WASHINGTON POST DELIVERS THE COMICS -- TWICE

The Washington Post, one of the country's great newspapers, seems to have a problem in the production and printing department. The Sunday comics dated June 7 (which are delivered with the Saturday paper in my area) were the same as the comics delivered the previous weekend. My son noticed this as soon as he picked up the comics section, and I looked to confirm that my favorites -- Flashbacks, Zits, Doonesbury, Pickles, and others -- were indeed repeats. This comes on top of the mixup April 11-12 (see below), in which the Sunday opinion columns were printed Saturday -- and then again Sunday.

No explanation of the comics mishap was included in the Sunday paper, but a check on the Washington Post web site shows that the today's comics are correct, but were distributed a week early -- and then distributed again. Readers missed the May 31 comics unless they checked the web site, and not all of the Sunday comics are posted there.

Many will ask, of course, so what? Who cares about the comics? But in fact, many people do. When the Post (or any other paper) changes its comics lineup, it gets more letters from the public than if it changes editorial columnists -- a lot more. I shot off a letter to the editor, and I am sure many readers wrote or called to complain. (I would not expect my letter to be printed because I just had one in the paper -- see below -- but I had to tell someone.)

So making this kind of a blunder, and not explaining it, shows that either the people in charge down on 15th Street are not really aware of what's hitting the driveways and doorsteps, in my circulation area at least, or don't care enough to correct an egregious error. Either explanation points to some real problems in the management of a major Washington enterprise.