Yesterday, I walked out to the driveway to retrieve the newspaper, and for a moment, I thought there had been a mistake. I was certain that the Post had inadvertently shorted my Sunday paper. Like many loyal Post readers, I am accustomed to a fat roll of newsprint, one stuffed with news, opinion, sports, pop culture, and a healthy does of the curious, even odd happenings in the world, both local and remote — the kind of coverage best described by the neologism “glocal.” That‘s my Washington Post, glocal. This is the stuff not found on the internet without effort.
The paper was not shorted. It was, alas, just “thin.” This was not the first morning that my wife and I have commented about the decline of the Post. For some time, the Post has seemingly become more and more irrelevant. The treatment of stories has often been superficial to the point of being trite. The front-page layout invites laughter. A case in point: a front page story in lead position decrying the failure of women to break through the Federal glass ceiling placed directly under a color photo of Hilary Clinton, taken just after her being sworn-in as Secretary of State, with other powerful women plainly visible in the background. And worse yet, the paper seems committed to fifth-grade English. Whoever said that the American people, especially those who subscribe to major newspapers like the Washington Post, read with grade school comprehension? The Post has become thin indeed, not only in size, but also in journalistic and artistic integrity.
On January 29, 2009, in an article by Howard Kurtz, the Post announced the decision to discontinue publication of its separate book section. To be fair, the Post is following in the footsteps of many newspapers, e.g., The San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. But it is significant that the previous CEO of the Post, the late Katherine Graham, more than once told the book section’s editor, Marie Arana, that although the section was not self-supporting, “[I]t didn’t matter, sales be damned, because the mark of a good newspaper was its book section.” It is also worthy of note that Washington Post editor Rachel Shea is quoted as saying, “It’s nice to have a separate section with big display and a big shout-out to what the most important book is. But it’s not worth gnashing our teeth about too much.” The differing attitudes reveal more than a change of editorial policy.
The point at which the Post began to decline is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps it was a gentle slide, too gradual to notice. It became apparent during the election, however, that the old Washington Post was merely a thing of history and fond memory. At issue was journalistic integrity. By Election Day, few people that I know were reading the Post, and those that did were limiting themselves to the Style and Sports Sections. The common response to “I read it in this morning’s Washington Post” was “You can’t believe anything that you read in the Post” – this from both Democrats and Republicans. The cause of this perception is not hard to discover. The high state of journalism, both print and broadcast, to which Americans became accustomed in the Post-WWII decades has rapidly eroded in the last generation.
H.L. Mencken credited the high state of journalism prevalent in the major city newspapers in the post-WWI years to their prosperity, a prosperity born of the decline of yellow journalism and the consolidation of city papers with a consequent reduction in competition. The result was a higher standard of reporting. Newspapers were characterized by an editorial policy that “can not be intimidated. They try to report the news as they understand it, and to promote the truth as they see it.” The presentation of truth is precisely the issue in today’s media. The “yellows,” as Mencken referred to them, did not altogether disappear. “The more decorous and decent newspapers, in striving for more civilized manners, have dragged the yellows with them.” But Mencken goes on to note that “[T]he cleaning up has not altogether pleased the public. On the lower levels it longs with a great longing for the old circus-poster headlines, the old scares and hoaxes, the old sentimentalities and imbecilities. It wants thrills, not news; pictures, not text.” Perhaps, here is the answer. Perhaps we are in the midst of another of life’s enduring cycles. Journalism, printed and televised, is caught in the grip of a strangling competition. The result is a decline in quality to the lowest common denominator. Instead of a half-hour of news, we get three minutes on the hour. Instead of Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley, we get Chris Matthews and Nancy Grace. Instead of thoughtful questions and answers, we get James Carville and Andrea Mitchell shouting over one another. The yellows have reasserted themselves, and they have dragged the whole lot down with them. But journalists beware, the “old circus-poster headlines, the old scares and hoaxes, the old sentimentalities and imbecilities” eventually led to the death of the newspapers that relied upon them. We are indeed in a cycle, but who will emerge at the other end? If history is any guide, beware of being numbered among the yellows. The Washington Post is thin, but more worrisome is its deeply yellow cast. Readership and viewership of the majors continues to decline. Perhaps the answer is not to become more like the tabloids. Perhaps becoming a tabloid is the problem.
