'Washington Post' Turns on Radio

By: Miki Johnson The call for old-guard newspaper publishers to think of themselves as producing "news" rather than "a paper" has risen in pitch over the past year. The Washington Post's recent collaboration with a D.C. radio station shows that once again a major metro daily has heard that call and taken it to heart.

On Jan. 4, the Washington Post Co. announced it has contracted with Bonneville International Corp., a Salt Lake City-based media firm, to create Washington Post Radio. The new station will take over 1500 AM (currently filled by Bonneville's all-news station WTOP), and will run Post- focused content from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, beginning March 30.

Specific shows have not yet been finalized, but programming offerings will consist primarily of Q&As with Post staffers across the paper's wide content spectrum, according to Jim Farley, VP of news and programming for WTOP Radio Network. "We will interface," Farley says. "We will have the studio and they will have a great big funnel."

The woman holding that funnel, finding the perfect Post reporter for each segment, will be Tina Gulland, aided by a few new coordinators. Gulland came to the Post newsroom a few years ago to facilitate an increased presence on radio and television. The aim of these cross-media appearances is to help the newspaper reach more parts of the community and, ideally, bring new portions of its newfound radio audience to the Post. Research conducted by Bonneville indicated a large percentage of respondents would be interested in the new station, which Gulland envisions competing with NPR-style, long-form programming.

Lending its name to a radio station was attractive to the Post for all the reasons the paper has worked to increase its visibility in non-print media. For starters it lends the Post extra mobility, following its audience into their cars. It also allows them to put voices to bylines and facilitates audience participation and discussion with the Post staff, as do the popular Washingtonpost.com online chats the paper has hosted previously.

Post Executive Editor Len Downie says the new station also has the potential to bring in subscribers by exposing new audiences to Post news ? as did Express, a free tabloid daily the Washington Post Co. launched in August 2003 for "on-the-go" readers, and El Tiempo Latino, a local Spanish-language newsweekly the Post acquired in May 2004.

Like Washingtonpost.com, which has embraced online journalism's potential with constant updates, podcasts, vodcasts, and blogs, the station will help keep the paper at the forefront of today's "minute-by-minute news cycle." Downie points out that the Post regularly runs breaking news on its Web site, essentially scooping its print edition, but he doesn't sound worried that yet another outlet could be cutting into the paper's exclusives. "We're in a new world now," Downie says, and all the Post can do is continue to deal with such conflicts on a case-by-case basis.

Downie also has made it clear to his staff that, while opinion writers may freely speak their mind on the radio, other writers will be expected to adhere to the same strict objectivity rules they observe at the paper. But both Downie and Gulland emphasize that Washington Post Radio is merely an expansion of appearances with which many Post reporters already seem comfortable. As a testament to that enthusiasm, Downie said ideas for radio content are already coming in from all corners of the newsroom.

Bonneville will run programming and ad sales for the station, but it has a license agreement with Washington Post Co. under which ad revenue will be split with them after an undisclosed amount of ads are sold.