According to a Post memo: "Wil will train his unique voice on the turbulent political landscape, the fragile economy, and the social and cultural changes that have gone unchronicled in America." Boy, that sounds almost like a nut graph from an enterprise story itself—just tack on an anecdotal lede, and we'll be ready for A01!

Full memo after the jump!

We are pleased to announce that Wil Haygood, one of journalism’s most gifted storytellers, will join the National Enterprise team headed by David Finkel.

Wil will train his unique voice on the turbulent political landscape, the fragile economy, and the social and cultural changes that have gone unchronicled in America. Wil’s work in Style, his current home, and elsewhere in The Post is well known to his colleagues and to our readers.

From Hurricane Katrina to a father’s fear for his Haitian family, from Alabama logger Clarence “Sunnyman” Primm to former White House butler Eugene Allen, Wil has brought originality and vividness to the subjects he has touched.

We expect Wil’s byline will continue to appear on the front page, in Style, and anywhere else stories can be told. He will join us as soon as he completes remaining Style assignments.

Kevin (Merida) David (Finkel)

The buzz around town today is all about Sally Quinn's new low, aka a column in this morning's Style section in which she explains all about a wedding-scheduling snafu in her own family.

For all of you who have substantive things to worry about, this is what the piece was about: In recent days, there've been published reports about how the columnist's son, Quinn Bradlee, is scheduled to get married on the same day as the granddaughter of Quinn's husband, Washington Post legend Ben Bradlee. So Quinn used this week's edition of her Style column, "The Party," to rebut the negativity in those reports, and to assert that even a "so-called expert" (herself, that is) on the art of entertaining can slip up now and again.

The comments section has been downright abusive, as in: "TimPage1 wrote: When the brilliant and legendary Henry Allen had a dust-up at the Post with some reporters, he referred to their article as "the second worst piece ever printed in Style." This led to a heated question on the Washingtonian blog — what was the WORST piece ever printed in Style? There's a new champion today. Unbelievable."

Another glorious takedown comes from Tom Scocca and Choire Sicha, writing on the fabulous The Awl.

Of course, TimPage1, Scocca, Sicha, and myself are punching a pretty easy target here, and perhaps a target that loves nothing more than serving as a target. But the newsworthy thing about this particular abomination is not so much just how bad the column is, how self-unaware Quinn is, or anything like that. She can be as bad as she wants to be.

The real questions are for her editor, Style editor Ned Martel, and here's just a start:

1) Mr. Martel: Is this the sort of material you envisioned when you launched the column?

2) Mr. Martel: In the column, Ms. Quinn references "tensions" within her family, yet she never explains what those tensions were. If your columnist made a passing reference to tensions within any other family, or tensions within a company, or tensions within a book club, wouldn't you demand further explanation of those tensions?

3) Mr. Martel: How is it that there was no overlap on the guest lists for the two weddings under discussion here?

4) Mr. Martel: Your columnist is using the increasingly precious space in the print edition of the Washington Post to rebut criticism aired in other media outlets. Is this something that's encouraged at the paper? If someone attacks another columnist or reporter, is that space going to be available for further rebuttals? Could you carve out some column inches just for this purpose? And why are there no links to said criticism?

5) Mr. Martel: Your columnist slimes her husband in print, saying she instructed him "to put the date [of his granddaughter's wedding] on his calendar, and he did not. A warning to wives everywhere!" Did the husband have a chance to comment for the column?

6) Mr. Martel: Did you read this column before it was published?

Alas, Mr. Martel is not going to answer those questions. After ringing him up this afternoon, here's the conversation that ensued:

I asked Martel if I could interview him about the column. He responded, "I am going to decline to comment."

I told him it's just about the column, nothing terribly sensitive: "That is the way it’s going to be."

I told him that it's generally been the case that editors at the Post speak up in defense of their journalism, and Martel said, "I am going to forward your questions to Kris Coratti." Kris Coratti is the paper's spokesperson, and the last time we checked in with her, she was declining to tell us about the various editions that the paper prints each day.

Winding down the conversation with Martel, I told him that refusing to speak about what the paper had printed "stinks."

"Oh, sorry," he responded.

Another victory for the Brauchli Doctrine!

The author of a new Washington Post Style section column on entertaining as well as a book on the same subject has lofty goals for her get-togethers: "I want everyone who leaves my house to leave feeling better about themselves," said Quinn in an interview with City Desk.

Judged against her own standards, Quinn may have stumbled last Friday night.

The event was a holiday bash for Style staffers, and the venue was not Quinn's house but the Georgetown residence of Style co-boss Ned Martel. In any event, Quinn, the queen of the party, felt compelled to play the headlining role, delivering the keynote toast. According to attendees and Quinn herself, the toast hit on the following themes:

I've been with Style for 30 years, and Style is back! Back to where it was in the good old days. I talk to people these days who read Style every day and it's been a long time since I've heard that. There's energy and creativity and vibrancy now. Ned and [co-boss] Lynn [Medford] are doing great work. Blah, blah.

When asked how people should have responded to the message, Quinn responded: "I think they should have been ecstatic."

Ecstasy, though, was scarce among this crowd. "Everybody thought [the toast] was inconsiderate of all the people who’ve been there for some time, that it was a failing operation that people didn't read," says a source.

Another interpretation from another attendee: Quinn was singing the praises of the section decades ago, back when she was a star social correspondent—i.e., the "good old days"—and now, when she is again a regular contributor, via her weekly column "The Party." "This was clearly Sally talking about Sally," says the attendee.

No narcissism here, protests Quinn. "I wasn’t talking about me. I was talking about the energy and excitement that we had, and I see that now and it’s just thrilling."

A couple of partygoers claim that Martel was wincing when Quinn was gushing over the turnaround in Style quality, a charge that Martel denies. "I have never winced at anything that Sally Quinn has said." As to the elegance of Quinn's toast, Martel took a pass: "I think it’s best for that night to exist without the host’s next-day or next-week commentary."

Whatever the feelings about Quinn's attempt at holiday cheer, the gossip that lingers days later attests to a number of issues:

Issue No. 1: Quinn is right that Style is improving, as City Desk has pointed out previously.

Issue No. 2: The quality and avant-garditude of the Style section is one of the great agonies of the Washington Post. Oh, it was so awesome decades ago, goes a popular refrain. Everyone loves to wax nostalgic about its classic writers. Hendrickson! Allen! Quinn! The debate about when the section was great and when it sucked is the journalistic equivalent of "Man, it's cold outside"—a waste of breath that'll never accomplish anything. When the section turned 40 early this year, Style writer Hank Stuever tilted at the craziness:

There's a kind of longtime Washington Post reader who is only too smug about informing us how great Style was in the 1970s, or the '80s or the '90s (the early '90s, they sniff, like oenophiles distinguishing vintage). We are certain that by the end of Style's first week, someone complained that it was better on Monday and Tuesday. At a Style staff meeting a few years back, art critic Paul Richard, who's been here since the Earth cooled, said that anyone who tells you Style was so much better back-when should be condemned to crank the microfilm and forced to read it, day in and day out.

Issue No. 3: Quinn couldn't abide a certain top editor at the Post. When asked to expand on her claim that Style is back, Quinn obliged: "I would say that Ben [Bradlee, former Post executive editor and husband of Quinn] invented Style and he really cared about it. It was priority No. 1. When he stepped down as editor, it was not the No. 1 priority anymore. And when Marcus took over, it was a big priority for him."

Let's see—think there might just be a subtle little elbow in there between the lines? What do you know—that non-priority period just so happens to coincide with the editorship of Leonard Downie Jr., who ran the Post newsroom from 1991 to 2008.

But this is one pissing match for which Downie won't whip it out. When informed of Quinn's analysis, he declined to comment.

Issue No. 4: Quinn is a lovely person to talk to, a true believer in fine entertaining, perky-yet-tough, a great family woman, a co-moderator of an innovative Post Web page on religion, and surely many other good things, but her "The Party" column isn't one of the things contributing to the Style section's resurgence. Thus far, it's a jumble of reflections and peeves from a woman for whom entertaining is a touch too important. And if you actually read it, there's no way to avoid the self-aggrandizing land mines that can hit you at any point. My fave thus far: "One of the nicest compliments I ever got was at a large New Year's Eve party I had. A man came over to me and said, 'I love this party. Everyone here looks so beautiful.' (Candles, rose-colored walls and pink light bulbs never hurt.)"

But I must say that it was Continetti who grabbed me this morning, right from the start of his piece. If ever there was a perfect lede, this was it:

Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss.

At that moment, I mind-melded with Continetti, because that's the very reaction I have when I pick up just about any book. When I recently finished off Hank Stuever's delightful Tinsel, all I could think of was Jauss. Sure, I was thinking of Tammie and Blake and Caroll and Marissa and all the other great characters in Stuever's narrative, but it was Jauss that really preoccupied me.

Last night, I grabbed Honey, I Wrecked the Kids. I began reading about such child behavior-influencing techniques as redirection and distraction, not to mention the important distinctions between praise and encouragement. But I was really obsessing the whole time over the teachings of none other than Jauss. He provided the frame of reference for the entire affair. Yup, Jauss.

Same dynamic applied to this morning's newspaper reading. I was checking out the Post's stories on the closing of the Washington Blade and about the killing of a 9-year-old in Columbia Heights. People like Lou Chibbaro Jr. and Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham were mentioned in those stories. And they were so overshadowed, yet again, by Jauss.

Like a lot of people, I just wander around thinking about nothing but Jauss. I've got to get together with Continetti and talk some Jauss.

Hit play and find out!

Changes in the TV Team

We’re pleased to announce the start of a new Style column byTom Shales, who as our lead TV critic for over 30 years has entertained us with his superb wit and intelligence. In his new column, Tom takes on a broader role of culture critic, writing not just on all things television but from a 30,000-foot perspective on our culture and the forces that shape it. Tom will illuminate, pontificate and eviscerate, on TV and other subjects. The column will be followed by a Web chat and blog. In addition to the new weekly column, Tom will continue to cover many of the big televised events, such as State of the Union speeches, the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards and the Emmys.

Hank Stuever will take on a new role as our daily television critic, exploring the medium across the many platforms and in the many ways it now traverses our culture, our society and our community. Hank came to Style 10 years ago after working at papers in Austin and Albuquerque and has distinguished himself as an astute and colorful observer of popular culture. He is a thinker and writer who can take on almost any assignment and dissect its deep and complex meanings in compelling ways.

Lisa de Moraes will continue to provide her witty, must-read coverage of the industry through her popular TV Column, and will soon have a new blog that will allow her to break her stories faster and on an ever-widening platform.

This team of stars will ensure that our readers know and understand one of the most powerful forces shaping our culture today.  Changes will be effective Monday, August 10.

Lynn and Ned

July 27, 2009