The Washington Post, the leading paper in Washington D.C., had to struggled through some hard times to become what it is today. The paper's first building, situated along the area known as Newspaper Row (around and along Pennsylvania Avenue, from approximately 14th Street to 9th Street), once stood close to competing papers such as the Washington Star, the Daily News, and the Herald. By the turn of the century, the Post had gained an educated readership. However, when it was purchased by John McLean in 1905, yellow-journalism took over and the paper soon read like just another sleazy rag. The paper continued to sell well, though, because most of the other papers had sunk to the same level of journalism.
After John McLean's death in 1919, the Post was on to his son Edward Beale McLean. McLean quickly used up his own fortune while he drove what remaining dignity the paper retained into the mud. He had become a close friend of President Warren G. Harding's. In fact, he was too close. McLean would be unable to shield himself from what was to become known as the Teapot Dome Scandal. Edward McLean was ruined. He had been too close to the coverup to pull out.
The paper hit rock bottom. McLean went bankrupt, and insane. He was taken to an asylum in maryland in 1931, and died a decade later. The Post was sold at a bankruptcy auction in 1933. Eugene Meyer, made the purchase. He saw the embattled newspaper as a risky but potentially brilliant investment. Meyer worked hard to rebuild the once solid reputation of his new acquisition.
Meyer quickly raised the standards of the newspaper. He hired a respected and experienced staff and cleaned up the editorial philosophy of the paper. In 1954 Meyer purchased the Washington Times-Herald and merged it with the Post. By the time he handed control the newspaper over to his son-in-law, Philip Graham, the Post was the strongest newspaper in Washington and a national leader.
In 1970, the Post shocked the nation when it published excerpts from the "Pentagon Papers," the secret account of the U.S. policy and military action in Vietnam that President Nixon attempted to hide. The courts had slapped a restraining order on the New York Times, which had gotten the documents first, preventing he paper form publishing. But the Post managed to beat the court order.
Two years later, the Post would stumble upon one of the greatest news stories this century. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein first thought they were covering what appeared to be a simple break-in at the Democratic Nation Committee's McGovern campaign headquarters. But the break-in, at the Watergate Complex, was the reporters', and the paper's , biggest break in history. Woodward and Bernstein's relentless investigations eventually unmasked a coverup that led all the way to the president. That led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and a Pulitzer Prize for the Washington Post (but not for Woodward and Bernstein individually) .
The Post ran into some hard times later though. In 1975, a pressman's strike became violent over modern methods of publication. Less than a decade later, reporter Janet Cooke was forced to return her Pulitzer Prize when it was discovered that her prize-winning story about a boy named "Jimmy" living in heroin-addiction, was actually a composite profile rather than being a genuine portrait.
Cooke left the Post, and the paper continued on. In 1981, the Washington Star, the city's only other major paper, folded up, giving the Post a monopoly in the city. However, in 1982 the Unification Church-funded Washington Times emerged to give the Post some (if not much) competition.
The Washington Post Building stands on the site of St. Augustine's Catholic Church, the city's first black Catholic Church. It was formed in 1858 by freed slaves. The congregation built the church at this site in the 1870's, and it remained here until it was demolished in 1948 to make way for the Post building. The church can now be found in the Shaw neighborhood.
For more information regarding the history of the newspaper, visit the Washington Post Web Page.
