Farewell to Outlook, and nearly 70 years of essays, arguments and criticism

[Celerity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/09/16/farewell-outlook-section/

https://archive.ph/UkXTp



Outlook, the print section of commentary and analysis that has graced this newspaper’s Sunday edition for nearly 70 years, came into the world quietly on Dec. 19, 1954. No birth announcement appeared in that day’s paper. No explanation for curious readers as to why the section formerly called Editorials had a new name. Nothing to indicate that the change was more than cosmetic.

This is Outlook’s last edition. A few weeks ago, The Washington Post informed subscribers by email that “the essays and analysis appearing in Outlook will now be found exclusively in Opinions in the A section and online.” Befitting the mission that the section eventually embraced — to interpret and witness and seek out unheard voices, and perhaps help Post readers make a little more sense of the world — Outlook will end its run by telling its own story.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of material for a rich obituary. Outlook’s life was a full one. There were triumphs, embarrassments, hits and misses in the section’s weekly quest to provide a mix of significant reporting, opinions worth arguing about, occasional splashes of humor and tragedy, and new ideas that otherwise might never have made their way into the paper. The work of Outlook’s many editors and contributors provoked and enlightened generations of print readers.

It has fallen to the two of us, editors of Outlook from different eras, to give Outlook a proper send-off. We can’t pretend to be neutral. We loved our time running it. We’re proud of its accomplishments, humbled by its shortcomings and determined, with the help of our many Outlook colleagues, to stick with the mission, to provoke and interpret.

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