Morning Miracle: Inside the Washington Post A Great Newspaper Fights for Its Life Review

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Morning Miracle: Inside the Washington Post A Great Newspaper Fights for Its Life ReviewDave Kindred's THE MORNING MIRACLE doesn't compare with Gay Talese's THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER, and isn't even the best book on the Washington Post (Katharine Graham's PERSONAL HISTORY), but it is a first-rate account of a venerable institution struggling to survive in the 21st century. The heroes are Post writers Dana Priest, Annie Hull, Anthony Shadid, Sally Jenkins and Gene Weingarten, individuals who see journalism more as a calling than a career. Walter Pincus is the old truth-telling prophet. Len Downie is revered as the near perfect editor. Ben Bradlee is almost made to walk on water. And yet, despite such talent, the Post is losing money on newsprint and the direction forward is murky, so much so that one Post writer suggests Kindred's title should be DYING WITH DIGNITY.
As Kindred focuses the story on the period of time between 2005-2008, the staff knows that beloved publisher, Don Graham, will do anything to keep the print side of the paper afloat. But, in seeing his personal (a divorce settlement) and professional (age) life slipping away, he believes that the only hope is to turn to youth for leadership, particularly niece Katharine Weymouth. Understanding the business side of the Post, and more aware of the importance of its online future, Weymouth is the logical successor. But, Kindred is not placated with the choice. He finds her oblivious to the decline of the quality of the Post as the staff shrinks through forced buyouts. And, worse still, he knows that she has no ear for words, no sense of the history of print. She quotes Metro Columnist Marc Fisher as putting forth the Post's objective in a tidy fashion when he writes it is "to speak truth to power, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Kindred's scorching reaction, "The words were written by Finley Peter Dunne almost a century ago. Old news to people who know newspapers." But, such tough talk belies the reality that without Weymouth's bottom line agressiveness, the Post might fold altogether like the Seatlle Post-Intelligencer or the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Kindred grudgingly knows that the Post must adapt or die.
Weingarten turns out to be Kindred's sage. He pinpoints the critical difference between reading a newspaper and something online. With a newspaper, you never read what you think you will. You see different headlines and pictures and end up reading somethng you otherwise would have bypassed. Online, you pick out what you read. You confirm what you already know and you never expand.
Weingarten also provides the most laugh out loud moments in the book, such as when making a graduation speech to journalism majors and telling them that the business is changing so radically that it is hard to tell what future journalists will look like. Weingarten exclaims, "I mean literally. For all we know, they might have gills and three buttocks. That's how fast things are changing. But rest assured that, however dizzying the rate of change, when what's at stake is the sacred art of truth-telling, there is always one constant. One thing that will always be the same: Your editor is going to be an idiot."
In the end, Kindred concludes that the Post will no longer be the paper of excellence that the Grahams, Bradlee and Downie created anymore than today's world can be the same as the world of a generation past. But, he does take comfort that there will always be journalists who love to get the story right and won't rest until they do.
For those who love words, and print, and might even still walk out into their driveway every morning to pick up the Post, this is a great book to read.Morning Miracle: Inside the Washington Post A Great Newspaper Fights for Its Life Overview

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