Since we're always interested in how things work in the media business (and assume you are too) today's Washington Post live chat with the paper's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt is definitely worth a look. Answering a host of questions about how decisions are made about what goes on the editorial pages of the Post and how such work is vetted, Hiatt offered a great inside look at how the paper is run.
Some notable questions that Hiatt addresses:
What is the process you go through to determine what will be included in the paper's editorials each day? Who does the editorial page speak for, the publisher, the editor only, the staff of the paper, someone else? Are all editorials specifically approved by the publisher?Last December, it was reported in the press that some Washington think-tank types had been paid by lobbying or other special interest groups to write op-ed pieces that promoted the groups' policy positions. Does the Washington Post have a formal policy that restricts, or requires the disclosure of, this sort of supplementary income for its op-ed contributors? If so, is this policy uniform for regular columnists and guest columnists?How many people are involved in the really big editorial decisions, like, say, which presidential candidate to endorse? Is it still just the members of the editorial board, or are there more voices involved?When you print letters to the editors about a controversial story, how do you determine how many pro versus con letters you publish? Can a reader determine an approximate percentage of pro/con letters received at The Post by the number of such letters published?You wrote that you are ultimately responsible for the facts presented on the editorial and op-ed pages. How long before press-time do you get the op-eds? How big a staff do you have to fact check op-eds before they go out? Printing corrections is a different from stopping factual errors before they are printed, as you know.