A Visit from the Ghost of Newspaper Future?

I had a weird dream last night, a dream so realistic and vivid that I awoke from it with a start, convinced that it had actually happened.

I dreamed that the Graham family had decided to spin off The Washington Post as a separate entity, to focus the family company on its thriving Kaplan education division (which, in real life, already dwarfs the newspaper in size and profitability). In my dream, the Grahams had decided that it was best for shareholders that the company concentrate on Kaplan, with the newspaper be left to fend for itself. My former colleagues at The Post were shocked and saddened, as you might imagine. I could even hear Ben Bradlee ripping the decision. I even dreamed I was being interviewed by Howie Kurtz about the ramifications of the spin-off.

OK, it was only a dream—a nightmare, really. But I know what brought it on (besides some rich food at dinner): the shocking announcement that McClatchy is selling the Minneapolis Star Tribune to a private equity firm, the latest seismic shift to rock the newspaper industry.

Spinning off The Washington Post? It'll never happen. It's only a bad dream. Cue the clanking chains of Marley's ghost. Of course, the employees of the Star Tribune went to sleep on Christmas thinking they were invulnerable, too.

Welcome to the newspaper industry, circa 2007: Anything is possible.

Comments

[Lucas]

Last night I dreamed that two ghosts tried to sell me a magic elixir made from poinsettia leaves, so I'm pretty impressed already with the coherent level of your dreaming.

None of this sounds too unrealistic to me. Maybe not for tomorrow. But it is possible in the future.

With the state of newspapers, there will be a lot of pressure on public companies to sell, and a lot of private buyers looking for bargains.

If you'd said any other company than The Post, perhaps your dream would be more prophetical. Hard to work around that special stock structure they've got going for them.

[Mark Potts]

Thanks for your comment. The Post's stock structure is immaterial: I was suggesting that the company itself could decide to spin off the newspaper, not that there would be any outside pressure to do so. I also think this scenario is extremely unlikely, because of the Grahams' sterling commitment to Washington and journalism. But a logical business case could be made that a spinoff would be beneficial to the family company.