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overview
holdings
landmarks
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overview
This profile considers the Washington Post group, including
the Post and Newsweek.
It covers -
introduction
The Washington Post group, controlled by the Graham family,
has around 7,200 employees. Apart from the flagship newspaper,
the group has television, print, pulp and other interests.
As of December 2003 its market capitalisation was US$7.8
billion, with annual revenue of US$2.5 billion.
The corporate site is here.
the group
The Post was founded in the 1870s as a parochial
newspaper aligned with the Democratic Party. At the turn
of last century it was acquired by the McLean family,
now best known for good living and ownership of the 'jinxed'
Hope diamond.
During the 1930s it was bought by corporate financier
Eugene Meyer, one of the founders of Allied Chemical,
first President of the World Bank and husband of Thomas
Mann's patron Agnes Meyer.
Control passed to Meyer's son-in-law Phil Graham and thence
to his daughter Katherine. They deserve credit for energising
a distinctly provincial publication - the equivalent of
Australia's lacklustre Canberra Times - to the
extent that it approaches the significance of the New
York Times.
For most of last century the Post had no substantial
competition in Washington: its owners reinvested in the
company and acquired regional newspapers, cable and broadcast
television and Newsweek magazine. In 1984 it acquired
Kaplan Inc. - a provider of educational and career services
for individuals, schools, and businesses. By 2003 Kaplan
was the group's second-largest revenue producer.
During the 1970s it led investigations into the Pentagon
Papers and Watergate. It is currently controlled by the
Graham family, having rebuffed offers from Conrad Black
and other magnates.
A chronology of the group is here.
Newsweek
Newsweek was launched in 1932 by Thomas Martyn,
Time's former foreign news editor in 1923. Martyn
raised US$2.25 million startup funding from 120 individual
investors, including John Hay Whitney
(later owner of the New York Herald Tribune)
and Paul Mellon, for News-Week magazine, arguing
that "Time is too inaccurate, too superficial,
too flippant and imitative".
After burning through its capital News-Week merged
with competitor Today in 1937 as Newsweek.
Today had been launched in 1933 with support
from Vincent Astor and W Averill
Harriman. It was edited by Roosevelt brains-truster Raymond
Moley and aimed to popularise the New Deal. Under editor
Malcolm Muir Newsweek emphasised fact over opinion, a
contrast with Time and reflected in reliance
on content from the New York Times.
Newsweek was profitable from the early 1940s and enjoyed
increasing circulation during the 1950s. Vincent Astor,
with a stake of 59%, died in 1959. In 1961 the Post acquired
the magazine for US$8,985,000, outbidding an offer from
Muir. The Astor Foundation appears to have decided against
the approach taken by John Hay Whitney
in 'rescuing' the New York Herald Tribune.
holdings
The
following page identifies major
parts of the Washington Post group.
studies
David Halberstam's classic The Powers That Be
(New York: Knopf 1979) is a picture by the leading US
journalist of the Washington Post, CBS,
New York Times and LA Times at the peak
of the 'television age'.
It is greatly superior to the more recent Paper Tigers
(London: Heinemann 1993) by Nicholas Coleridge, supplying
chatty profiles of the Sulzbergers, Rothermeres, Grahams,
Coxs, Aga Khans and less prominent nabobs, Michael Wolff's
The Autumn of the Moguls (New York: HarperCollins
2003) or Robin Gerbers somewhat syrupy Katherine Graham:
The Leadership Journey of An American Icon (New York:
Penguin 2005).
Piers Brendon, in The Life & Death of the Press
Barons (London: Secker & Warburg 1982), pronounced
the barons dead; we suggest that the species survives
and is disguised by better tailors.
Personal History (New York: Vintage 1996) by Katherine
Graham is characteristically guarded, albeit less so than
the memoir by competitor Sumner Redstone. It
is complemented by editor Ben Bradlee's A Good Life:
Newspapering & Other Adventures (New York: Touchstone
1996) and Graham's anthology Katharine Graham's Washington:
Scenes From a Political Village (New York: Knopf 2002). The
only major biography of Meyer is Merlo Pusey's Eugene
Meyer (New York: Knopf 1974).
Tom Kelly's The Imperial Post: The Meyers, the Grahams,
and the Paper That Rules Washington (New York: Morrow
1983) is not recommended. Howard Bray's The Pillars
of the Post: The Making of a News Empire in Washington
(New York: Norton 1980) is more impressive.
The insightful, if at times gossipy, Power, Privilege
& the Post: The Katherine Graham Story (New York:
Seven Stories 1999) by Carol Felsenthal was initially
pulped at the request of Ms Graham's lawyers, apparently
over its account of happy days within the Graham family.
David Rudenstine's The Day the Presses Stopped: A History
of The Pentagon Papers Case (Berkeley: Uni of California
Press 1996) is an excellent introduction to the interplay
between bean counters, proprietors, journos and lawyers
in dealing with 'national interest' disputes. All the
President's Men (New York: Simon & Schuster 1974)
is a classic account of the Watergate investigation by
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
The Washington Post: The First 100 Years (New York:
Houghton Mifflin 1977) by Chalmers Roberts is a corporate
history, strongly influenced by its role in the downfall
of Tricky Dick Nixon. Assessment of that fall might include
consultation of David Greenberg's superb Nixon's Shadow:
The History of an Image (New York: Norton 2003).
For Newsweek see in particular The Land of
Oz (New York: Viking 1980) by former editor Osborne
Elliot and The Magazine in America 1741-1990
(New York: Oxford Uni Press 1991) by John Tebbel &
Mary Zuckerman.
next page (Washington
Post holdings)
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