Brauchli named as Washington Post editor

Katharine Weymouth, publisher of the Washington Post, yesterday named Marcus Brauchli, to take over as the paper's top editor, turning to an outsider to usher the Post into a new era.

Mr Brauchli, a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, will take over as the Post's executive editor in September, replacing Leonard Downie, a 44-year Post veteran who led the paper to six Pulitzer Prizes last year.

His selection caps a remarkable career. Mr Brauchli, a veteran foreign correspondent, won the top job at the Journal last April, just as Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation was launching its bid for parent company Dow Jones.

He resigned under pressure a year later, unable to tread a path between Journal loyalists and his new News Corp bosses.

Now Mr Brauchli, 47, will be taking the reins of one of the nation's premier political papers at the height of an historic election season.

He will have to grapple with the same pressures that have thrown the industry into turmoil, including a migration of readers and advertisers to the internet and a slowing economy.

The Post has seen its daily circulation fall from more than 830,000 in 1993 to a little over 630,000 today.

More than 100 newsroom employees recently accepted early retirement offers from the company.

"Marcus brings a tremendous wealth of experience, both as a journalist and as an editor, and that will help us navigate the new world of media," said Ms Weymouth, who was appointed publisher of the Post in February, following the footsteps of her legendary grandmother, Katharine Graham.

One of Ms Weymouth's top priorities has been to accelerate the merger between the Post's internet and print news operations, which have historically been kept separate.

That task will now fall to Mr Brauchli, who will be only the third executive editor of the paper in more than 40 years.

Mr Brauchli beat several internal candidates for the job, including Phil Bennett, the Post's current managing editor. One factor that appealed to Ms Weymouth, according to people familiar with the matter, was the success of the Journal's website.