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The Journal publishes four regional editions in nine printing plants across the U.S., runs a mammoth and complicated delivery system to ensure same-day service to most subscribers. The paper still sticks to line drawings in preference to photographs—a tradition that happens to be thrifty and that bypasses pressure to print glossies of executives. In 1972 Managing Editor Frederick Taylor outlawed the word "reform" on the conservative principle that not all change is for the better. The Journal has enormous impact on its main beat. On the day it ran a grim front-page report listing the expected impact of the Arab oil boycott, industry by industry, the stock market dropped 24 points.
THE WASHINGTON POST Morning (circ. 532,000) and Sunday (701,671).
Appearing to speak at schools, Post staffers customarily receive standing ovations before they utter a word. Such celebrity for print journalists is unprecedented, but so is the story to which the Post led an indifferent nation. Thanks largely to the tireless digging of Watergate Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Post's work on the nation's worst political scandal has won awards beyond the staffs counting. But obscured by Watergate is the Post's broader challenge to the New York Times for national preeminence. Under Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, 52, the Post has tripled its 1965 news budget of $4,000,000, recruited some major talent. Bradlee's news-department staff of 379 is still smaller by almost 300 than the Times's, but it has a we-try-harder zeal. In one important respect the Post is clearly superior to the New York Times: its nine editorial writers, led by Editor Philip L. Geyelin and Deputy Meg Greenfield, produce wise, reasoned, dispassionate commentary. The paper's political staff, under Pulitzer- prizewinning Columnist David Broder, is perhaps the most knowledgeable in the country.
Less successful is the style section, of which Bradlee is quite proud. Actually, it is a somewhat erratic blend of the good, bad and incongruous. Columnists Nicholas von Hoffman and Art Buchwald are mixed with meandering reviews of the arts—plus Ann Landers. The Post has some trouble serving its fragmented local area; it is not only the sole morning daily in the District of Columbia, its suburban circulation makes it the largest morning paper in Maryland and the largest paper—period—in Virginia. Publisher Katharine Graham has not let the rigors of Watergate coverage stiffen her sense of humor: "Wherever I go, someone inevitably declares that this has been a banner year for journalism and the Post. That's true, though in much the same sense that tropical storm Agnes was a great time for disaster agencies."
*The other Knight dailies: the Akron Beacon-Journal, Boca Raton (Fla.) News, Bradenton (Fla.) Herald, Charlotte (N.C.) News and Observer, Columbus (Ga.) Enquirer and Ledger, Detroit Free Press, Lexington (Ky.) Herald and Leader, Macon (Ga.) News and Telegraph, Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, and the Tallahassee Democrat.