It was billed as an opportunity to meet your favorite Washington Post columnists, reporters and editors. But about 300 guests coming to attend “The Post Points Spirit of the Holiday Celebration” Tuesday night first had to weave through a room of advertisers’ tables before getting to meet the likes of Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, Publisher Katherine Weymouth and columnist Dana Milbank.
Readers visiting the newly renovated Washington Post building were instructed to stop at each of the advertisers’ tables — including Ford’s Theatre and Wolf Trap — to fill out a “spirit of the holidays advertiser passport,” a questionnaire. If they filled out answers to all the questions they were able to spin the “mighty prize wheel” and could win prizes like pens, keychains, Post Points gift certificates — and, if you were one of the lucky ones, books.
Those not distracted by the prize wheel made their way to a back room to mingle with Post bigwigs.
According to Weymouth, the annual event is a way to reach out to the community.
“We do it for our readers,” she told Yeas & Nays, adding she had received a lot of positive feedback about the paper.
Brauchli, on the other side of the room, was fielding complaints from several readers.
“I reply to all the letters I get,” he said. “Most of them are angry,” he told Yeas & Nays, and then changed his tune. “Some of them are angry,” he said.
Milbank, who writes the popular Washington Sketch column, said he usually missed the annual event, but if the Post was serving alcohol, he might stick around for a while.
They were serving lemonade.
