WaPo drain-circling picks up speed

From the PJ Tatler: Washington Post staff morale drops over new makeover

The Post’s latest makeover continues its trend towards soft pop culture coverage. In a move seen as silly by Post staffers, the paper is separating the Style section from the Arts section. “Brilliant move” one Post staffer sarcastically told the Tatler. To old timers this seems like moving around chairs on the Titanic. Years ago the paper had separate sections and at the time they were combined as a new selling point to readers.

There also will be a new tabloid size section focusing on popular culture, a new “Deal Hunter” section for coupons and sales, a “Web Insight” section on blogs, and weekly photo galleries of D.C. social scene.

Post staff tell the Tatler they’ve seen it all before and predict it will make no difference in improving the declining reporting quality of the paper. “It’s all about marketing,” one long-time staffer confessed to the Tatler. The makeover certainly has nothing to do about news gathering or reporting. Last year the paper downsized its Business section, subsuming it into the main news section.

Maybe the Post's demise has something to do with its perennial lefty bias. Or its  celebration of everything homosexual, including this recent story -- Gay leather fetishists gather to celebrate skins and substance -- which graced the front of the Style section and an entire half-page inside it, along with two photos. I just have to share a bit of it with you:

"I meet the nicest people through leather," says contestant Frank King, who elects to pair a leather vest with a red lumberjack shirt for the casual portion of the competition. "Doctors, lawyers. Just everyday people."

King, who owns a resort in Rehoboth Beach, Del., is new to the leather scene. His grown daughter wanted to come see her dad in the competition; he convinced her that he wanted to go it alone his first year.

"People say this lifestyle is about whips and chains," says contestant Tim White, the reigning Mr. Connecticut Leather, who, in what is considered a celebrity romance in this community, is dating the current Mr. New Jersey Leather. "But it's about heart. There is so much nurturing in this community."

This is news we need? I sense a subtle message that my family is not among the Post's targeted demographic. I got the same funny feeling last year during their  aggressive campaign to promote same-sex marriage with article after article after article.

Still subscribing: Ezra Klein's parents, the immediate family members of Eugene Robinson and EJ Dionne, and a few comic addicts. When they seriously cut the comics section, we're gone. Really.


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