Changes at the Washington Post – Hope for Growth versus Partisanship

Yesterday, the Washington Post announced that they had named Frederick J. Ryan as the new publisher, replacing Katherine Wymouth. The gist:

Politico’s first chief executive, Frederick J. Ryan Jr., a former Reagan administration official now charged with continuing to build the reach of Post journalism through digital initiatives, company officials said Tuesday.

The hiring of Ryan, 59, ends eight decades of Graham family leadership of The Post and underscores the newspaper’s move into a new era marked by expanded ambitions online and a determination to build a larger national and international audience.

(Washington Post)

The Post also published Ryan’s bio here, which is worth noting.

What does this mean for the Post? Most likely a more bi-partisan approach to both the print and digital edition, by which those disenfranchised from most print based on biased reporting, may just return. There are few daily newspapers in the U.S. that do not have an obvious political leaning – and have, as a result, seen a steep decline in print over the past two decades. It is, in this opinion, not the “internet” driving the former subscribers away - just ask your center-right neighbor.

Regardless, it is too soon to accurately speculate in which direction the Post will actually go (politically), but there is hope that one day – straight reporting will be found throughout a publication, with the partisanship where it belongs – in the editorial section.