Audience Question: When you talked about your frank and honest nature at the beginning, it got me thinking about this journalism class I took this last semester. And the majority of people in the class were girls, the most vocal people in the class were the three or four males out of 30. And it just got me thinking, do you think what’s keeping these women from these leadership positions, even though we are the majority, is our reluctance to be frank and honest, that’s been so ingrained in us?
Katharine Weymouth: I guess it varies from person to person, but I don’t think so. I think it really is about — and I’m not the expert here — but in many cases — some cases it’s opportunities that present themselves, and in some cases it’s choices you make. And you know, ‘I don’t want to be in top management because I want to go home to my kids at a reasonable hour’ or whatever it is.
And so, we all need to make sure that women have the opportunities that they want to get. And there are obviously a lot of women going into journalism and into business and into law and into all the fields. So I think we need to be conscious of it, but I don’t think it’s because women are not willing to be frank and straight.
Audience Question: In these challenging economic times, the industry has lost a lot of talented journalists, both men and women. What do you say to those experienced and talented journalists who are thinking of getting out?
Weymouth: I think it really is such an individual choice. In many cases, we have lost a lot of talent. We have also acquired and invested in a lot of new — we have an incredible pool of new journalists coming on board, too. Many of which we’ve hired from St. Pete and others.
Most newspapers have cut back significantly and that is a hard thing to do. It’s not fun. It’s not something we want to do. But what I focus on is, can we still do great journalism? And I think the answer is: Absolutely.
When I look back, in the middle of Watergate when we sort of got ourselves on the map as a serious newspaper, our newsroom was roughly 300 people.
And when we had the resources to invest it, we grew it to almost 1,000 people. So, it’s never fun cutting it back. And if we can invest, we will. And we want to. But you also can put out great quality news with a smaller newsroom and it is about, for us, about being a good business so we can continue to pay for reporters to be in Baghdad and be in Afghanistan and in India as well as in Washington, D.C.
It’s tough choices but we’re still investing in talent, we still have a tremendous amount of talent. And many of the journalists I know who’ve left have gone on to really rewarding careers, in all kinds of — some in other media entities, and some in businesses and whatnot.
Audience Question: One of the challenges you just alluded to is international coverage and the global world in which we live, the 21st century world in which we live. We’re global. Many bureaus, many news companies have cut back on their news bureaus, their staffing abroad, at a time when it’s increasingly important for cultures to be connected and interconnected and to better understand each other. What is the Post gonna plan for now and the future, in terms of its international coverage at a time when it is a difficult business environment, financial environment? And do you have any thoughts about the quality or lack of of the international coverage in general we face all the threats and the misunderstandings and the importance of that element of good journalism as we move forward?
Weymouth: I think we view it as incredibly important. And one of the Pulitzer Prizes we won this year was for Anthony Shadid’s coverage in Iraq. [Shadid has since left the Post.] We’re continuing to invest in it. And we’re not changing that at all. We’re lucky because we’re in Washington, which happens to be the nation’s capital, obviously, and so for our audience it makes sense. At the end of the day we have to think about our readers. And for our readers it matters. So we’re not cutting back on on our international coverage in any way. We’re just thinking about how to do it better and what people to send and where should they be.
Mallary Tenore (writer, Poynter Institute): The transition that you faced integrating the print and digital operations, what were some of the main challenges you faced, and what did you learn from them?
Weymouth: That’s a great question. I’ll tell you one of my favorite stories.
My biggest challenge was communicating internally about why we were doing this. And my experience was the so-called “print people” were thrilled. They wanted to be part of the new world. They resented this idea that they were the sort of dinosaurs. And all the Internet people with the ping pong table knew it all.
So, the print people were thrilled and just wanted to learn the new tools so they can do their journalism. Many of the online people wanted nothing to do with the perceived dinosaur.
So one woman, in one of our town hall meetings, she raised her hand and she said, ‘So we’ve been, like, the life raft, and you guys have been, like, the sinking ship. So, like, do you have a strategy for how the sinking ship is not gonna pull down the life raft?’
Yeah, I swear to God.
And I actually was really glad she asked it because I knew it was on a lot of people’s minds and they just weren’t brave enough to ask it. And it allowed me to go into my belief, which is: you cannot think like that, right?
We’ve got to be — there is no print and online. It’s journalism. And it’s journalism on multiple platforms. And we need experts, but it’s not an either-or proposition. And for us it really is about becoming a news organization. We now have an integrated newsroom, and it is exactly what I hoped, which is: they no longer have to dial 10 digits to talk to somebody they never met across the river who they didn’t really trust and didn’t understand their content and whatnot. Now they can lean over and say, ‘Hey, Karen, when are you gonna be done with that story and how do you think I should play it on the Web?’ So it’s actually thinking about our readers.
So that was our biggest challenge. But it was also a great opportunity.
