Post Watch: Rating the New Brain Trust

The Washington Post now has a foursome in charge of dreaming up a Post for the new-media age and figuring out how to make enough money to survive. On a scale of one to ten, how do reporters and editors rank the new leaders?

Katharine Weymouth: Even as she delivers the news that the Post must shave $85 million in costs, the young publisher gets high marks for being calm, steady, and forthright. Also pretty hip and approachable. Rating: 8

Marcus Brauchli: As executive editor for six months, he has yet to establish a real presence in either the print or the Web-site newsroom. Reporters call him the Ghost. At lunches with reporters, he seems “disengaged” and consumed with his BlackBerry. Rating: 6

Liz Spayd: She has lots of cred in both newsrooms. She’s the only top editor who came up through the Post and appreciates the culture. As one of two managing editors, she’s been in the downtown-DC newsroom, putting out the newspaper and directing coverage on Washingtonpost.com. Rating: 9

Raju Narisetti: Only a month on the job, he got off to a rough start. He worked with Brauchli at the Wall Street Journal, launched a newspaper in India, and now shares the managing-editor title with Spayd. Posties say it’s Narisetti’s job to cut staff at Washingtonpost.com. After an all-hands staff meeting, he stepped into an elevator with eight of his staff members. They expected him to chat; he never looked up from his BlackBerry. Rating: 3

This article is from the March 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from the issue, click here. 

Harry Jaffe