Now given the fact that resources are smaller we had to make hard choices. We’ve recognized that with a staff our size we can’t cover all parts of the world equally. It would be a mistake to try to compete head to head with the BBC or the wire services or to some degree even the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal which have larger foreign staffs than we do. And try to cover all parts of the world equally. So the tough decisions have involved going thinner. Reducing our staffing in Europe in Africa in South America each by one correspondent in order the last year to really consolidate and surge our coverage across the Middle East south Asia and into China. Which I think by any measure is the most dynamic part of the world right now; the part of the world is changing most rapidly. With the changes over the next decade are really going to have enormous importance in Washington and certainly in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan Iran with potential for direct American military intervention for example that’s already taking place.

So we have, well we cover we do cover Europe, we cover Africa we cover South America. Our greatest concentration of resources is in that belt from Jerusalem to Beijing. We try in our coverage to ask our correspondents to think about answering the questions that are most important to our readers. To recognizes that they are writing not just about what’s happening in their part of the world. But to think about why it is that it matters; that a reader in Washington or a reader of our copy online anywhere is going to need that information. So that what we produce is relevant and important and feels connected to readers. And one thing we’re trying to do better in that process is to make sure that our reporting staffs in Washington and our reporting staffs overseas are talking to one another so that we’re sharing both sides of an issue that is a matter of sort of current discussion in Washington. Perhaps the most important meeting I have every week is a conference call that involves reporters in Kabul and Islamabad with reporters in Washington and sometimes elsewhere to talk about the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan on everything from questions involving corruption to military affairs to political ones. It really helps I think us do a better job of reporting the issue. And to have a clearer sense of what it is that is most important to our readers.

Just to say finally as a former foreign correspondent I know how liberating but also paralyzing it can be in a foreign capital and to wake up knowing you could write any of a thousand stories over a day. It’s a great opportunity but it also is terrifying at times. And I think in some ways a reader these days faces that same dilemma with that avalanche of information that we all get on our Yahoo home page or in the CNN [crawl] or on our radio at night. And being a smart filter deciding how to target reporting as a reporter providing a product for a reader that reflects that sort of sophistication in targeting and deciding what the questions are we are trying to answer is what I hope is the additional value we are bringing to you all and other as readers of the Posts in foreign news. So let me stop there and [we begin] the conversation.

Ali: Sure thank you for those great introductions. We are all print journalists so we all complain about the new life and new conditions of print journalism. All over the world not only in US I am from Turkey and the conditions are similar. Although Turkey is doing a little bit better perhaps economically nowadays. But especially in terms of competition with internet media and print journalism Turkish newspapers are also suffering a lot. So my question is this many experts are saying perhaps for the print journalism to survive better it would be good for them to focus more on specialization and perhaps doing more analysis so that they can make their product more attractive. As opposed to quick hot news coming out from the websites. What do you think about this? And is the Washington Post focusing more on analysis or… in general what are your views on this?