A 60-Year Arc at The Washington Post, From Watergate to the Weather

Martin Weil, one of hundreds being laid off at The Post, has worked on local news there since 1965, witnessing the paper’s rise and now retrenchment.

Not long into his career at The Washington Post, Martin Weil learned to ignore most of the crackles on the police scanner. One night in June 1972, though, he paused upon hearing this: “Doors open at the Watergate.”

He decided against chasing down the meaning of those words that night. But the next day, he approached the city desk to ask if anything was afoot. The answer was yes — the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex had been burglarized.

And The Post, of course, was pursuing that story and many, many others, until it attained what the newspaper’s publisher at the time, Katharine Graham, later termed a position of “dominance” in the Washington region.

On Wednesday, The Post announced plans to move on from that legacy as part of widespread cuts to the newsroom. The layoffs, affecting more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists at the paper, are landing hard on the local news desk, where Mr. Weil has worked since 1965. He was among those laid off, one of the last ties to the paper’s Watergate era.