Shifting to A Post-Bradlee Post

By NANCY TRAVER

In every dynasty, a moment comes when the painful, potentially disruptive question of succession must be faced. At the Washington Post, that question has loomed for some time over the tenure of executive editor Ben Bradlee. Bold and aggressive, Bradlee instilled a notable sharpness and drive into the paper after becoming executive editor in 1968. Under him, the Post at its best bristled with scoops -- especially during Watergate -- and was written with acerbic flair. It achieved national prominence with searching, provocative coverage that invigorated readers as much as it discomfited the White House and much of official Washington. But in recent years Bradlee, 68, has been easing off his earlier pace, prompting speculation about his retirement and causing open jockeying among his would-be replacements.

Now the answer to the succession question is clear: it has already happened. Although Bradlee retains his title, day-to-day management of the Post has passed into the hands of managing editor Leonard Downie Jr., 48. Bradlee confirms that Downie is the chosen heir. His performance during six years as managing editor has provided an answer to the inevitable question about how Downie compares with Bradlee: the cautious and bureaucratic Downie would not even want to match the older editor's riverboat-gambler style. In contrast to Bradlee's instinct for the jugular, Downie is such a stickler for down-the- middle objectivity that he refuses to vote in any election. Whereas Bradlee was autocratic, Downie prefers to reach decisions by consensus. He sees his job as "setting priorities and settling fights" rather than conceptualizing and leading the Post toward new frontiers.

To many inside and outside the Post, Downie's avowed attempt to make the paper more credible and authoritative has also made it duller and more predictable, less willing to take on the powerful and needle the pretentious. "There was a time at the Post when its creative talents were pushed to move forward," says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "That time has passed." Concedes Bradlee: "We're less concerned with taking risks now that we're successful and 25 years older. There's a certain conservatism that has set in."

Downie has won applause from his reporters for making fairness a crusade. But he has also aroused some resentment in the newsroom by enforcing fairness in ways that more activist staffers consider stultifying. After he learned that some of his reporters had joined in a pro-choice abortion rally last year, Downie rightly reminded the staff that they had forfeited the right to protest when they chose to work in journalism. Earlier this year, he sent an uncharacteristically stinging memo to his top editors charging that the Post's coverage of the abortion issue had been lopsidedly biased against the pro-life side.

The shift toward a more staid Post was set in motion by Donald Graham, who in 1979 succeeded his mother Katharine as publisher. While Mrs. Graham took pride in Bradlee's hard-edged approach and backed him when he drew criticism, the young Graham is more attuned to Downie's wariness. He has turned the Post's focus more toward local news, opening four suburban bureaus in the past five years. Says Graham: "We want to be the paper for everybody in this area -- people with key federal jobs and, we hope, the people who clean their offices."

Perhaps Bradlee's greatest innovation was the Post's Style section, which led papers around the U.S. to drop their dowdy women's sections and mimic the biting profiles and flashy features by Sally Quinn, now Bradlee's wife. But the section that was once all snap and vinegar has gone flat under Downie. A profile of Senate majority leader George Mitchell, one of the Democratic Party's harshest critics of President Bush, devoted only a sparse paragraph to his romance with Janet Mullins, a senior Bush Administration official. Laments a Post reporter: "The old Style would have published a whole story of speculation on what they talk about and how they keep party secrets from each other."

To try to breathe new life into Style, Downie is bringing in Miami Herald Sunday magazine editor Gene Weingarten, a self-described "shock journalist" who once enlivened a story on the federal budget deficit by illustrating it with photos of naked men and women. Weingarten's hiring, says Downie, is an example of his goal of surrounding himself with visionary editors: "I hire lots of people who are smarter than I am, and I act as a catalyst." Still, the final question that will have to be answered by the Downie regime is whether the Post can flourish without a single controlling vision at the top. Says Robert Kaiser, 47, who came in second to Downie in the race for Bradlee's spot and will become deputy managing editor in September: "Ben is the only editor in your time and mine who will appear in our grandchildren's history books. Life after Bradlee is daunting. It's hard to imagine operating without him."