Katharine Weymouth, granddaughter of Katherine Graham, longtime head of the Washington Post who died in 2001, will address the Spring Seminar of the Arthur W. Page Society Thursday at the Conrad New York.
Weymouth, sole family member still in place following the $250 million sale of the Post last year to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, will talk about “The Washington Post and the Future of Journalism” with Don Baer, worldwide chair and CEO, Burson-Marsteller.
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Weymouth, 47, was named to her current post in 2008. A graduate of Harvard and Stanford Law School, she worked at the D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly before joining the paper’s legal department as VP-advertising.
“Access” Dinners for $$ Was Controversial
A proposed series of private dinners for influentials and Post staffers at Weymouth’s house in 2009 touched off criticism. Participants were to have paid from $25K to $250K to attend 11 events.
No such dinners ever took place. A flier describing the dinners was all that was produced. Weymouth told Eugene Meyer, former Post writer and contributing editor, Bethesda, Magazine, that the proposal was a mistake but that did produce “a fantastic conference business.”
Meyer said that Weymouth took further criticism for bonuses of $600K in 2012 and total pay of $2.4 million while news jobs were being trimmed and news bureaus were being shut.
She answered by saying the paper lost $100M+ when she took over but got back to the black in two years.
GE’s Sheffer, Today’s Morales Among Speakers
Gary Sheffer, VP, corporate communications and PA, General Electric, Page chairman, and Natalie Morales, news anchor of NBC-TV’s “Today Show,” are among speakers.
Sheffer will address the dinner Thursday night and Morales will speak on “The View from the Anchor Desk.” She will be interviewed by Jon Harris, CCO, The Hillshire Brands Co.
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Other speakers include Jim VandeHei, CEO, Politico; Brad Dayspring, comms. dir., National Republican Senatorial Committee; Jen O’Malley Dillon, former deputy campaign mgr., Obama for America; Greg Burke, senior media advisor, Secretariat of State at The Vatican; Jim Wilkerson, XVP for communications, Pepsico; Kelly McGinnis, SVP and CCO, Levi Strauss and Co.; Sarah Quinlan, SVP, Market Insights MasterCard Advisors; Tina Wells, CEO and Founder, Buzz Marketing Group; Dave Gilboa, co-CEO and co-founder, Warby Parker; Dan Roth, executive editor, LinkedIn; Susan Gilchrist, group chief executive, Brunswick Group; Meredith Kopit Levien, XVP for advertising, New York Times; Jay Lauf, SVP, Atlantic Media, publisher, Quartz; Jean-Marie Dru, chairman, TBWA/Worldwide; Warren Berger, author, A More Beautiful Question; Roger Bolton, president, Page; Frank Ovaitt, president and CEO, Institute for PR, and Sherry Scott, COO, Gagan MacDonald, chair, Page Up, the Page Society’s new program for the most senior staff leaders in Page member companies and agencies.
Page’s 2012 Spring Seminar was also conducted at the Conrad, which is located on the West Side of downtown Manhattan.
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