Stories and counter stories about the purported fate of the Washington Times in August 2010 were nearly as much a part of reported developments as news about the newspaper itself. The competing papers and other online sites presenting sometimes conflicting information questioned each other’s sources with unusual vigor in the span of a few days.
A series of back and forth tidbits essentially began with dcrtv.com, a Reston, Virginia-based Web site covering local media in Washington, posting an item about rumors swirling around the potential imminent closure of the Times, which began publishing in 1982. The financially troubled and shrinking paper’s fate has been subject to periodic speculation since staff reductions and management firings and other changes began in late 2009.
Events Escalated With Firings of Times Executives
At that time, three veteran Times executives were dismissed: Publisher Thomas McDevitt, Chief Financial Officer Keith Cooperrider, and Chairman Doug Moon Joo. Announcements then followed about the staff cuts and elimination of the paper’s sports and local news sections as well as discontinuation of the Sunday edition. (The Times stopped reporting its circulation figures in 2008 to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.)
Coinciding with these events was fallout from the previous turnover four years earlier of the paper’s operation from founder and Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon to his oldest son, Preston Moon, as the senior Moon approached his 90th birthday. Moon placed his youngest son, Sean, in charge of the organization’s religious mission.
After Preston sought control of UCI, another church-supported enterprise, one of his other brothers, Justin Moon, who is in charge of family operations in South Korea and Japan, responded by cutting the newspaper’s $35 million annual corporate subsidy. This led to an intense and lingering dispute among the heirs over the Moon business empire with Preston providing his own funding to keep the paper in existence.
Use of Anonymous Source on Paper’s Possible Fate
Dcrtv.com, relying on a previously used anonymous source within the Washington Times, reported on rumors that the paper could be shut down within days without a buyer. Site operator Dave Hughes, who often has faulted the Washington Post for ignoring him as the original source of media stories it later reports, defended going with that information saying, “What we reported was totally accurate – even if those rumors did not ultimately reach total reality.”
The Post in its subsequent Times coverage challenged dcrtv’s method of publishing rumors before scrutinizing them and not reporting only what can be confirmed or inviting readers to offer any possible information on a story.
The local Washington City Paper went as far as to say that Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder could be emerging as a possible owner of the Times before backing off and reporting that Snyder was not going to buy the paper. “We mean no offense to the folks who still make a living working at the Times (and who will probably need to find new jobs soon) when we say this, but calling the Times a ‘newspaper’ at this point is awfully generous,” Michael E. Grass wrote in the August 25, 2010 issue in “Rev. Moon Wants Washington Times Back?
Potential Reemergence of Paper’s Founder
That was the story that ultimately emerged -- that Sun Myung Moon himself may be returning through an announced preliminary agreement for News World Communications, the parent company Preston Moon chairs, to sell the Times to News World Media Development, a Delaware-registered LLC company affiliated with other factions of the Unification Church that would restore financial backing to the newspaper.
Contrary to the initial reports of all but coming closure for the Washington Times, the paper has at least a 30-day reprieve for both sides to undertake a due diligence period to decide whether to move forward, according to Executive Editor Sam Dealey of the Times.
“Moon wants to buy the Times back from his son Preston Moon, who has threatened to shut down the foundering broadsheet altogether, said Charles Sutherland, the Times’s former director of development and promotions, who was laid off in May,” said Ian Shapira August 25, 2010 in the Washington Post in “Rev. Sun Myung Moon said to be considering buying back Washington Times.” “Times sources said Moon, who is 90, has tapped Dong Moon Joo, the former Times chairman who was ousted last year by Preston Moon, to purchase and run the paper.”
The pressing question for all parties now appears to be how readily willing Preston Moon might be to accept the participation on his father’s behalf of Joo who he terminated with the other Times officials in 2009. An additional uncertainty is any possible role for the two other fired executives, McDevitt and Cooperrider.
With the various reporting and vying to be first on activities related to the Times, many observers are left wondering how and under what circumstances the paper would be run if it does continue.
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
