Katharine Weymouth

Early life and education

Weymouth is the daughter of Lally Weymouth and Yann Weymouth. Weymouth grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, where she attended the Dalton School and the Brearley School. She later attended Harvard College, earning a BA magna cum laude in literature in 1988; her thesis focused on Mark Twain. Next she studied literature for a year at Oxford University. She earned her JD from Stanford Law School in 1992.

Career

While an associate at Williams & Connolly, a prominent law firm in Washington, D.C., Weymouth went to work as an assistant counsel of the Post in 1996. She later became the head of advertising. Weymouth was named publisher of the Post and chief executive officer of Washington Post Media on February 7, 2008, succeeding Boisfeuillet Jones Jr.

Among her first actions as publisher was hiring Marcus Brauchli as executive editor and placing him in charge of both newspaper and the website (the previous editor had not been in charge of the website). The hire from outside the organization "surprised the newsroom. ... Brauchli ... had accepted a large payout and resigned from his previous job, running The Wall Street Journal under its new owner, Rupert Murdoch", as a 2012 Times account put it.

Private dinner salon initiative

In July 2009, in the midst of intense debate over health care reform, Politico reported that a health care lobbyist had received an "astonishing" offer of access to the Post's "health care reporting and editorial staff." Weymouth had planned a series of exclusive dinner parties or "salons" at her private residence, to which she had invited prominent lobbyists, trade group members, politicians and business people. The cost of attendance to the parties was up to $250,000 per individual, with the events being closed to the press and the public. *Politico'''s revelation sparked controversy in Washington, as it gave the impression the parties' sole purpose was to allow a select group of Washington insiders and business people to purchase face time with Post reporters.

Almost immediately, Weymouth canceled the salons and blamed the entire incident on the marketing department at The Post. The backlash also prompted David G. Bradley, publisher of The Atlantic, to admit that he hosts similar off-the-record discussions at his home and office at the Watergate complex, and in 2012, looking back on the incident, the Times said that "magazines host similar conferences all the time".

Resignation

On September 2, 2014, it was announced that she would resign as publisher the following month, with the position to be assumed by ''Politico'''s founding CEO Fred Ryan.

After the ''Post''

In 2015, tech startup FiscalNote announced that Weymouth would serve as an adviser to the company. She is now CEO of dineXpert, a company that calls itself a community for independent restaurant owners.

Weymouth endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

On September 27, 2019, Katharine Weymouth stepped into the role of board chair of the Greater Washington Community Foundation. Her grandmother Katharine Graham had also served on the foundation's board.

Family

Weymouth is a daughter of columnist and publishing heiress Lally Weymouth and the architect Yann R. Weymouth. She is a granddaughter and namesake of long-time Washington Post chairwoman and publisher Katharine Graham. Her mother's family owned the Post from 1933, when the bankrupt paper was bought by Weymouth's great-grandfather (Fed chairman Eugene Meyer), until it was sold to Jeff Bezos in 2013. Weymouth is the fifth member of her family to have held the publisher position.

On her father's side Weymouth is a niece of Tina Weymouth, a former member of the band Talking Heads. Her paternal grandfather is Admiral Ralph Weymouth. One of her paternal ancestors is the Breton writer Anatole Le Braz.

Weymouth married lawyer Richard Alan Scully on July 25, 1998. The couple later divorced. They have three children.

References

References

1. (July 26, 1998). "Ms. Weymouth and Mr. Scully". The New York Times.
2. (June 9, 2013). "Katharine Weymouth, publisher, Washington Post Media". Financial Times.
3. Pérez-Peña, Richard. (February 8, 2008). "Washington Post Names Publisher". The New York Times.
4. Jaffe, Harry. (August 1, 2008). "Katharine the Second".
5. Peters, Jeremy W.. (February 11, 2012). "A Newspaper, and a Legacy, Reordered". The New York Times.
6. Calderone, Michael. (July 3, 2009). "WaPo cancels lobbyist event".
7. Richard Pérez-Peña (July 3, 2009), [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/media/03post.html "Pay-for-Chat Plan Falls Flat at Washington Post"], ''The New York Times'', p. A1
8. Howard Kurtz (July 3, 2009), [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070201563.html?hpid=topnews "Washington Post Publisher Cancels Planned Policy Dinners After Outcry"], ''The Washington Post''
9. Nagesh, Gautham. (July 2, 2009). "WaPo Salons Sell Access to Lobbyists".
10. (July 6, 2009). "The Atlantic’s Salon Dinners". The Atlantic.
11. Somaiya, Ravi. (September 2, 2014). "Publisher of The Washington Post Will Resign (Published 2014)".
12. FiscalNote. (April 15, 2015). "Former Washington Post publisher Weymouth joins FiscalNote advisory board".
13. (May 28, 2018). "Birthday of the day: Katharine Weymouth, CEO of dineXpert and former Washington Post publisher and CEO".
14. "About Us".
15. (February 10, 2016). "Media Bigwigs Donate Big Money To Clinton".
16. "Washington Business Journal_Change at the top for regional charitable foundation".
17. Candid. "Community Foundation Update (09/28/19)".
18. Farhi, Paul. (October 1, 2013). "Washington Post closes sale to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos". [[The Washington Post]].
19. Shepard, Alicia C.. (October 1, 2007). "Powers That Will Be".
20. (August 31, 2012). "Héritage. D'Anatole Le Braz aux Talking Heads". [[Le Télégramme]].