Bob Levey (Barbara Tyroler)

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Q&A With Bob Levey
Washington Post Columnist
Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2001; Noon EDT

"Levey Live" appears Tuesdays at noon EDT. Your host is Washington Post columnist Bob Levey. This hour is your chance to talk directly to key Washington Post reporters and editors, local officials and people in the news.

Today, Bob’s guest is Jack Limpert, longtime editor of Washingtonian Magazine.

Jack Limpert

Limpert has been editor of the Washingtonian since 1969, when he became the third editor since the magazine’s founding in 1965.

Limpert started in journalism in the Minneapolis bureau of the United Press International news service in 1960, later working in the St. Louis and Detroit bureaus. He became editor of the Warren (Michigan) Progess in 1964; editor of the San Jose (California) Sunpapers in 1965; and editor of the Washington D.C. Examiner in 1967. He left journalism temporarily in 1968, serving as a Congressional Fellow and working in the office of Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The following year, he began work at the Washingtonian.

As a writer, Limpert has won an American Political Science Association award for distinguished reporting in public affairs. As an editor, he has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the City and Regional Magazine Association and the Distinguished Service in Local Journalism Award from the Scoiety of Professional Journalists. He is married to Jean Limpert and has two daughters, Ann and Jeannie.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Bob Levey: Good afternoon, Jack, and thanks for joining us today. Our little burg has changed greatly in the 30 years that you've been editor of Washingtonian. In which ways has it changed most?

Jack Limpert: Back in the early 1970s, everything happened in DC. People shopped down on F Street in DC. Then came Metro, the growth of the suburbs. The area is much richer, with many more high paying jobs. It's much more international. And one of the things I miss is local business. We used to have a lot of locally owned businesses, and they supplied a lot of the leadership for the area. Now most businesses are part of the national chain. But it's still a beautiful city with a lot of very smart, very good people, and it's a great place to live.

Bob Levey: Take us behind the scenes of your current issue. Less than 10 days after the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Washingtonian has a "first page" photo spread devoted to that awful day. How did you manage this on a tight deadline? Will you do more with this story next month?

Jack Limpert: Our October issue was at the printer on September 11, and to be honest we were all in a state of shock that first day. The next day I saw the picture in the Post of the flag at the Pentagon with the soldiers saluting in the background. We got a similar picture and put in on the first editorial page. We searched for a few simple words, and almost went with something from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but finally went with a quote from President Bush: "Good will prevail."

Bob Levey: Washington will obviously change in the wake of the Sept. 11 horrors, but how? Metal detectors everywhere? Two-hour waits to get into government buildings? And what do you think will happen to National Airport?

Jack Limpert: The decision whether to reopen Reagan National Airport will be an epic battle between security people, who will be ever more important here, and business and political people, who very much want National reopened. My guess is it will reopen, but not soon, and not with the amount of traffic it was carrying.

Bethesda, Md.: What's the best way for a freelance writer to break into Washingtonian?

Jack Limpert: We're always trying to find interesting minds. Send us something you've written along with a note telling us what you're interested in writing about. We have a notes for writers available--e-mail crich@washingtonian.com and cindy rich will send you one.

Farifax, Va.: To two gentlemen who have been around this town a long time: With National Airport closed indefinitely, why not take advantage of the lack of planes and restart concerts at the Watergate (those steps on the back side of the Lincoln Memorial leading down to the river) before we get to far into fall? It is my understanding that the reasons they were discontinued was because the noise from the overhead planes were too great. Well, we don't have that problem now.

Jack Limpert: That's a terrific idea. The more that Washingtonians get out and lead normal lives the better. Those concerts were a lot of fun.

Bob Levey: You've outlasted Dossier, Regardie's and several other local magazines that figured you'd be easy pickings. Why? How?

Jack Limpert: The magazine business is not easy. The expenses tend to be a lot of relentless than the revenues. And changes in local business have made it harder for local magazines to survive. We once had a lot of local department stores and banks and other businesses, and they tended to support local publications. Another big change: database marketing. Way back in the l950s, stores would advertise to get you into their shop. You paid cash and they didn't know or care who you were. Now when you buy something you probably use a credit card, and the store then has your name and address. They keep all this on computer, and they spend a lot of their marketing money now getting former customers to come in rather than spending all their marketing money on advertising. And it's very hard to build paid circulation. The Washingtonian started in 1965, and it was about ten years before we began to break even. A lot of publications start thinking they can be profitable in a couple of years. It's more a long distance run than a spring.

Washington, DC: I don't read the Washingtonian very often--I'll pick up an issue a few times a year at most. What always surprises me is the gossipy reporting on The Washington Post. What's with the obsession?

Jack Limpert: The Washington area is very fragmented, and we are always looking for what brings the metro area together. The Post does that, as do the Redskins, the TV stations. So we figure most of our readers read the Post. We also think it's good for those in journalism to try to keep others in journalism on their toes. The Post is very powerful here, so we get a lot of readers who say they like it that we try to keep them honest.

Bob Levey: How hard has it been for Washingtonian to crack and track the current administration? After all, they're a pretty stiff-upper-lip bunch, not known for hanging out at the 930 Club.

Jack Limpert: The Bush people are very buttoned down, but it's amazing how many people in government still talk. There always are battles going on--someone trying to get ahead of someone else. A lot of what we get on the administration we get from newspaper reporters for the Post, the Times, and other papers.

Bob Levey: About ten years ago, Washingtonian settled three major lawsuits within a very short time. You were quoted at the time as saying it was like "driving to work one day and getting into three car accidents." Have those suits affected the aggressiveness of Washingtonian?

Jack Limpert: Very big legal bills do get your attention. I don't think we've become cautious about going after good stories, but we "lawyer" them a lot better. We've only had one suit go to trial, and we won that. But if you get sued, it's the legal costs that get you--the depositions and all that.

Bob Levey: The Washington Post expects that it will have a "shelf life" of exactly one day. But Washingtonian obviously expects to sit on coffee tables for a full month. Does that happen?

Jack Limpert: A lot of people save issues for a year or more--stories such as best restaurants, cheap eats, top doctors, great weekend getaways. A lot of that material in now up on our web site: washingtonian.com. The average reading time for an issue is almost two hours, so a lot of readers spend time with the magazine and save it.

Silver Spring: I'm curious if you've ever read Texas Monthly. They write much more substantive articles about state politics and local personalities.

I love the fluffy approach in the Washingtonian, but I'm curious to know if you've ever considered a more substantive demeanor?

Jack Limpert: Texas Monthly has been a very good magazine for almost 30 years. They do much less of what we call service because they cover such a wide area. We give readers lots of local names, addresses, and phone numbers. Texas Monthly also doesn't sell nearly as many copies on the newsstands as we do, so there covers tend to be more about colorful personalities and the myths of Texas. We tend to put strong service stories on our covers--best places to work, that kind of thing.

Bob Levey: How does Jack Limpert feel about the fairly widespread agreement to lay off Chelsea Clinton and the Bush daughters?

Jack Limpert: I thought the Washington press covered Chelsea very responsibly. I have two daughters, 24 and 20, and no father wants their kids covered by the National Enquirer every day. I think the Bush girls should get the same respect, though a lot of people think they asked for it when they went into a public bar and ordered drinks when they weren't old enough to legally do it.

Bob Levey: Which are the hottest downtown restaurants these days? "Hottest" means the places where one is likeliest to see The Great and Near-Greats

Jack Limpert: The Palm on l9th street is probably the closest thing to the old Duke Ziebert's. That was always the place to see interesting people. If you want to people watch, go to the Palm. If you want good food, our critics especially like Kinkeads, Vidalia, Taberna del Abelardo (sp?).

vienna, va: Why all of the debate about "when" the FAA will reopen National Airport? Congress can overrule the FAA and reopen it with a single bill...and considering how many people in Congress use it so much, I think this is a definite possibility. Even if Bush vetoes it, there would probably be enough support to override. There are three sure things in life.....death, taxes, and Congressional flights at National.

Jack Limpert: You're right about the pols wanting it open. Harder to picture all those members of Congress rushing out to Dulles or BWI. But security people can be very tough, and they'll be even more powerful now. After Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed, I had lunch with a former head of the Secret Service and he made a very good case that the White House could not be protected as long as Pennsylvania Avenue was open. They'll make the same case on National Airport.

Bob Levey: In 1990, The Washington Post reported that Jack Limpert still used a Royal manual typewriter. A man after my own heart! Do you still have a Royal? Still use it? Still love it?

Jack Limpert: I still have an old Royal and I type a lot of notes on it. But I also edit on computer and do a lot of e-mail. e-mail has been wonderful in helping communicate and coordinate, but I worry that too many of us sit too long at our computers and we don't walk around and talk to each other enough.

DC: Jack,

I like the Washingtonian articles; however, lately, it's beginning to feel like the Washingtonian is one big advertisement. You are always pushing the same restaurants, and the pages are littered with ads. Can we get back to some good journalism and features rather than a Top 100 something or other every month?

Jack Limpert: We average about 200 pages an issue, with about 90 pages of them ads, so we're not as ad heavy as a lot of magazines. We do a lot of service covers (restaurants, weekends, etc.) so some people get the impression that's what we care about. We do that because that's what sells best on the newsstand. But we do plenty of strong stories. The story last December on Spring Valley won the local watchdog award from the Society of Professional Journalists. We try to have two or three very strong stories each issue. This month see Running from the Law, Battling Breast Cancer, the good piece on Georgetown University.

vienna, va: Hey guys, never mind the Bush girls....let's hope DADDY doesn't start drinking again with the kind of pressure he's under...this must be a terrible strain for him. By his own admission, he once had a drinking problem, but unlike Clinton, he at least was honest about his past and admitted it.

Jack Limpert: The people I talk to who know President Bush think that Washington is underestimating him, the way we did President Reagan. A lot of Washingtonians tend to look at how good a talker a politician is, and not enough at character. It's a disease of the times--we focus too much on personality, not enough on character. People who know George W. think there is a lot of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan in him. He may not be a great talker, but he's smart and tough. I suspect he'd be a better poker player than Bill Clinton.

reston, 20190: The September issue had an article on alternatives to college for people who didn't want to go right out of high school. It didn't mention the military as one of the alternatives. Was that because the Washingtonian's demographic isn't interested in serving in the military? Or are your reporters not veterans, and they just didn't think about it?

Jack Limpert: That was a mistake. Somehow we didn't focus on it and I should have. After a year of college, I went in the Air Force and then finished school on the GI Bill. I'm not at all sure I would have made it through college without that help.

Bob Levey: You know Lynne Cheney very well (she was a top editor at Washingtonian several years ago). What's your take on her husband, and his health? I have to say I worry about him. Should I?

Jack Limpert: I know Vice President Cheney a little--our publisher, Phil Merrill, knows him very well. Dick is rock solid, as he showed Sunday on Meet the Press. I think we're lucky to have him as vice president, and you have to give President Bush some credit for picking a guy from Wyoming because he thought he was the best person available rather than playing the usual VP political games. Lynne is very smart, very energetic, and she and Dick are a great team.

Bob Levey: Is every word of every Washingtonian available on-line? Or are you guys still wrestling with that seeming contradiction--why give it away if we're also trying to sell it?

Jack Limpert: We don't put the long stories online. Our approach is that people want to seek information online--finding a good restaurant, a top doctor. But they don't want to read long stories online. One of the downsides of more people getting their news over computers is that they may not scan as much. I get the Post and lots of other publications because I want to scan--I want to see all kinds of stories and be surprised and enlightened. If you only seek on a computer, I think it narrows your world.

Bob Levey: You haven't written much about the personalities on the Hill lately. Is that because Dennis Hastert and Tom Daschle don't have very electric ones?

Jack Limpert: We've always found it hard to find great stories on the Hill--lots of infighting and gossip, but not many great human stories. We've tried to put Hill people on the cover--Ted Kennedy, Jack Kemp. They didn't sell. Washingtonians seem to get enough Hill politics in the Post so we tend to focus more on local personalities.

Bob Levey: The Washington Post has recently spent a ton of money to "zone" itself. The result is that subscribers and advertisers get a more targeted product, depending on where they live. Any plans for Washingtonian to do the same thing?

Jack Limpert: No. I think one reason people get the Washingtonian is to get a feel for the whole metro area. They want to feel a part of the whole area, and they want to understand what's happening and why. And despite all the political fragmentation in the area, there are lots of subjects of interest across the region--traffic, the environment, things like that.

Bob Levey: Once upon a time, Jack Limpert gave an interview on The Art of Choosing a Magazine Cover. Some quote-lets:
"Politics doesn't sell."
"Women sell better than men."
"Scandal sells better than sociology"
"Anniversaries don't sell."
"Positive sells better than negative."
All still true?

Jack Limpert: That actually was a quote from Dick Stolley, at the time the editor of People magazine. But there's some truth in it. What sells in Washington are stories people can use in their lives--where to get good health care, where to go to relax. One surprise last year was how well a guide to local museums sold. People kept telling me that more people go to museums than to sporting events but I never quite believed it. The museum guide sold as well as best restaurants.

Bob Levey: Which other magazines do you consider your competition?

Jack Limpert: We really compete for the reader's time. We watch what the newsmagazines do on Washington, and we follow the Washington Post Magazine and New York Times Magazine very carefully. Locally I get a lot from reading the Hill, which covers Capitol Hill, the Washington Business Journal, Legal Times, the City Paper.

Bob Levey: Go somewhere in the U.S. and tell them you're from Washington, and you're 1-to-5 to get asked about Marion Barry. Yet I don't believe Washingtonian ever put The Mayor For Life on its cover, even when his troubles were national news. Why not?

Jack Limpert: We put Mayor Barry on the cover with a halo over his head. I don't think 100 people in Maryland and Virginia bought that issue. Keep in mind that DC now represents about 15 percent of the metro area. About 75 percent of our readers are in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, l5 percent in DC, and the rest scattered nationally and internationally.

Bob Levey: Whenever I pick up your Top 50 restaurant list, I discover ads for those very same restaurants right beside the write-ups about them. This obviously means the restaurants were notified ahead of time that they'd been selected--and they were quickly solicited to buy an ad. Ethical problem here?

Jack Limpert: There's no connection between ads and editorial. We have four restaurant critics and never tell them who to cover or what to write. There are plenty of restaurant owners in Washington who aren't happy with their reviews, but the smart ones continue to advertise to reach the high education, high income audience that we have.

Bob Levey: Washington is legendary in the TV world for not caring about nightly news shows, sitcoms or other programs that are very popular in the rest of the U.S. Is this the result of our gangantuan rush hours (preceded by our gargantuan work schedules)? Or is it a form of snobbery ("I don't have to watch The West Wing, my dear fellow. I WORK there!").

Jack Limpert: A very good question. I don't watch local news nearly as much as I used to, though I think the local stations do a pretty good job. Jim Vance and Gordon Peterson and Maureen Bunyan are all first rate journalists. I watch a lot of C-Span, CNN, MSNBC, and the sports channels. I don't think in general, though, the tastes of the Washington area are that different from the rest of the country. A lot of people who live here came from Wisconsin (my home state) and lots of other places.

oakton, va: What is your opinion of the Washington Times?
I have always had a high opinion of it...I find it a good, well-balanced, center-spectrum publication, unlike many other local publications.

Jack Limpert: I read the Washington Times every day and consider it a good complement to the Post. It's Metro coverage is often better. But it's fighting a losing battle -- I suspect the Reverend Moon has lost close to $2 billion in the 20 years he's had the Washington Times. The Post is just too far ahead--it has about 800,000 subscribers on a weekday compared to about 100,000 for the Times. But competition in journalism is always good, almost necessary. The more the better.

Bob Levey: You wouldn't believe how often I get over-the-transom phone calls from readers whose mothers-in-law are coming to D.C. They're desperate for "the right restaurant." May I forward all such calls to you from now on?

Jack Limpert: Our wine and food editor is Tom Head. e-mail him at thead@washingtonian.com and he'll always try to help.

Washington, DC: It seems that the Washingtonian only attempts to talk to and about the wealthy and white elite of the area. When in reality the majority of people who live in the city are neither wealthy or white.

Perhaps you should call yourselver the Fairfaxian?

Jack Limpert: The natural magazine audience is college educated, higher income. We cover the entire metro area, so when you say the majority of the people in the city are neither wealthy nor white, you're talking about DC. The publication that pretty much serves DC exclusively in the City Paper. The rest of us--the Post, the Washingtonian, the TV stations--cover the entire metropolitan area.

DC: How come you printed a picture of Tom Sietsema, the Post's food critic? How can you justify making it harder for him to do his job accurately and effectively? Is competition and winning a "point" so important to you?

Jack Limpert: Okay, that did border on being a cheap shot. But our restaurant critics think the whole business of a critic's anonymity is greatly overblown. Phyllis Richman made a big thing of that, but in fact most the area's restaurateurs either have seen the critic somewhere or seen a picture.

Bob Levey: Your prediction for the 2000 Redskins' final record is.......

Jack Limpert: Back in the August issue we said 9-7. I thought Marty S. would have the team playing a lot better than he has. I feel for Dan Snyder--he's finding that owning the Redskins is much tougher than I think he expected. But he also should take some of the blame--he brought in Dieon Sanders and Jeff George, and both now appear to be very bad bets. Marty isn't going to be happy until he gets a new quarterback, and that won't be easy. But let's hope for at least 8-8.

Bob Levey: Many thanks to Jack Limpert for a very interesting hour. Be sure to join us next Tuesday, Oct. 2, at the same time, when we'll visit with Dan Knice, head of the committee that's trying to draw the 2012 Olympic Games to Washington-Baltimore. This show was originally scheduled for Sept. 11.

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