Today in The New Republic, Gabriel Sherman takes a long look at what the subhead calls the “messy collapse of a great newspaper,” the Washington Post. There are some great moments in there, like when Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli kills a spider in the car of Katharine Weymouth, the Post‘s publisher.
Strangely, though, Sherman’s Twitter feed has a lot of things that didn’t make it into the story, some of which are much, much better than what actually landed. Don’t worry if you told him that you call Brauchli “Count Brauchula,” though—-that’s in there. What’s not? Some of Sherman’s more intriguing Tweets after the jump.
Before WP, Brauchli almost didnt get WSJ gig. Press release drafted to announce Paul Ingrassia, but Steiger protested. Brauchli won bake-off
WaPo-60 Minutes divorce: in ’08, Brauchli asked Jeff Fager to pay WaPo for collaborations. 60 Mins said no. Investigative partnership over
Brauchli on bureaus: “If Hurricane Katrina hits, we’ll be there. But we don’t need a staff on the ground covering snow storms in Chicago.”
Brauchli on WaPo’s great multipart A.I.G series beating Michael Lewis in VF to the story: “He didn’t come close but I bet he got paid more.”
Walter Pincus proposed merging WaPo website with NYT website. But WaPo execs nixed idea. “Never been able to get it through our own people.”
Walter Pincus on Politico: “It wouldn’t work at the Post. Politics is a much narrower audience…Most people don’t give a shit.”
But Jim VandeHei at Politico doesn’t mind. A senior DC journalist said VandeHei claims “he no longer reads the Post in any detailed fashion”
In addition to salons, WaPo wanted to plan a half dozen medium size conferences during the year and one epic conference like Davos
Downie says WP considering putting ads on A1: “There may be advertising on Page 1 as soon as this year.” Weymouth wouldn’t confirm or deny
Weymouth on spiders: “”I think I’m a normal person and I don’t want to sleep in a bed or be in a car with a bug. But I don’t have a phobia.”
In 2008, WaPo execs discussed a tiered-pricing scheme, where consumers could buy a cheaper, scaled-down version of the paper. Idea didnt fly
Morning salongate broke, Brauchli went to WaPo national desk. “I didn’t know about it!” he told group of editors. “I didn’t approve flier”