Image courtesy of the Newseum.

On the day the Washington Post unveiled its new design, the newspaper did what it still does best: It published the second in a powerful investigative series about how the District misspends millions to treat AIDS victims. The articles, by Debbie Cenziper, are maddening, saddening, and solidly grounded in documents.

But was it easier to read? Is the new Washington Post easier to read than it was Sunday?

Biggest change for readers throughout the Post is the typeface. The Post switched from Postroman to a version of Scotch Roman, “a sturdy typeface used in newspapers since the early 1800s.”

The new type is thinner and will allow the Post to get more words on the page. Being less bold, it is slightly harder to read, especially for Boomers with fading eye sight, and they make up the bulk of print readers.

Here’s one reason the Washington Post is losing readers: it is in a daily scrum on terrain it once ruled—covering Washington politics.

The snapshot of one day’s news cycle may not offer a broad comparison, but on one Tuesday in October, the Post lost ground on many fronts.

Let’s begin with the coverage of the Virginia governor’s race. The Post did run a page one news piece on the first prime-time debate between Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat R. Creigh Deeds. It was a serviceable account. On washingtonpost.com, the McDonnell-Deeds story drifted to the bottom of the “More Headlines” section. Chris Cillizza posted a well-reported piece on polls saying Deeds is trailing with strategists describing how he might win.

Meanwhile, over on AOL’s Politics Daily, Jill Lawrence’s column on the debate led the home page, with pictures and a come-hither angle: how will presidential politics play out in Virginia?

Adam Nagourney in the New York Times also casts the Deeds-McDonnell race into the national realm with a smart column asking whether Virginia Dems might have been better off with Clintonite Terry McAuliffe on the ballot. Deeds beat him in the primary.

Politics Daily also ran the news that Hillary Clinton had ruled out running for the White House on its home page under “Top Stories.” The Post played the news on page two with a story by Anne Kornblut and an artsy, bizarre photo of Clinton through a windshield: half of the image was a blurred reflection on a side window.

Investigative reporter James Grimaldi’s fall series on the Skins hit the team for its ticket practices. Photograph by Matthew Worden

Washington Post editors often say the paper’s two most important beats are the Redskins and the White House. They devote lots of reporters and space to covering the teams at 1600 Pennsylvania and FedEx Field. Matched head to head, which is better—White House or Redskins coverage?

The Redskins

The Post has three full-time reporters on the Skins beat: Jason Reid is in his third year as chief writer. He usually writes the game-day story and most items in the Redskins Insider blog; Rick Maese, the beat’s newest reporter, came from the Baltimore Sun to replace Jason LaCanfora, who went to TV; Barry Svrluga switched from covering the Washington Nationals to writing features about the football team.

On game days, the Post floods the Redskins zone. The press box hosts seven Posties: the three beat writers plus two columnists as well as utility writers Dan Steinberg and Paul Tenorio.

The Post has had a rocky relationship with Redskins owner Dan Snyder. A few years ago, the Skins accused the Post of meddling in the locker room and writing too many negative articles. Team executives tried to undermine Nunyo Demasio, then the beat reporter. The Redskins yanked 267 of the Post’s season tickets as part of a 2004 dispute over coverage and alleged resale of the tickets.

Summer was a stormy season for Washington Post deciders. The Post’s leadership took heat for setting up off-the-record “salons” with reporters, to be paid for and attended by corporate sponsors. Merging Web and print newsrooms taxed all sides. Heading into the fall, how do Posties rate their leaders on a scale of 1 to 10?

Katharine Weymouth: 6. Good will toward the popular publisher slipped away a bit when she acknowledged signing off on the salons; her apologies rang hollow to some reporters and editors.

Marcus Brauchli: 4. Weymouth’s hand-picked editor took responsibility and lost cred for the salons; he also had to eat crow for allowing and then killing Mouthpiece Theater, a cheeky online video hosted by Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza. Slate’s Jack Shafer accused Brauchli of “spinelessness”; Posties criticize him for not showing up in the newsroom.

Photograph of Wise by Matthew Worden.

Want smash-mouth, trash-talking chin music? Coming to the sports-talk airwaves this month is Tony “Doctor Neurosis” Kornheiser versus Mike “I Wanna Be Tony” Wise. The plot is thick with money, bad blood, bruised egos—and a touch of irony.

“I’m bald and got issues,” Wise tells me. “That’s the only thing we have in common.”

Kornheiser needs little introduction: He’s the loved and hated New Yorker turned Washington sportswriter turned humor columnist turned TV-sports-show host. Recently relieved of his gig on Monday Night Football, Kornheiser is scheduled to begin hosting a sports-radio show on WTEM-AM (980) September 8.

Wise, who followed Kornheiser’s path from the New York Times to sports columnist for the Washington Post, plays the upstart in this impending radio brawl. In July, he started a four-hour show middays on WJFK-FM (106.7), which just switched from music to sports talk in order to challenge WTEM.

“What would Len have done?” That question was put to Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli as he met with reporters in July to explain why the paper had planned “salons” that would bring its journalists together with government officials and lobbyists, whose companies would have sponsored the off-the-record evenings.

Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander called the plan “an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs ribbed Post reporter Mike Shear by asking how much it would cost to answer one of his questions.

The Post reporters Brauchli met with wanted answers. When one suggested that Leonard Downie Jr., the longtime executive editor who preceded Brauchli, would have nixed the salon plan, Brauchli responded: “He might well have. But every editor looks at information differently, depending on the time and the situation.”