Posts Tagged ‘reorganization’
New Role for WaPo’s Marc Fisher: Enterprise Editor
Longtime Washington Post Metro columnist Marc Fisher will soon be leaving his post for a job editing a small band of journalists with a special mission at the Post, according to several sources. Though it doesn't yet have an official name, Fisher's unit will focus on breaking news and enterprise stories in the Washington region. It'll operate under the paper's reorganized local news desk, but don't necessarily think of this beast as just a Metro thing: Fisher's people will reportedly file pieces for various sections of the paper, in a bureaucratic free agency of sorts.
At this stage, some aspects of the operation remain undetermined. Like size---the exact number of staffers in this local-but-not-overtly-local journalistic SWAT team hasn't been finalized but will likely fall below ten. And there are no indications just who will fill the slots in this local-but-highly-versatile journalistic Rapid Deployment Team, but dozens of individuals in the newsroom who've had success combining legible sentences with independently gathered information have reportedly applied for positions.
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Is Fisher Bagging His Column?
As discussed in an amazing earlier post, the Washington Post blew up its newsroom today. Via the most masterfully written, almost inspiring, re-org memo, Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli changed forever the way that Posties take stories, blog items, and Tweets, and channel them to the paper's various platforms. The memo is not only chockablock with new ways of working, but also promulgates a number of key personnel changes, including the move of sports editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz to the chief of local news.
However, the most pivotal figure in this whole deal isn't even mentioned in the memo. He's Metro columnist Marc Fisher. Several sources in the newsroom are whispering that something big is up with Fisher.
WaPo Re-Org: Holy Shit!
Marcus Brauchli has been executive editor of the Washington Post for nearly eight months. A lot of that time he's spent burrowing into coverage of the global economic meltdown, having meetings with key individuals, and banging away at his BlackBerry. Changes, as is customary at the Post, have come slowly and cautiously, such as the decision to curb duplication in obituary writing on the Metro and Style pages.
This morning, however, Brauchli dumped the Mr. Incremental persona in favor of Change Agent, handing down an enormous, nearly 1,700-word memo blowing up the newsroom. No more Balkanized Washington Post, with nine million fiefdoms, all with their own top bosses who tussle and muscle each other over every little thing.
In the new Post world, there'll be three top editors: Kevin Merida, in charge of national stuff; Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the current sports editor who'll take over local coverage; and Sandy Sugawara, the current business editor who's going to be in charge of a "universal" news desk that'll funnel all kinds of content into print, the Web, and so on.
The rest of the changes kinda flow from that new structure, with massive personnel upheaval, and desks and titles moving around the place like gchats. But one newsroom change towers above all the others for Posties as well as readers.
The memo announces that Assistant Managing Editor for Metro Robert McCartney will leave his current perch to take a job as a Metro columnist. He's run excellent Metro coverage since mid-2005, when he was chosen to succeed Jo-Ann Armao. His people love him, he's had good relations with the Web folks, and he did fabulous things for the long-suffering feature hole in Metro's front page.
So the move to providing content is nothing short of a shocker. In mid-December, McCartney sent out a notice announcing that his desk would be hiring a new columnist. The memo called the move "exciting news," doubtless a reference to the extraordinary act of hiring in these tough media times. Here's what the job announcement said, in part: "We want a columnist who becomes a must-read feature in the paper and on the Web. We want a columnist who can offer a compelling and provocative read twice a week, who is an exceptional reporter, voiced writer and deep thinker. We want a columnist who has a lot to say and really looks forward to saying it."
Who knows---perhaps the boss fashioned a job description so delicious that he just had to have it himself. The Dick Cheney of the Washington Post? Or is McCartney's position separate from the one that the paper declared open in December?
Either way, management seems happy with the move, if the re-org memo is to be believed:
Bob McCartney, who has served the paper so well as AME/Metro for the last four years, will become a Metropolitan columnist, one of our leading voices in the community where Bob grew up and has lived and run coverage for so long. His distinguished career as a foreign correspondent, managing editor of the International Herald Tribune and the first AME of the continuous news desk, and as a business editor and a reporter gives him the kind of depth and wisdom that will infuse his writing with authority and insight.
Unsaid is how long it's been since McCartney scored regular bylines---that would be about 18 years, judging from a quick Nexis search. Correction 4/17: This part is wrong: McCartney picked up regular bylines in 2003, as a correspondent from Paris. I apologize for the mistake. So McCartney can management employees, but can he manage sources again? I'd say yes---he'll get the magic back.
The bigger consideration---and it's a huge one---relates to the lineup of Metro columnists. Here they are: McCartney, Marc Fisher, John Kelly, and Courtland Milloy. The relevant percentages: 75 percent white, 100 percent male.
Now, there is no way this can stand at the Washington Post. Just no way. Not at a paper that over the years has taken great pains to ensure diversity within its reportorial corps. The boys club on the Metro page this morning emerged as one of the top items of gossip in the Post newsroom.
Answers on Metro columnist diversity, though, are tough to come by right now. Sources at the Post appear to be digesting the news and not picking up the phone.
One editor in a position to know, however, says there's "more to come on columnists." The editor did say that McCartney is not moving into the columnist slot announced in December.
This afternoon, there's a "town hall" meeting on the changes at the Post. Turn off that BlackBerry, Brauchli!
Memo after jump.
Endangered Species at WaPo: Editors
If you're an editor at the Washington Post, don't get too comfy at your desk. Because your bosses may be getting ready to move you.
A wide-ranging editorial reorganization is afoot at the paper, and staffers are busy exchanging whatever details they can pick up. But they're hard to come by. Several top editors confirmed that the plan is coming soon but get touchy when pushed on details.
"I think people in the newsroom are going to be quite happy with the choices of the people who are going to be leading the paper," says Peter Perl, a top newsroom official. "That’s really as far as I can go."
All week long, sources in the newsroom have speculated that an announcement on the editorial reconfiguration could come as soon as today. But Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and others apparently have too many fine points to nail down before making anything official. Brauchli passed an inquiry about the changes to spokesperson Kris Coratti, who wrote via e-mail, "We don’t comment on rumors."
