Washington Post

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 7:30pm on Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Washington Post To Raise Cash By Offering Wine Tastings With Reporters

Washingtonian.com reported on November 4, 2009:

"Having taken a beating for trying to set up evening salons where reporters could mingle with corporate types who’d pay big money for the privilege, the Washington Post now is attempting a more benign way to raise revenue: wine tastings—with reporters as guests.

The failed salon plan would have brought reporters together with politicians and businessmen for “off-the-record” chats, sponsored by corporations for as much as $25,000 a pop.

“Admission is normally $15 for TastePost members,” advertising relations manager Jennifer Keegan writes in an e-mail invite to Post staffers, “but as an employee you can get the reduced admission price of just $10.”

The full story: http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/14043.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 3:13pm on Friday, October 2nd, 2009

The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are ending their joint news service, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post reported on October 1, 2009:

"One of the oldest corporate marriages in the newspaper business ended in divorce Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, a syndicate with more than 600 clients around the world, is being dissolved with the agreement of both sides. The two newspapers, which each owned 50 percent of the venture, will now compete to provide their articles to subscribers to the joint service."

The full story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/30/AR2009093004249.html

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 10:21pm on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Providing further evidence that good journalists make bad comedians, the Washington Post has shut down its online video series "Mouthpiece Theater."
Howard Kurtz reported the story on August 6, 2009:

"Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the satirical video series Wednesday after harsh criticism of a joke about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, which prompted him to pull the latest episode from the paper's Web site Friday night. The Post staffers who appeared in the videos, Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza, agreed with the decision and apologized in separate interviews.

"I don't think the series worked as they intended," Brauchli said. "It was meant to be funny and insightful and translate the superb journalism Chris and Dana do in print and online into a new format."

"Mouthpiece Theater" was designed as a sendup of pompous punditry, with Milbank, the paper's Washington Sketch columnist, and Cillizza, a White House correspondent who writes The Fix blog, appearing with oversized pipes and smoking jackets. But its comedic style drew catcalls from online critics, which intensified after Friday's episode about the kind of beer various politicians might drink. Milbank said he couldn't reveal to whom President Obama would serve a brew called Mad Bitch Beer, which was followed by a brief shot of Clinton."

The full story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080502394.html

Eric Kallgren    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 9:25pm on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Paul Farhi wrote an insightful story about the transition to digital television in the United States, published in the Washington Post on June 10, 2009. It's titled "Broadcast TV Never Converted Its Digital Dream" and begins:

"It was going to be glorious, positively Jetsonian. With digital broadcasting, the television industry once promised, the TV set would be transformed into a miraculous info-appliance, the modern household's electronic brain.

No longer would the TV be a mere conduit for sitcoms and soap operas. With digital broadcasts, the TV -- or perhaps the PCTV -- would become a shopping portal, an information node, an Internet-surfing console. Thanks to digital's limitless interactive capabilities, you'd be able to call up player stats during ballgames, play video games with people across the country or take college-level courses from your couch. Each night while you slept, a digital "data" broadcast would send a customized daily newspaper to your set-top box; all you'd have to do in the morning was hit "print."

Well, the future officially arrives this week, and it's . . . not exactly as advertised."

The full story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/09/AR2009060903144.html