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Sara Fischer: Washington Post to overhaul newsroom structure
The Washington Post is making major changes to its newsroom that are meant to broaden the outlet’s coverage and reach a wider audience, according to a staff memo from executive editor Matt Murray obtained by Axios.
Why it matters:
The shifts follow months of high-profile staff departures and blowback to recent opinion coverage changes by owner Jeff Bezos.
- Longtime Post opinion editor and columnist Ruth Marcus resigned from the Post Monday after CEO Will Lewis killed her column expressing concerns about Bezos’ opinion section changes.
- Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron penned a scathing piece about the changes last week.
Zoom in:
As part of the newsroom overhaul, the Post will divide its national desk into two sections that focus on national reporting, and politics and government coverage, respectively.
- The politics and government desk “will encompass most of our reporters and editors covering the political scene and the government, which remain a central pillar for The Post,” Murray wrote. “The Economics and Economic Policy team from Business will move to this department.”
- The national desk, “which incorporates the America team, the education team, and the GA desk in Washington, will have a remit to cover the United States and important issues and figures outside of Washington and across the country more broadly,” he added.
- Business, technology, health, science and climate teams will be brought together in a new department that focuses on “how businesses are transforming across the economy; how scientific and technological shifts are affecting daily life; and what it all means for people’s health, security and the planet,” Murray said.
- New department head roles for each new desk will be posted shortly, Murray said. Murray hopes all newsroom changes are in place by no later than May 5. The Post’s newsdesk will exist outside of those main departments.
Between the lines:
Broadening coverage will help the Post become less dependent on political news, which can be cyclical in nature, Murray told Axios in an interview after announcing the changes.
- “I want to make sure there are a few areas that are equally staffed and strong to make sure we’re always putting a strong foot forward and that we’re not just the politics paper, even though that’s important to who we are.”
- Asked whether the newsroom changes are aligned with the opinion section changes announced by Bezos last month, Murray said the shifts run in parallel but aren’t explicitly connected. Some of the newsroom changes, for example, stem from audience data about what readers want, not a broader philosophical shift at the paper.
- “Jeff is aware of my plans but they’re my plans,” he said. “They grew out of where we see opportunities for The Post as we grow.”
Zoom out:
The shifts are also meant to prioritize digital products and reader engagement, Murray said.
- Each reorganized department will have its own senior editor for audience growth and a senior editor for visuals.
- Murray is hiring a head of print to “ring-fence print from the rest of the newsroom and make it completely downstream, so the majority of us can focus our efforts on our growing digital products.”
- “Text will no longer be a default (format) and length no more a reflexive measure of quality,” he said.
State of play:
In a town hall meeting discussing the changes, deputy managing editor Mark Smith — who has been tasked by Murray with leading newsroom transformation — announced 10 new principles that will guide the Post’s journalism and culture moving forward.
- Those principles include things like “We center reader value and impact in all of our journalistic decision making and commit to measuring this impact” and “We know the best journalism and reporting has humans at the core. We work in interdisciplinary teams so that our audience benefits from the diverse skills in our newsroom.”
The big picture:
The newsroom “reinvention,” as Murray describes it, reflects a broader scramble at the Post to transform itself following years of profit losses and shrinking readership.
- Murray was named interim executive editor after Lewis announced sweeping changes to the newsrooms’s editorial structure and leadership last spring. Murray was quietly named permanent executive editor late last year.
- Those changes include the creation of a “third newsroom,” called WP Ventures, that focuses on video, audio, newsletters and social engagement. New roles will be posted for WP Ventures shortly, per Murray.
- During the town hall, WP Ventures editor Krissah Thompson gave examples of ways the Post is innovating its approach to social journalism, including allocating more resources for journalists to film their own social videos, piloting video podcasts and YouTube shows, and experimenting more with AI video.
What to watch:
Murray acknowledged that the new changes may not align with everyone at the company.
- “It is a time of change across The Post, including for our colleagues in the company and in Opinion. This is a big effort involving all of us, and it is disruptive. There will be some confusion and even some mistakes. Candidly, I realize it may not be for everyone,” he wrote.
This exclusive insight comes from thought leader Sara Fischer.
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