For many of my former Washington Post colleagues and, apparently, for many DC-area readers, the reductions in local coverage and locally-based correspondents have been more than disheartening. The newspaper we lovingly worked for, in my case for 34 years, is often “Not The ‘Washington’ Post.”  Which could be the masthead for a satirical front page — like those once produced for the retirements of top editors and occasionally others, like the legendary cop reporter Al Lewis, who I once rewrote after correcting him for talking about “our auto theft squad.”  “Al,” I told him, “the Washington Post doesn’t have an auto theft squad.”

A few old timers are hanging on. One hopes that Martin Weil, who packs more into eight graphs about the weather than others would take an entire column to fill. will keep writing his light, bright and tight gems. Of course, within living memory but not so much now, stories were measured in column lengths or column inches: Forty words to an inch, roughly 22 inches, as I recall, to fit the printed page. Hail to the courageous few who, like the Great Gadsby, sail against the currents of change to commit great local journalism. Sadly, their ranks are thinning, along with those of their readers.  I’m not talking here just about the 65+ generation, clutching their ink-stained print paper and clinging hopelessly to the pre-internet past. But also, judging from many  comments appended to the stories online, to growing ranks of disaffected subscribers.  They seem to hew to no particular ideology, just to the facts or lack of.

I was sadly reminded of this decline in local coverage by John Kelly, my former editor on the Weekend section in the late 1990s who later became a beloved local columnist appearing regularly inside the Post’s Metro section — until a few months ago, when he took a buyout and was not replaced. John has now joined the new platform known as Sub Stack, which might also be a good fit for this blog, which I would consider if I even understood what it is and why it exists.

In his most recent post, John was shocked — shocked! — to read a note on the Post’s front page that said:  “Weekend: The section is off this week. Movie reviews and listings are in today’s Style section.” This evoked in him a “back in my day” reverie, though as he wrote he hates the phrase. John worked at Weekend from 1989 to 1998, rising from deputy editor to section editor, which is when he drafted me from Metro for my quirky, off-beat take on feature stories.  During his tenure, John became intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the so-called “legacy media,” descending a floor in the 15th Street NW Post building to the “Makeup” department, where ads were placed to attract readers and therefore please the advertisers. Weekend, in his day and mine, was a cash cow, with pages of movie display ads and listings in agate type now easily found online.

“We’d spend Wednesday putting the section together, awaiting last-minute stories, trimming stories that needed trimming, penciling in where the hundreds of inches of agate listings would go,” John recalled. “The completed dummies then went down to the fourth-floor Composing Room to guide the printers who affixed the ads and the blocks of type and half-tone photos — all printed out on slick photo paper — onto white cardboard grids.” The process ate up much of John’s week, never mind the actual stories to be wedged in between the ads.  As John added in a footnote: “I once heard Don Graham, the former Post publisher/chairman, joke about advertisers who were upset about their ads being in “the bomber pages.” The bomber pages were in the Metro section: B17, B24, etc. In other words, not far forward.”  Fast forward to today.  The Weekend section is a shell of its former self, reflecting the decline of print papers.

The downward trajectory has also been ably chronicled by Vincent Morris, a writer for Washington City Paper assigned to cover the Post. He most recently reported on the paper’s decision to fire on short notice its longtime local arts “In the Galleries” columnist Mark Jenkins. So far, the Post has not said the column will continue under another byline. Meanwhile, he writes, “In another move toward shedding allegiance to local news coverage, “the Washington Post has killed its only column that highlighted local artists and galleries.” This is of special concern to the DC-area arts scene and, by extension, to the public.

“Jenkins’ column ran weekly and usually profiled three or four exhibits at smaller art galleries in the area,” Morris wrote. “‘In the Galleries’ was generally credited with attracting visitors and helping both artists and art spaces make sales.”

Further, Morris wrote, “In June, the Post announced that Naveen Kumar would replace longtime theater critic Peter Marks, who took a voluntary buyout from the paper in December. But Kumar, who’s written theater reviews for the New York Times and Variety, has never lived in the District and, according to the June 20 hiring announcement, he will stay in New York.” And, Morris concludes, “As embattled Post publisher Will Lewis works to build the outlet into a national brand, he has signaled that he intends to focus on core coverage areas ‘including investigations, business, technology, sports and features.’ Missing from that list? The Metro section.”

Speaking of local news, the economy of the Washington metro area (now referred to as the DMV, for the District, Maryland, and Virginia) has always been closely tied to the federal workforce. The Post used to run a regular column called Federal Diary. These days federal workers get scant coverage. But I noticed in the Aug. 31 Saturday print edition of TheLos Angeles Times that the lede was “Trump targets U.S. civil service system.” Subhead: “Vow to fire thousands and hire only loyalists alarms proponents of good government.”  If the Post has similarly highlighted such an important story for DMV readers, I must’ve missed it. There is not one local front page story in the Aug. 31 Washington Post print paper. The Post’s lede story concerns civilians in Gaza.

Now for some shameless self promotion:

I’m honored to be included as a “Distinguished Author” in the 2024 commemoration of Lincoln-Thomas Day on Sept. 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  The event marks 100 years since Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, a free woman of color who owned the Fort Stevens property in Northwest Washington, conveyed it the federal government, which in the 1930s turned it over to the National Park Service.  On this spot in July, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln came under enemy fire as Confederate troops sought and failed to capture the nation’s capital. Thus the Battle of Fort Stevens, one of many Civil War forts surrounding Washington, was instrumental in saving the Union. The Fort Stevens National Historic Site is located at 6001 13th Street NW.  I will be briefly speaking and signing my book Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army. If you are around then, I cordially invite you to stop by and say hello.

The following month, on Oct. 13, I will be at Harpers Ferry to mark the publication of a new edition of A Voice from Harper’s Ferry, by Osborne Perry Anderson, one of the five and the sole survivor of the Oct. 1859 raid on the federal arsenal and armory located there. I was honored to be asked to add a new introductory essay to what is the only insider account.  This, from the Harpers Ferry Park Association website:

“A Voice from Harper’s Ferry is the singular first-person account of John Brown’s raid by one of the surviving raiders, Osborne P. Anderson. Anderson, a free black man, joined Brown’s army in Canada and followed him to Harpers Ferry in the abolitionist’s attempt to bring an end to the institute of slavery in America. This reprint by the Harpers Ferry Park Association includes a foreword by Harpers Ferry National Historical Park rangers and an essay on Anderson by award-winning author and former Washington Post writer, Eugene L. Meyer. The book also includes a series of watercolors by two artists commissioned by the National Park Service. The artwork—some never before seen by the public—brings Anderson’s dramatic story to life.”

Later that afternoon I will be at Four Seasons Books in nearby Shepherdstown, with author Brianna Wheeler, a descendant of raider Dangerfield Newby who has recently published a memoir Altogether Different.

Finally, in case you missed it, here’s a link to my recent review of Nat Turner: Black Prophet, a new look at the Black insurrectionist who led a band of  enslaved men on a vengeful spree through Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, killing 55 whites, including women and children. In the uprising, the authors argue, Turner was not only a revolutionary; he likened himself to the avenging prophets of the Old Testament.