Katharine Graham《個人歷史 Personal History 》/《華盛頓郵報》新史.

At 11:45 a.m. last Tuesday, the editorial staff of The Washington Post was summoned on short notice to an announcement on the fifth floor of its building to hear something they already knew — that Marcus Brauchli would be leaving after four years as executive editor. After Mr. Brauchli spoke, Katharine Weymouth, the newspaper’s publisher, told employees that he would be replaced by Marty Baron, the editor of The Boston Globe.

As the meeting was concluding, Valerie Strauss, a longtime reporter, asked Ms. Weymouth why she was making the change. Ms. Weymouth, perhaps because of employment agreements that limited what could be said, spent a few sentences not answering that question and finished by saying, “Go back to your desks.”
It was less a command than a signal that the meeting was over, but it marked an awkward finish to a leadership change that was mishandled from the start.

It is an inopportune time for The Post to stumble. Ms. Weymouth’s move is akin to switching drivers just as the car is sputtering to a stop. Print, and more ominously, digital advertising revenue is in decline, circulation is in a dive and the newspaper’s “for and about Washington” editorial strategy has left employees underwhelmed. Now Ms. Weymouth seems to be upending the loyalty and accountability that has been a hallmark of her family’s ownership of the newspaper.

After the meeting, people returned to their desks wondering whether Ms. Weymouth was capable of leading the organization. In Mr. Baron, she may have selected a talented and independent editorial leader. But four years into her tenure at the top, she still seems to be struggling to get a grasp on a huge job at a company whose journalism has at times altered the course of a nation.

It is no coincidence that the vast majority of the most important newspapers in the country are controlled by families, not conglomerates, and that comes with advantages and drawbacks. While Ms. Weymouth got her job because of who she is, a Graham, people expect her to find a way to make it work, against tall odds, for the same reason.

Ms. Weymouth declined to comment for this column, but I spoke with many people at The Post about why she can’t seem to find her footing. These people say they like her personally, and she continues to have the ferocious support of Donald Graham, her uncle and the chief executive of The Washington Post Company, as well as the rest of the family. But many staff members worry that she is overseeing the decline of one of journalism’s crown jewels.

Fumbling an editorial change may seem like small beer when viewed against the backdrop of an industry in which bankruptcies are legion and rich business interests are buying newspapers as playthings. And it’s not as if The New York Times has been a model of seamless transitions in the executive suite — the departure of the previous chief executive, Janet Robinson, was not handled forthrightly, and her replacement, Mark Thompson, has come under scrutiny for serious problems he failed to notice in his previous job.

But with around 600 journalists, The Post is still an important player. It is not what it once was, but it isn’t nothing either. Ms. Weymouth’s continued misfires, along with the lack of success in generating new revenue, however, have left the newspaper staring down the gun barrel of deep cuts and a business model in free fall.

Ms. Weymouth, who became publisher in 2008, got off to a rough start, making clumsy work of moving out the longtime editor, Leonard Downie Jr., and bringing in Mr. Brauchli, who left The Wall Street Journal’s top job that year. By reaching outside her own company, she set aside almost 40 years of editorial continuity and put the newsroom on edge.

New to her role, she wanted an editor who would be her wingman and confidante the way Ben Bradlee had been for Katharine Graham, a partnership that produced both business and journalistic success. But the relationship faltered in 2009 after it was revealed that there was a plan to charge various Washington power brokers to attend off-the-record dinners, featuring Post editors and writers, at Ms. Weymouth’s home.

In the ensuing imbroglio, Ms. Weymouth felt that her handpicked editor had left her holding the bag and began doubting his loyalty. The rift never healed. She pushed Mr. Brauchli to cut costs, and he continually asked why the business side was underperforming.

Last summer, Ms. Weymouth began discussing with people outside the paper her desire to replace Mr. Brauchli, less an attempt to undercut him than a rookie mistake of indiscretion. But the ensuing four months of speculation and paralysis further damaged the newspaper.
Once the change was made official, Ms. Weymouth made another mistake; she insisted in interviews that the decision was Mr. Brauchli’s, when most people knew better. Mr. Brauchli declined to comment, but his wife, Maggie Farley, left a large breadcrumb to follow when she asked in a now deleted Facebook post how had “the Washington Post of Watergate fame become the place where you can’t speak truth to power?”

That lack of forthrightness clanked at a news media organization where the chief asset is credibility.

I covered The Post at the end of the 1990s, and while the Grahams could be stodgy and parochial, the company was always known as a stand-up institution built on loyalty. Mr. Brauchli may not have been the perfect person to lead the newsroom in entropic times, but the way the switch was made raised questions about Ms. Weymouth’s maturity and steadfastness as an operational leader.

In terms of strategic plans, The Post remains where it was when she took over, only smaller. The major business thrust has been to lust after the sexy economics of aggregators like The Huffington Post and hope to re-engineer the newspaper into something similar. But The Washington Post is not in that business and never will be.

In the meantime, it has allowed its franchise on political coverage to disperse to other news outlets, many online, like Politico. The newspaper remains free on the Web, and its wait-and-see attitude on online subscriptions has left it on the sidelines. And by hewing to a strategy of local dominance rather than entering the national competitive fray, The Post now finds itself sharing a destiny with struggling regional newspapers.

The Post retains a toehold on its former greatness by virtue of its family ownership — its election coverage showed significant muscle — but those dynamics are now hard against an age that requires decisive, confident leadership. The cushion of profits from other endeavors like the Kaplan education division are all but gone, and if The Post is going to endure, the motor of the enterprise will be the people who occupy what is still one of the most talented newsrooms in the business.

It brings to mind another transition at The Post back in the 1960s, when an inexperienced executive also named Katharine went through a number of pratfalls, personnel miscalculations and a personal crisis of confidence. Katharine Graham eventually figured it out, but she had the luxury of time that Ms. Weymouth does not.

Now that she has an editor she trusts and a rough patch behind her, perhaps this Katharine will find a way as her grandmother did before her.

上周二（指11月13日，本文最初發表於11月18日——注）上午11:45，《華盛頓 郵報》的編輯人員被臨時召集到報社大樓五層，去聽一個通知。通知的內容他們早就知道——馬庫斯·鮑偉傑(Marcus Brauchli)將在擔任執行主編四年後離職。在鮑偉傑講完話後，該報刊的發行人凱瑟琳·韋茅斯(Katharine Weymouth)告訴員工，《波士頓環球報》的主編馬丁·巴倫(Martin Baron) 將取代鮑偉傑擔任執行主編。

在會議即將結束時，資深記者瓦萊麗·斯特勞斯(Valerie Strauss)詢問韋茅斯為何做出這一變動。可能由於僱傭協議限制透露信息，韋茅斯講了幾句答非所問的話，最後說，“回到你們的座位上去吧。”
這與其說是個命令，還不如說是會議結束的信號，但也標誌着這次從一開始就處理不當的領導人變更的尷尬收尾。

《華盛頓郵報》在這時候犯錯誤，十分不合適。韋茅斯的舉措相當於在汽車眼看就要拋錨的時候更換司機。紙媒的廣告收入在下降，更可怕的是數字媒體的廣 告收入也在下跌，報紙發行量急劇下降，而該報紙“為了華盛頓而報道華盛頓”的編輯方針也讓員工們提不起興緻。如今，韋茅斯似乎又在葬送一直以來作為其家族 報業標誌的忠誠與責任。

會議之後，人們紛紛回到自己的座位上，懷疑韋茅斯是否有能力領導報社。她可能選擇了巴倫這個有才而獨立的主編，但在擔任高層領導四年以來，她似乎還沒有掌握公司的管理之道。畢竟這是一份曾經改變過國家方向的報紙。

大部分美國最重要報紙都由家族控制，而不是聯合大企業，這並不是巧合。這有好處也有問題。韋茅斯因生為格雷厄姆家族一員而擔任了要職，出於同樣的原因，人們也希望她能夠設法排除萬難、做好工作。

韋茅斯拒絕就此事向本欄目發表評論，但我和《華盛頓郵報》的很多人有過談話，談到為什麼她好像始終找不到方向。這些人表示，他們喜歡韋茅斯這個人，而她也繼續得到她舅舅、華盛頓郵報公司(The Washington Post Company)首席執行官唐納德·格雷厄姆(Donald Graham)以及格雷厄姆全家族的鼎力支持。但很多公司員工擔心，就是在她擔任高管期間，新聞業的一顆明珠正漸漸隕落。

在當今的新聞行業，破產案例不計其數，財大氣粗的企業收購報紙不過是當做玩物。在這樣的行業背景下，試圖對編輯部門作出調整可能是一個小的舉措。 《紐約時報》也不是管理層無縫過渡的模範——前首席執行官珍妮特·羅賓遜(Janet Robinson)的離職處理得並非無懈可擊，而他的替代者馬克·湯普森(Mark Thompson)也因為在前一份工作中忽視了嚴重問題而受到審查。
但擁有600名左右記者的《華盛頓郵報》仍然是新聞界重要的一家報紙。它已不比當年，但也不是一無是處。然而韋茅斯一再失策，再加上未能成功創造新收入，已經讓報紙面臨著嚴重裁減支出的局面，其經營模式也一落千丈。

韋茅斯在2008年成為該報發行人，一開始便不順利。當年，她作出生硬的人事調整，換下資深主編小倫納德·唐尼(Leonard Downie Jr.)，換上辭去了《華爾街日報》主編的鮑偉傑。通過物色公司以外的人才，她拋棄了將近40年的編輯持續性，也讓報紙的編輯部門緊張不安。

上任伊始，她想要一名能做她副手的主編，當她的心腹，就像本·布拉德利(Ben Bradlee)和凱瑟琳·格雷厄姆(Katharine Graham)一樣，他們兩人的合作實現了商業和新聞的雙重成功。 2009年，韋茅斯在自家舉辦報社編輯和記者參加的私宴，請華盛頓的遊說團體付費參加。此事曝光之後，韋茅斯和主編的關係動搖了。

在接下來的紛爭中，韋茅斯感到她親自挑選的主編讓她一個人背黑鍋，並開始質疑他的忠心。這一裂痕再也沒有得到彌合。她要求鮑偉傑削減成本，而鮑偉傑則不斷質問為何經營部門的表現不佳。

夏季，韋茅斯開始和報社外的人談論起自己想更換鮑偉傑的想法，與其說這樣做是為了削弱鮑偉傑，還不如說這是新手常犯的輕率錯誤。但接下來四個月的猜測和工作上的癱瘓進一步損害了這份報紙。

在人事變動正式宣布之後，韋茅斯又犯了一個錯誤。她在採訪中堅稱，是鮑偉傑自己決定離職，但大多數人都更清楚實情。鮑偉傑拒絕對此事發表評論，但他 的妻子發佈在Facebook上的帖子引起了很大關注。她寫道，“為何曝光了水門事件的《華盛頓郵報》如今成了不能在權力面前說真話的地方？”該帖已被刪 除。

如此缺乏坦誠和公開，這在一家以信譽為主要資產的新聞媒體機構是極不協調的。

我在20世紀90年代末期曾報道過《華盛頓郵報》。儘管格雷厄姆家族僵化保守、目光狹隘，但該公司一直以來都被認為是一家建立在忠誠之上的堂堂正正 的機構。鮑偉傑可能不是在混亂時期指導新聞編輯的最佳人選，但韋茅斯的換人方式不得不讓人質疑韋茅斯作為經營領導人的成熟度和堅定度。
 

同時，很多像Politico這樣的網絡新聞媒體還分散了它在政治新聞報道方面的優勢。該報紙的網站仍不收費，但公司對在線訂閱的觀望態度使其落後於形勢。此外，由於堅持本地主導政策，而不是加入全國競爭行列，該報現在發現自己面臨著與很多艱難求生的地方報紙相同的命運。
《華盛頓郵報》憑藉家族力量，依然保留住了一小部分過去的光輝——其有關選舉的報道仍相當有力——但在一個需要果斷自信的領導能力的時代，這些優勢 已經不足以應對新形勢。來自其他業務利潤的緩衝已基本不復存在，如卡普蘭(Kaplan)教育機構。如果《華盛頓郵報》要堅持下去，動力應該是那些新聞從 業人員，他們所在的報紙依然擁有行業內最有才華的新聞團隊。

這又讓我們想起了《華盛頓郵報》在20世紀60年代的那次過渡。當時，缺乏經驗的決策人也叫凱瑟琳，她經歷了一系列失誤、人事上的失策和個人信任危機。凱瑟琳·格雷哈姆最終找到了答案，但韋茅斯卻不像前者那樣有充裕的時間。

如今，她走過了這一段艱難路程，也有了自己信任的主編，或許這個凱瑟琳會像她的外祖母那樣，找到自己的路。