in a working-class family in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania....

    , photographer, Pulitzer Prizes
  • Jim Hoagland
    Jim Hoagland
    Jim Hoagland is an American journalist and two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. He is an associate editor, senior foreign correspondent, and columnist for The Washington Post....

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Stephen Hunter
    Stephen Hunter
    Stephen Hunter is an American novelist, essayist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic.-Life and career:Stephen Hunter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His father was Charles Francis Hunter, a Northwestern University speech professor who was killed in 1975....

     (film critic, Pulitzer Prize)

  • Robert Kagan
    Robert Kagan
    Robert Kagan is an American historian and foreign policy commentator.-Early life and education:Kagan graduated from Yale University in 1980 where he was tapped by Skull and Bones, studied history, and founded the Yale Political Monthly. He later earned an MPP from the John F...

     (columnist)
  • Glenn Kessler (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Colbert I. King
    Colbert I. King
    Colbert I. King is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post. He is deputy editor of the Posts editorial page....

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Anne Kornblut
    Anne Kornblut
    Anne Elise Kornblut is an American journalist. She is currently a staff writer for the Washington Post.-Early life:...

     (writer)
  • Tony Kornheiser
    Tony Kornheiser
    Anthony Irwin "Tony" Kornheiser is an American sportswriter and former columnist for The Washington Post, as well as a radio and television talk show host...

     (sports columnist)
  • Charles Krauthammer
    Charles Krauthammer
    Charles Krauthammer, MD is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. His weekly column appears in The Washington Post and is syndicated to more than 275 newspapers and media outlets. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New...

     (columnist, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Howard Kurtz
    Howard Kurtz
    Howard "Howie" Alan Kurtz is an American journalist and author with a special focus on the media. He is host of CNN's Reliable Sources program, and Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He is the former media writer for The Washington Post. He has written five books about the media...

     (media critic)
  • Charles Lane
    Charles Lane (journalist)
    Charles "Chuck" Lane is an American journalist and editor who is a staff writer for The Washington Post. His articles are concerned chiefly with the activities and cases of the Supreme Court of the United States and judicial system. He was the lead editor of The New Republic from 1997 to 1999...

     (writer)
  • Colman McCarthy
    Colman McCarthy
    Colman McCarthy , an American journalist, teacher, lecturer, pacifist, an anarchist and long-time peace activist, directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C. From 1969 to 1997, he wrote columns for The Washington Post. His topics ranged from politics, religion, health, and sports to...

     (columnist)
  • Mary McGrory
    Mary McGrory
    Mary McGrory was a liberal American journalist and columnist. She was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War and was on Richard Nixon's enemies list for writing "daily hate Nixon articles."...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Anne Midgette
    Anne Midgette
    Anne Midgette is an American journalist and classical music critic. Her father was the painter Willard Midgette.Midgette is a 1986 graduate of Yale University. After university, she lived for 11 years in Munich, Germany, reviewing opera, music and art throughout Europe for The Wall Street...

     (music critic)
  • Dana Milbank
    Dana Milbank
    -Biography:He is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Trumbull College, the Progressive Party of the Yale Political Union and the secret society Skull and Bones. He is a graduate of Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York...

     (writer)
  • Tim Page
    Tim Page (music critic)
    Tim Page is a writer, editor, music critic, producer and professor. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for the Washington Post and also played an essential role in the revival of American author Dawn Powell.-Career:Page grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where his father, Ellis B...

     (music critic, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Philip P. Pan (writer, author)
  • Matthew Parris
    Matthew Parris
    Matthew Francis Parris is a UK-based journalist and former Conservative politician.-Early life and family:...

     (columnist)
  • John Pomfret
    John Pomfret (journalist)
    John Pomfret is an American journalist and writer. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised in New York. He attended Stanford University, receiving his B.A. and M.A. in East Asian Studies. In 1980, he was one of the first American students to go to China and study at Nanjing University...

     (writer and editor, author)
  • Shirley Povich
    Shirley Povich
    Shirley Lewis Povich was an American sports columnist and reporter for the Washington Post.-Biography:Povich's parents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania...

     (sports columnist)
  • Dana Priest
    Dana Priest
    Dana Priest is an American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Priest has worked almost 20 years for The Washington Post. As one of the Post's specialists on National Security she has written many articles on the United States' "War on terror." In 2006 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • William Raspberry
    William Raspberry
    William Raspberry is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated American public affairs columnist. He was also the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communications and Journalism at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Thomas E. Ricks (military reporter, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Eugene Robinson
    Eugene Robinson (journalist)
    Eugene Harold Robinson is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist and former assistant managing editor for The Washington Post. His columns are syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group...

     (columnist and editor, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Harry M. Rosenfeld
    Harry M. Rosenfeld
    Harry M. Rosenfeld is an American newspaper editor who was the editor in charge of local news at The Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. He oversaw the newspaper's coverage of Watergate and resisted efforts by the paper's national reporters to take over the story. Though Post...

     (editor)
  • Christine Sadler
    Christine Sadler
    Christine Sadler , born in Silver Point, Putnam County, Tennessee, was an Americanauthor, journalist, and magazine editor.-Biography:...

     (writer and editor)
  • Anthony Shadid
    Anthony Shadid
    Anthony Shadid is a foreign correspondent for The New York Times based in Baghdad and Beirut. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting twice, in 2004 and 2010.-Career:...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Tom Shales
    Tom Shales
    Thomas William "Tom" Shales is an American critic of television programming and operations. He is best known as TV critic for The Washington Post; in 1988, Shales received the Pulitzer Prize...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Howard Simons
    Howard Simons
    Howard Simons was the managing editor of the Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal, and later curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University....

     (editor)
  • Michael Specter
    Michael Specter
    Michael Specter is an American journalist who has been a staff writer, focusing on science and technology, and global public health at The New Yorker since September 1998...

     (writer)
  • Emil Steiner (writer)
  • Barry Svrluga
    Barry Svrluga
    Barry Svrluga is the Washington Redskins beat reporter for The Washington Post, and WashingtonPost.com. He was previously the beat reporter for the Washington Nationals. While he reporter, he blogged at the Nationals Journal. The blog dissects and analyzes all things Nationals daily and sometimes...

     (sports writer)
  • Richard Thompson
    Richard Thompson (cartoonist)
    Richard C. Thompson is an illustrator and cartoonist best known for his syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac and the illustrated poem "Make the Pie Higher". He was given the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year in 2011....

     (cartoonist)
  • Patrick Tyler
    Patrick Tyler
    Patrick E. Tyler is an author and formerly chief correspondent for the New York Times. He is the author of three books: A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East from the Cold War to the War on Terror, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China, a history of U.S.-China relations since...

     (writer)
  • Tom Toles
    Tom Toles
    Thomas Gregory Toles is an American political cartoonist. He is the winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning...

     (cartoonist, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Jim VandeHei
    Jim VandeHei
    James "Jim" VandeHei is the executive editor and co-founder of Politico. Previously, he was a national political reporter at The Washington Post, where he worked as White House correspondent....

     (writer)
  • Gene Weingarten
    Gene Weingarten
    Gene Weingarten is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for both his serious and humorous work...

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • James Russell Wiggins
    James Russell Wiggins
    James Russell Wiggins was managing editor of The Washington Post and United States Ambassador to the United Nations.-In Minnesota:...

     (editor)
  • Michael Wilbon
    Michael Wilbon
    Michael Ray Wilbon is a former sportswriter and columnist for the Washington Post and current ESPN commentator. He serves as an analyst for ESPN and co-hosts Pardon the Interruption on ESPN with former Post writer Tony Kornheiser, and has been doing so since 2001.-Career:Wilbon began working for...

     (sports columnist)
  • Roger Wilkins
    Roger Wilkins
    Roger Wilkins is an African American civil rights leader, professor of history, and journalist.-Biography:Wilkins was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Michigan...

     (editorial board, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Juan Williams
    Juan Williams
    Juan Williams is an American journalist and political analyst for Fox News Channel, he was born in Panama on April 10, 1954. He also writes for several newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and has been published in magazines such as The Atlantic...

     (Writer)
  • George F. Will
    George Will
    George Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...

     (columnist, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Bob Woodward
    Bob Woodward
    Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....

     (writer, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Robin Wright
    Robin Wright (author)
    Robin B. Wright is an American foreign affairs analyst, and an award-winning journalist and author.A graduate of the University of Michigan, she lives in Washington D.C.-Career:...

     (writer)
  • Jonathan Yardley
    Jonathan Yardley
    Jonathan Yardley is a book critic at The Washington Post, and at one time of the Washington Star. In 1981 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.-Background and education:...

     (book critic, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Steve LeVine
    Steve LeVine
    Steve LeVine is a writer, journalist and blogger.He was a foreign correspondent for eighteen years in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan and the Philippines, for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Financial Times and Newsweek. He was chief foreign affairs writer...

     (journalist and writer)
  • Jose Antonio Vargas
    Jose Antonio Vargas
    Jose Antonio Vargas is a Filipino journalist living and working in the United States. He is known for his coverage of HIV, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the influence that politics and the Internet have on each other. In 2008, Vargas was part of the team which won the Pulitzer Prize for...

     (journalist, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Steven Goff
    Steven Goff
    Steven "Steve" Goff is a sports writer for The Washington Post, for whom he has worked since 1985 and covered soccer regularly since 1992. He has followed the United States men's national soccer team at five World Cups, has been the beat reporter on D.C. United since MLS's launch in 1996, and has...

     (sports writer and blogger)


Executive officers and editors (past and present)

  • Philip Bennett
    Philip Bennett (Washington Post)
    Philip Bennett, an American journalist, was named managing editor of the Washington Post in 2004. He was previously deputy national editor of national security, defense and foreign policy coverage and assistant managing editor for foreign news at the Post...

  • Benjamin C. Bradlee
    Benjamin C. Bradlee
    Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee is a vice president at-large of The Washington Post. As executive editor of the Post from 1968 to 1991, he became a national figure during the presidency of Richard Nixon, when he challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers and...

  • Marcus Brauchli
    Marcus Brauchli
    Marcus W. Brauchli is executive editor of The Washington Post, overseeing the Post's print and digital news operations. He became editor on September 8, 2008, succeeding Leonard Downie, Jr.-Biography:...

  • Milton Coleman
    Milton Coleman
    Milton Coleman is the deputy managing editor of Washington Post and the current president of the American Society of News Editors.Coleman joined Washington Post in 1976 and was promoted to the deputy managing editor position in 1996...

  • Jackson Diehl
    Jackson Diehl
    Jackson Diehl is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post. He writes many of the paper's editorials on foreign affairs, helps to oversee the editorial and oped pages and authors a regular column....

  • Leonard Downie, Jr.
    Leonard Downie, Jr.
    Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. , was the executive editor of The Washington Post. He held the position for seventeen years, starting September 1, 1991, after serving as managing editor for seven years. Downie announced his retirement as executive editor on Monday, June 23, 2008 which took effect on...

  • Donald Graham
    Donald E. Graham
    Donald E. Graham is chief executive officer and Chairman of The Washington Post Company. He is also the director and chairman of Facebook Inc.- Early life :...

  • Katharine Graham
    Katharine Graham
    Katharine Meyer Graham was an American publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon...

  • Philip Graham

  • Fred Hiatt
    Fred Hiatt
    Frederick Samuel "Fred" Hiatt is the editorial page editor of The Washington Post. He also writes editorials for the page, as well as a biweekly column that appears on Mondays.-Early life and family:Hiatt was born in Washington, DC...

  • Stephen P. Hills
  • Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr.
    Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr.
    Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is Vice Chairman of the Washington Post Company. From 2000 to 2008 he was publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post.-Early life:...

  • Colbert I. King
    Colbert I. King
    Colbert I. King is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post. He is deputy editor of the Posts editorial page....

  • Eugene Meyer
    Eugene Meyer
    Eugene Isaac Meyer was an American financier, public official, publisher of the Washington Post newspaper. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. He was the father of publisher Katharine Graham.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, he was one of eight children of...

  • Florence Meyer
    Florence Meyer
    Florence Meyer Homolka was a portrait photographer, socialite, and wife of actor Oscar Homolka.-Early life:...

  • Felix Morley
    Felix Morley
    Felix Muskett Morley was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from the United States.-Biography:Morley was born in Haverford, Pennsylvania, his father being the mathematician Frank Morley. Like his brothers, Christopher and Frank, Felix was educated at Haverford College and enjoyed a Rhodes...

    , Pulitzer Prize
    Pulitzer Prize
    The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

     winner, 1936
  • Katharine Weymouth
    Katharine Weymouth
    Katharine Bouchage Weymouth is the publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive officer of Washington Post Media.-Family:...



External links



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