The busy Steve Coll.

Washington Post Newsroom Abuzz With Rumor of Coll’s Departure for New Yorker

The DC thermometer was in the nineties all week, but what was really heating up the Washington Post newsroom was talk that former managing editor Steve Coll is packing up his files and moving to the New Yorker.

Comments ranged from “done deal” to “working out the details” to “the Post is fighting to keep him.”

Coll was in Saudi Arabia to cover the king’s death and the transition. Executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. did not return a call for comment.

The decibel level inside the Post newsroom gave the rumor credence far beyond idle chatter. Most Posties think Coll is out the door.

If true, it’s a big and surprising loss.

A two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, Coll rose quickly to become managing editor and probable heir to Downie’s job as the paper’s top editor. Downie chose Coll as his lieutenant in 1998; Coll stepped down from the number-two job last year to devote himself to writing.

During his 6 1/2 years as managing editor, Coll seemed more passionate about writing than about managing. He crusaded for better writing on page one; he encouraged writers to produce narratives. He had a large hand in meshing the operations of the newsroom with those of Washingtonpost.com.

But he never seemed to warm up to spending the hours in meetings that are required to run a bureaucracy as large as the Post’s. Reporters respected his abilities as a writer and editor, but many say he also never took the time to connect with the rank and file.

Downie is said to be disappointed by the prospect of Coll’s departure. Downie chose Coll as a partner, and he did not want Coll to step down last year.

Coll came to the Post in 1985. He covered Wall Street and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the late 1980s, during the era of corporate takeovers and junk-bond titans. He shared a Pulitzer in 1990 for his coverage of the SEC.

In 1989 Coll became the Post’s South Asia correspondent. He covered India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka from New Delhi. He returned to Washington and edited the Post’s Sunday magazine before moving up to managing editor.

Coll won the 2005 Pulitzer in nonfiction for his book Ghost Wars, a “secret” history of the CIA in Afghanistan. Shortly after winning the prize, he shocked the newsroom by stepping down as managing editor.

He took the post of associate editor and began working on more long-term writing projects.

Coll is expected to return to Washington next week, when the details of his departure likely will be confirmed.

The New Yorker plans to open new offices in downtown DC in September. Coll would join Jeffrey Goldberg, who writes the Letter from Washington, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, Margaret Talbot, Jane Mayer, and Elsa Walsh in the magazine’s Washington bureau.

Unless, of course, the Coll move turns out to be just an overheated rumor.