American Journalism in Peril: How Media Moguls Slash Content for Profit (2002)

• published: 25 Sep 2015
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Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. (born May 1, 1942), the American journalist, was Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 1991-2008. He worked in the Post newsroom for 44 years as Executive Editor, Managing Editor, National Editor, London correspondent, Assistant Managing Editor for Metropolitan News, Deputy Metropolitan Editor, and as an award winning investigative and local reporter.[1] Downie became Executive Editor upon the retirement of Ben Bradlee. During Downie's tenure as Executive Editor, The Washington Post won 25 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper has won during the term of a single Executive Editor, including three Pulitzer Gold Medals for Public Service.[2] Downie currently serves as Vice President At Large at the Washington Post Company, as Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and as a member of several advisory boards associated with journalism and public affairs. Downie is the author of four nonfiction books: Justice Denied (1971), Mortgage on America (1974), The New Muckrakers (1976); and The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril (2002), co-authored with Robert G. Kaiser. In 2003, The News About the News won the Goldsmith Award from the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Downie was also a major contributor to Ten Blocks from the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968; has written many newspaper and magazine articles; and co-authored “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” a major report on the state of the news media,published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 2009, Random House published his fiction debut, The Rules of the Game. Downie first joined the Washington Post as a summer intern in 1964. He soon became a well-known local investigative reporter in Washington, specializing in crime, courts, housing and urban affairs. His 1966 investigative series on the malfunctioning local court system in Washington, D.C. was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and helped lead to the system’s abolition and replacement by the D. C. Superior Court of today.[3] His reporting during his time on the Metro staff won him two Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Front Page awards, The American Bar Association Gavel Award for legal reporting, and the John Hancock Award for excellent business and financial writing. In 1971 he was awarded a two-year Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship, [5] studying urban problems in the United States and Europe.[6] Downie’s first three books grew out of his newspaper journalism during those years. Justice Denied (Praeger, 1971) examined poorly functioning city courts across the country. Mortgage on America (Praeger, 1974) investigated the impact and costs of certain types of destructive urban real estate speculation. The New Muckrakers (New Republic Books, 1976) detailed the rise and impact of a new generation of investigative reporters, including his colleagues Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Earlier, Downie had also been a major contributor to the book, Ten Blocks From the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968 (Praeger, 1968), drawing on his first hand reporting of the riots and their aftermath. Downie worked on the Post's Metropolitan staff as a reporter and editor for 15 years, and ran the staff as Assistant Managing Editor for Metropolitan news from 1974 until 1979. As Deputy Metropolitan Editor, Downie supervised much of The Post’s Watergate coverage. According to Bob Woodward's 2005 book The Secret Man, Downie was one of the few people to know the true identity of Watergate scandal informant Deep Throat before it was revealed to be Mark Felt. Downie was named London correspondent in 1979 and worked in this capacity until mid-1982, covering the rise of Margaret Thatcher, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and the Falklands War. He returned to Washington in 1982 as National Editor. He became Managing Editor in 1984. He became Executive Editor in 1991, succeeding Benjamin Bradlee. As National Editor, Managing Editor and then Executive Editor, Downie personally oversaw the Washington Post's coverage of every national election from 1984 through 2008. During his 17 years as Executive Editor, Downie led the newsroom to 25 Pulitzer Prizes, including three gold medals for public service. Downie's mantra—reflected in routine stories as well as such Pulitzer-winning efforts as the 2007 exposé of shoddy conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center—was "accountability journalism." After 44 years in the Post newsroom, Downie retired as Executive Editor in 2008.[7] That year, the National Press Foundation named Downie the Benjamin Bradlee Editor of the Year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Downie,_Jr.