Wapo Creates New Division, Keeps It In The Family

Katharine Weymouth, granddaughter of the late Washington Post chairman Katherine Graham (and niece of Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth) has a new gig at the family business:  She's chief executive at Washington Post Media, a new division that folds in both the flagship paper and washingtonpost.com.

Weymouth, 41, will report to her uncle, WPost chairman Don Graham. Her mother, Lally Weymouth, is an editor at Post-owned Newsweek.

Weymouth takes charge of an increasingly marginal part of the Washington Post's business; its educational unit including Kaplan Inc., has more than twice the revenue of newspaper publishing. Newspaper operating income fell 50% in the third quarter. Until now, The Washington Post (based in DC) and its web site (based in Arlington) had operated as separate business units.

News of her appointment came at the annual state of The Post meeting, which included the news that the company would be offering an undisclosed number of buyouts to newsroom staffers and other employees.

Weymouth talks up the (seemingly obvious) rationale for combining the newspaper and its web site: