7 ms·

As a Washington DC resident, I will say I've read the post since around the late 1990's. Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism, it was a

by jamesfe 10y ago

As a Washington DC resident, I will say I've read the post since around the late 1990's. Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism, it was a pretty dependable paper - lately though the articles have titles that are oriented towards generating clicks rather than providing valuable journalism. Rumor from the WaPo staff is that there is a strong emphasis on building web traffic and revenue, I assume that this is the cause for articles that are less relevant to an informed understanding of the world and more relevant to entertaining the reader's desires. It doesn't take too much reason to imagine that if Amazon can predict and suggest products that you may enjoy (and purchase) then they will predict and suggest stories that you may enjoy (and load advertisements with them). It's part of a growing internet-wide trend to provide a constant flow of agreeable, "interesting" content that is tailed for you, as a unit of data, versus you as a human desiring a balanced view of the world (to include opinions not of your own vein). However - I do agree that the article has not delved into this.

nxzero 10y ago
WaPo is dead; RIP.
- baldfat 10y ago
  Every criticism on the Washington Post can be used against 99% of Newspapers in America. The transition to web has been rough and the ability to still turn a profit for a for profit business is difficult. I think the New York Times has done the best so far and Wall Street Journal is the industry leader. I can't think of a single example of doing a better job minus NYT and WSJ.
  - nxzero 10y ago
    A paper "transitioning" has nothing to do with if the spirit of the paper is alive; aka WaPo spirit is dead, company lives on. 99% of the papers in the US are trash; the fact that you'd compare WaPo to them speaks to your knowledge of the industry and WaPo itself.
    - baldfat 10y ago
      > the fact that you'd compare WaPo to them speaks to your knowledge of the industry and WaPo itself. Someone is emotional? Washington Post is in trouble like the rest of the newspapers in American deserves this response?
      - nxzero 10y ago
        How many papers have you read the staff written content from, what news did they cover, what was the quality of that content on average, etc.?
        baldfat 10y ago
        I got a big 4.0 in my Undergraduate Degree and was Valedictorian. I had to studied two dead languages and had all my last 30 credits from Graduate Level classwork. I scored in the top 90% on the GRE and MAT test. Wow guess that is also not important about the general decline of Newspapers and their business models. This is a easy observation on the decline of journalism and newspapers. Unless you deem everyone unable to form a observation on general newspapers?
        nxzero 10y ago
        Please be honest, do you even know what you're talking about? If so, click reply, without using any additional resources and tell me why 99% of papers are declining - and why WaPo was different than 99% of papers. I do know that most people don't why, or for that matter, care.
        baldfat 10y ago
        Instead of being condescending why don't you just state your opinion and not just be like "I am the smarts S-M-A-T Doh!"
        nxzero 10y ago
massysett 10y ago
I started reading the Post regularly after moving to the DC area in 2001. Over the past ten years the paper has been garbage. It regularly promotes tabloid "news" that is of no consequence but that, I suppose, they believe gathers page views. Other stories are riddled with factual errors--just recently I read a story that got the numbers wrong in a House committee roll call vote. The paper routinely infuriated me so I stopped reading it (except when I have to for my job, which is how I am aware of the recent factual error.) I have seen some of the poor quality under Bezos, but to be fair I can't tell whether it has gotten better or worse because I am so disgusted with their reputation that I generally just don't read it.
samstave 10y ago
Didn't cmdr_taco go work there some time ago? What happened to him?
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  He went to go work for a "labs" type startup that borrowed the Post's name, which I believe was not included in the sale to Bezos.
slaunchwise 10y ago
"Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism" Sorry, can't let this go unchallenged. WaPo was THE beacon of fine journalism for decades. Life existed before the 90s.
- scott_s 10y ago
  Agreed. This is the paper that Woodward and Bernstein worked for when they investigated and broke the Watergate story: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/ http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/
- danso 10y ago
  And even in the 00s, pre-Bezos, it was hitting stuff out of the park: 2014 - Stop and Seize -- this series about police confiscating hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists without charging crimes was a hugely eye-opening piece of investigative journalism...was widely discussed on HN too, IIRC: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/stop-and-seize-2/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/st... 2013 - The WaPo shared in the Snowden-related Pulitzer, but on its own, I feel that it did some of the best work off of the material -- both in a technical and journalistic sense, including this one about NSA infiltrating Google data centers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-i... 2010 - Top Secret America -- this to me was a highly underrated project that attempted to expose how utterly out-of-control and ungainly America's national security apparatus is. If you read it before the Snowden revelations, you probably would have just nodded your head: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ And many more...It's unfortunate that a lot of resources are now being poured into aggregate-Upworthy-baity-headline crap...but honestly, even that material is pretty good. It's just super unfortunate that their headline writer has completely engorged themselves on social media marketing. WaPo truly has some of the worst headlines of any professional publication today. edit: as an example of some of the great work under the "PostEverything" banner, which seems like kind of the WaPo's attempt to compete with Vox/BuzzFeed/Daily Mail...I bookmarked this piece from a widow trying to explain how "the second year without my husband is in some ways harder than the first"...one of the few non-technical bookmarks on my Pinboard. In retrospect, the headline isn't bad, but the writing is still profound...I've actually been visiting WaPo via URL directly just to see what guest columns have been published...just need a plugin to hide the headlines: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/when-the-second-year-of-widowhood-is-harder/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/...
danielweber 10y ago
Are there editors at the Washington Post? I wrote in about some questions about an article, and no one responded. Not even a form letter.
anotherhacker 10y ago
To be fair, this has affected all publications. E.g. The Economist and New York Times. Also, "yellow journalism" is nothing new. It's a big reason why William Randolph Hearst became a gazillionair all those years ago.
zjaffee 10y ago
While yes, the Washington Post has become more focused on new media, its really only them and the NYTimes that have successfully transitioned (as much as one could really expect) into new media. The websites and mobile apps for these companies are awesome, especially compared to many TV channels and other old newspapers. Additionally, in todays day and age, its clickbait that pays the bills, but that doesn't mean that it takes away from real journalism, you just have to recognize that not ever article will be as high quality. Movie Production companies have been doing this forever, I.E. Cars 2 pays for Inside Out. Even Buzzfeed has real journalism tucked in there. Its sad, but quality journalism both makes less money and costs more to produce, and budgets for these stories have to come from somewhere.

by jamesfe 10y ago

nxzero 10y ago

WaPo is dead; RIP.

baldfat 10y ago
Every criticism on the Washington Post can be used against 99% of Newspapers in America. The transition to web has been rough and the ability to still turn a profit for a for profit business is difficult. I think the New York Times has done the best so far and Wall Street Journal is the industry leader. I can't think of a single example of doing a better job minus NYT and WSJ.
- nxzero 10y ago
  A paper "transitioning" has nothing to do with if the spirit of the paper is alive; aka WaPo spirit is dead, company lives on. 99% of the papers in the US are trash; the fact that you'd compare WaPo to them speaks to your knowledge of the industry and WaPo itself.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    > the fact that you'd compare WaPo to them speaks to your knowledge of the industry and WaPo itself. Someone is emotional? Washington Post is in trouble like the rest of the newspapers in American deserves this response?
    - nxzero 10y ago
      How many papers have you read the staff written content from, what news did they cover, what was the quality of that content on average, etc.?
      - baldfat 10y ago
        I got a big 4.0 in my Undergraduate Degree and was Valedictorian. I had to studied two dead languages and had all my last 30 credits from Graduate Level classwork. I scored in the top 90% on the GRE and MAT test. Wow guess that is also not important about the general decline of Newspapers and their business models. This is a easy observation on the decline of journalism and newspapers. Unless you deem everyone unable to form a observation on general newspapers?
        nxzero 10y ago
        Please be honest, do you even know what you're talking about? If so, click reply, without using any additional resources and tell me why 99% of papers are declining - and why WaPo was different than 99% of papers. I do know that most people don't why, or for that matter, care.
        baldfat 10y ago
        Instead of being condescending why don't you just state your opinion and not just be like "I am the smarts S-M-A-T Doh!"
        nxzero 10y ago

massysett 10y ago

I started reading the Post regularly after moving to the DC area in 2001. Over the past ten years the paper has been garbage. It regularly promotes tabloid "news" that is of no consequence but that, I suppose, they believe gathers page views. Other stories are riddled with factual errors--just recently I read a story that got the numbers wrong in a House committee roll call vote. The paper routinely infuriated me so I stopped reading it (except when I have to for my job, which is how I am aware of the recent factual error.) I have seen some of the poor quality under Bezos, but to be fair I can't tell whether it has gotten better or worse because I am so disgusted with their reputation that I generally just don't read it.

samstave 10y ago

Didn't cmdr_taco go work there some time ago? What happened to him?

snowwrestler 10y ago
He went to go work for a "labs" type startup that borrowed the Post's name, which I believe was not included in the sale to Bezos.

slaunchwise 10y ago

"Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism" Sorry, can't let this go unchallenged. WaPo was THE beacon of fine journalism for decades. Life existed before the 90s.

scott_s 10y ago
Agreed. This is the paper that Woodward and Bernstein worked for when they investigated and broke the Watergate story: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/ http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/
danso 10y ago
And even in the 00s, pre-Bezos, it was hitting stuff out of the park: 2014 - Stop and Seize -- this series about police confiscating hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists without charging crimes was a hugely eye-opening piece of investigative journalism...was widely discussed on HN too, IIRC: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/stop-and-seize-2/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/st... 2013 - The WaPo shared in the Snowden-related Pulitzer, but on its own, I feel that it did some of the best work off of the material -- both in a technical and journalistic sense, including this one about NSA infiltrating Google data centers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-i... 2010 - Top Secret America -- this to me was a highly underrated project that attempted to expose how utterly out-of-control and ungainly America's national security apparatus is. If you read it before the Snowden revelations, you probably would have just nodded your head: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ And many more...It's unfortunate that a lot of resources are now being poured into aggregate-Upworthy-baity-headline crap...but honestly, even that material is pretty good. It's just super unfortunate that their headline writer has completely engorged themselves on social media marketing. WaPo truly has some of the worst headlines of any professional publication today. edit: as an example of some of the great work under the "PostEverything" banner, which seems like kind of the WaPo's attempt to compete with Vox/BuzzFeed/Daily Mail...I bookmarked this piece from a widow trying to explain how "the second year without my husband is in some ways harder than the first"...one of the few non-technical bookmarks on my Pinboard. In retrospect, the headline isn't bad, but the writing is still profound...I've actually been visiting WaPo via URL directly just to see what guest columns have been published...just need a plugin to hide the headlines: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/when-the-second-year-of-widowhood-is-harder/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/...

danielweber 10y ago

Are there editors at the Washington Post? I wrote in about some questions about an article, and no one responded. Not even a form letter.

anotherhacker 10y ago

To be fair, this has affected all publications. E.g. The Economist and New York Times. Also, "yellow journalism" is nothing new. It's a big reason why William Randolph Hearst became a gazillionair all those years ago.

zjaffee 10y ago

While yes, the Washington Post has become more focused on new media, its really only them and the NYTimes that have successfully transitioned (as much as one could really expect) into new media. The websites and mobile apps for these companies are awesome, especially compared to many TV channels and other old newspapers. Additionally, in todays day and age, its clickbait that pays the bills, but that doesn't mean that it takes away from real journalism, you just have to recognize that not ever article will be as high quality. Movie Production companies have been doing this forever, I.E. Cars 2 pays for Inside Out. Even Buzzfeed has real journalism tucked in there. Its sad, but quality journalism both makes less money and costs more to produce, and budgets for these stories have to come from somewhere.