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Our speaker today Mrs. Katharine Weymouth, Publisher of the Washington Post. Mrs. Weymouth became publisher of the Post about two years ago and she opened her remarks by joking about the betting that started a few years ago about when newspapers would be no more. All predictions aside, the Post is doing amazingly well and Mrs. Weymouth noted that the highest readership is among 18-49 year olds. The Post's website also remains very popular, with 90 percent of unique readers coming from outside the Washington metro area. She noted that the Post has very strong competition in every vertical that they are in: print, classifieds, website, etc. Since she took the reins at the Post, Mrs. Weymouth has reinvigorated her staff and the business itself - print and online are now integrated as one cohesive unit, and the organization is now organized around subject matter, not sections of the paper. She has also added to the team experts in web technology to boost their presence in online media (i-Phone applications, Kindle for example) and they are constantly thinking about new and innovative ways to engage us, their readers. Mrs. Weymouth's grandmother Katharine Graham often said that great journalism and great business go hand in hand and Mrs. Weymouth has tried to live by this credo. Interestingly, she receives a lot of face-to-face comments and critiques of the paper (since she spends a lot of time at the local Starbucks) and the one thing that readers have been the most upset about it the cancelling of Book World. Mrs. Weymouth took as many questions as she had time for, received the tree certificate.
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