VandeHarris: EconomicPrincipals.com's Take

The threat of entry by new competition is very real: Harris, 43, and VandeHei, 35, will join a start-up Washington newspaper called The Capitol Leader, backed by Allbritton Communications, which had, for a time, been proprietor of a now defunct broadsheet of good reputation, The Washington Star (it was the city’s leading daily until the Post overtook it in the 1960s). The two journalists immediately contracted to appear regularly on the CBS television network (Allbritton owns a number of ABC-affiliated television stations, including its Washington outlet).