Still Life with Robin: Where Have You Gone, Woodstein? Come Back!

 by Peggy Robin

 

I subscribe to a bunch of local e-newsletters -- HeyDC, DCNewsNow, CityPaper's DistrictLineDaily, The51st, WashingtonianDaily, AxiosDC, and 7:30DC -- but today I'd like to give a special shout-out to 7:30DC for asking the question that I would call The Local DC News Vacuum Question of the Week:

"Why is the Washington Post acting like a local opinion page for NYC as they kill the Metro local section for DC? Groan." [posted by 7:30DC on Friday, June 27th]

 

(OK, it's a scene from the movie, not the real thing)

To which I add my own question: How is it that the paper that once boasted the greatest-ever team of  local journalists, guided by a gutsy editor and a publisher of unmatched integrity* is now left with a hollowed-out core and just some old, fading memories of what it used to be?

 

No disrespect to any of the e-news outlets I've cited above, but there's just no substitute for a daily print + online newspaper with a full complement of trained, seasoned full-time reporters on the local beat, fully backed by all the resources of a big-city paper. But in axing the stand-alone Metro section and bringing on new top brass who arrive fully formed with the interests and ethics of the Murdoch-owned tabloids and journals that spawned them, Post owner Jeff Bezos has made it clear he's got zero interest in DC as anyone's hometown. To him, it seems to be just another of the many places where he owns property.  

 

It may be that our best hope is that Billionaire Bezos will grow bored of running his little journalistic side-gig and will look for another billionaire to take over. And then of course, we're all at the mercy of whims and shifting interests of that billionaire.

 

"Oligarchy thrives in weakness (of the press)"

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* Those are, of course, Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and the incomparable Katharine Graham.

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local, usually on Saturday but occasionally on Sunday.