Live Q&As

Thank you for this comment. I agree with you that when we point to a headline on our homepage for you to click, you should be able to find that story in the page that you have clicked through to. Our general rule is either that headline clicks through to the full article page or when the story is in the opening screen of a section front (postpolitics.com or postlocal.com) and prominent, we can send readers there as well since it is always possible the story has multiple elements displayed on that section front. We will try and make sure we enforce this rule so you don't have to go looking for the article you thought you clicked on.

The Five Myths About..series is one of our most popular weekend reads in print and online and has been an ongoing feature for a while. Sometimes it is about a topic (deficits) or a person (sarah palin, this week) or a company/service (Facebook). The editors of Outlook pick people who they think are best able to deal with the myths out there. As for seeing Sarah Palin all the time on our web site, I suspect it is a function of midterm elections, her popularity (or lack of) and sometimes because of her daughter's dancing. Sarah Palin is in the news a lot, whether we like it or not.

The composition of the crowd is often not relevant at all to many events. It is relevant depending on the nature of the rally/event and where it is held. Given the overall demographic profile of Wisconsin, if the audience wasn't composed mostly of white people, then it would have been a fact worth pointing out to our readers, I suspect.

We do have guidelines, internal debates and checks and balances about these issues.

I am not sure we can blame "cheap content distribution" as the reason why the newspaper/magazine industry is in doldrums. There has never been a better time to be in journalism given the record number of people who are consuming news overall. The problem is a business model problem coupled with a pretty severe recession, a bit of a double whammy with no easy solutions.

Like other media organizations, we have had our share of financial troubles in the past couple of years and the newsroom continues to try and do its share (sometimes more, sometimes less) to help the overall organization. We have reduced our overall staff to try and keep up with our overall business (revenue) size while trying to make sure that we cut more in areas that may not be adding a lot of value and try and preserve as much funding as we can for content creation. It is a "work in progress" but at 600 plus news staff, partnerships with other content creators and a robust freelance/outside contributors budget, we  think we still put out a good website and newspaper every day.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will ask Matt Vita, our sports editor. Feel free to also drop him a note at vitam@washpost.com so he can respond directly to your request as well.

You will probably see a few more of them in the fourth quarter (Oct-December), which tends to be a period when companies spend a significant portion of their advertising budget. At the Post, I ultimately have to sign off every time such an ad is put on our website and ever so often will say no to something that is overly intrusive to the reading experience.

The reality is that free newspaper websites have to generate enough advertising to support the news gathering and production teams/infrastructure we have in place. So it is a bit of give-and-take on that front.

I agree that, sometimes, innovation in advertising can simply mean more intrusive advertising. Which is why as an industry,  business folks in newspapers need to work more closely with advertisers to come up with advertising that is appealing and interesting.

In the long run, advertising can't drive away readers so it is in everyone's interest to have smart, creative ads that engage and appeal than just drive you to another site. And I must also confess that ever so often, I do come across such ads (known sometimes as takeovers or roadblocks) that are rather engaging for me as a reader.

From your lips to the iTunes store via Apple's approval process. Soon.

Hi. NYT does have a good ereader and am glad your mother-in-law is willing to  pay for content online. There are a couple of ways to get Post content online beyond our web page. If you go to the bottom of the homepage you will see a link for e-replica. That is a good visual, digital presentation of daily Post content that you can subscribe to and get it as email and also read on your computer.  We are also going to come out with Post iPad app before the end of the year, in case you are leaning toward going the tablet route.

I think there is enough of a robust debate on the On Faith section of our website about the actual topic itself.

As to the fracas, it stemmed from an unnecessary response from our end by an enthusiastic staffer, one that has since spurred us to make sure everyone in our newsroom understands Post guidelines on letting our audiences speak their mind without unnecessary rebuttals. So a good outcome internally even if we took a bit of heat out there.

Thanks, though much of the credit for On Leadership goes to Steven Pearlstein, whose brainchild it is. As we add more content to washingtonpost.com, there is more competition for promotional links on the homepage. It is still very easy to find under Discussions and we almost always post the videos very prominently on our home page. But the easiest way for you to read it would be be bookmark this url:

http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/

so  you can always get to it. And if you haven't been there recently, do check out PostLeadership, our newsy blog by Jena McGregor. The blog gives you lots of reasons to go to On Leadership each day, even when there is no video interview or Steve's column.

No reason other than wanting to prioritize. As more Android-based smart devices start coming out we will definitely be there with apps. Our mobile website m.washingtonpost.com is rather good and remains a popular mobile (or wap) site to use with smart phones including Blackberries.

Thanks. That was the second of the big local political debates we hosted this year under our new Washington Post Live conferences and events business, the first being a key Fenty-Gray debate. I thought both went off well and generated news and debate, a key reason for the Post to want to host these two political debates. But I am biased as Mary Jordan,  the terrific Washinton Post Live editor who pulls these together reports to me :-) So, why don't you tell us (jordanm@washpost.com/narisettir@washpost.com)  what you thought of the debate?

I am sorry you feel that way. We still continue to host many chats and probably host the most number of chats with our readers than most major papers. We did discontinue many (just as we continue to add) but those decisions were based on how the chats were faring over a period of time. If there were specific "serious" issue chats that you are missing, would love to hear from you. Send me an email at narisettir@washpost.com. I can't promise they will come back but will give it serious consideration depending.

Hot Topics is meant to flag topics that people are searching for on the web, essentially searching for content about those topics. Running that banner is meant as a service to our web audiences and we also find that those topics are clicked and audiences find what they were looking for more easily. And sometimes it helps people discover news/content simply because they didn't realize something was happening and were curious enough to click on a name or event in Hot Topics to find out what is going on.

Putting a Hot Topics banner (and as I type this, the hot topics on wp.com are Philippines typhoon, Chandra Levy, Bill O'Reilly, Rutgers, Facebook privacy and Mad Men) doesn't mean we are dumbing down Post journalism or not doing what the Post newsroom sets out to do each day.

The best thing we can do for Katharine Graham's legacy is to have a successful Washington Post--in print and online--so we can carry on the same journalistic traditions that have governed our company since she ran it.

We have a role to play as gatekeepers in this era of information overload. But we also have a role to play as "gate openers" and helping audiences that come to our website find content they want and sometimes need to find. Whether they will read such content is up to the readers. But we have to make it easy for them to find it and Hot Topics is one more way of doing it.

And pound for pound, happy to measure WP dignity against NY Times dignity or any other serious media organization's diginity on the web. Any day.

Thanks for noticing this. As we head into a redesign of our homepage, we are doing various tests on what kind of headline/summary (or blurb) approaches are most appealing to our audiences. It is a test that has been going on for a short period and we plan to evaluate what seems to be working best in terms of putting Post journalism in front of our readers. This approach is not set in stone until we have more data from our readers. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Hi. This was a decision made a year or so ago based on both business and audience needs. In a difficult economic environment we do need to make some decisions on how best to use our resources. And it turns out that a majority of our print readers were actually not using the printed TV guide amid all the onscreen guides. We ended up with a decision to charge a very nominal amount for those who want it and not waste paper and resources for those who don't need it and have said so.

Reporters are taught to show not tell so that more readers can find their content engaging. Sometimes, in doing this, reporters (and even editors) can get carried away and end up using words that might bias a reader. Hopefully the two or so sets of eyes that read most stories in the Washington Post can catch the more obvious (even if unconscious) biases that a particular phrase or word might convey. We spend a lot of energy on bias and accuracy. I am not aware of any research specific to the use of vocabulary at the Post.

In an election year like this one, it isn't easy to schedule a lot of chats given the volume of political reporting and writing. Overall our chats do well and our political (columnists, writers, opinion writers) attract a large audience. So we wouldn't do less with them if page views were the only driving force. Audience engagement and growth are factors we consider in having regular chats but we are always looking for chats that are simply pegged to news than have a weekly chat that could sink or swim based on what might be happening that day. So less fixed chats and more topical chats is my general approach. And, yes, some of our best chats are about celebs.

In print, every day we list an email (corrections@washpost.com) and a phone number on Page 2.

Online you can use the Contact Us link at the bottom of the home page. You can also contact the Ombudsman from a separate link also at the bottom of the home page.

Should be permanent. Can you send me an email at narisettir@washpost.com and I will see if we can't fix it for good.

Doing quite well from all the feedback we get from readers. As a new publication, we still have some ways to go to build up its circulation but since the content is good and well liked so far, we remain hopeful.

No but it comes at a big discount for subscribers. We didn't divert Post staff to publish Capital Business so do need the revenue to fund what I think is a much needed local business publication that gives a lot more context and depth and range than you continue to get in the Post.

Like most media organizations we continue to look at ways to monetize content online so that we can continue to provide all the great content that people expect from a brand like the Post. Lots of ways to do it and lots of hurdles and complications as well but thanks for volunteering to pay for an online subscription. For now, enjoy it free. But hopefully soon, I would find a way to give you lots of value online and take your money as well!

Looks like my time is up. As always keep the questions coming and thanks for taking the time to engage with the Post. Much appreciated. Talk to you again soon.

Raju