Washington Post 2008 Annual Report Download - page 10

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One important talent was added in early 2009:
Vijay Ravindran, a longtime Amazon veteran who
later was chief technology officer at a political list-
building/data-mining company, joined us as chief
digital officer of the corporation.
Are we investing in The Post and Newsweek as a
public service or because we feel their business
models can be fixed? Emphatically the latter: it is
universally understood that we must move toward
profitability at The Post and Newsweek after what
we hope will be a low point in 2009.
But how we’ll get there is not clear. We must cut
costs; but we must (and will) continue producing
excellent newspapers and magazines. Then, we
have to continue to find new sources of revenue (at
a time when some of our customers will be cutting
back because of their own financial problems).
Ten years from now, it is highly likely that customers
will be getting news from profitable institutions
staffed by talented reporters and editors. We’re
going to try to show a way.
The end of the year saw one major change in our
corporate staff. Jay Morse retired after 19 years
as chief financial officer. Jay’s careful, old-fash-
ioned honesty in keeping our books would have
served any company well. We were fortunate he
worked here. Hal Jones is a successor from the
same school.
Donald E. Graham
Chairman of the Board and
Chief Executive Officer
February 24, 2009
8
The Washington Post Company
We must cut costs; but we must (and will) continue producing
excellent newspapers and magazines.