‘Ten Principles for Washington Post Journalism on the Web’

Posted on July 5, 2007 by Melissa Worden

The Washington City Paper was so kind to post an internal memo encouraging the WP and WP.com to play nice.

Say Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie and Managing Editor Phil Bennett:

We wanted to develop and prioritize the most promising aspects of our partnership, address bottlenecks in our relationship and create the 2.0 version of the newsroom’s role in what is already one of the most successful journalism sites on the Web.

And here’s the list:

1. The Washington Post is an online source of local, national and international news and information. We serve local, national and international audiences on the Web.

2. We will be prepared to publish Washington Post journalism online 24/7. Web users expect to see news as it happens. If they do not find it on our site they will go elsewhere.

3. We will publish most scoops and other exclusives when they are ready, which often will be online.

4. The originality and added value of Post journalism distinguishes us on the Web. We will emphasize enterprise, analysis, criticism and investigations in our online journalism.

5. Post journalism published online has the same value as journalism published in the newspaper. We embrace chats, blogs and multimedia presentations as contributions to our journalism.

6. Accuracy, fairness and transparency are as important online as on the printed page. Post journalism in either medium should meet those standards.

7. We recognize and support the central role of opinion, personality and reader-generated content on the Web. But reporters and editors should not express personal opinions unless they would be allowed in the newspaper, such as in criticism or columns.

8. The newsroom will respond to the rhythms of the Web as ably and responsibly as we do to the rhythms of the printed newspaper. Our deadline schedules, newsroom structures and forms of journalism will evolve to meet the possibilities of the Web.

9. Newsroom employees will receive training appropriate to their roles in producing online journalism.

10. Publishing our journalism on the Web should make us more open to change what we publish in the printed newspaper. There is no meaningful division at The Post between “old media” and “new media.”

I’ve never worked at the Post, so I don’t know how it really feels to work there, but from the outside it seems to me that it’s got to be quite difficult when the two aren’t even in the same state.

Well, OK … print is in D.C. and online is only across the Potomac in Arlington, Va., but not even being in the same building has got to hurt some of their efforts. Geesh. I sit about 30 feet from the city editor and still find it tough. I can’t imagine the obstacles these two news organizations must face (which is part of the problem — they should be one news org.)