WP eyes ‘bittersweet’ newsroom move

WASHINGTON: It has been one of the most storied newsrooms in American journalism, but The Washington Post has decided it’s time for a change to meet the needs of the digital era.
The Post officially leaves its headquarters building in downtown Washington on December 14 as it migrates its 700-person newsroom staff three blocks away to offices designed as the newsroom of the future.
It will mark a fresh beginning for a newspaper with a grand tradition but which is undergoing major changes under Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who bought the daily in 2013.
"There are a lot of bittersweet feelings about leaving this place," said Tracy Grant, the deputy managing editor coordinating the transition for the newsroom.
"It may be a mouse-infested pit, but it’s our mouse-infested pit and we feel affection for it."
The Post building, a short distance from the White House on 15th Street NW, was inaugurated in 1972 and was the scene of groundbreaking reporting on the Watergate scandal by young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.
The newspaper has won dozens of Pulitzer awards and other prizes over the past 43 years, making the daily one of the most respected in the country.
"There’s a strong attachment to the history of the organisation, and the building is part of that," said Robert Mitchell, an editor at the Washington Post news service who has been with the paper nearly 20 years.
"But the organisation is bigger than the building. I think most people are excited about the move."
Some longtime staffers, however, expect a letdown as the newspaper leaves its longtime headquarters.
Senior editor Marc Fisher said that "it is a comedown to be going into a rented space in someone else’s building as opposed to having our own building, which is a landmark and an institution."