• The New York Times, Tuesday, June 24, 2008 10 AM

Leonard Downie Jr. will retire in September after 17 years as the top editor of The Washington Post, making way for a generational transition under new publisher, Katharine Weymouth.

Downie, 66, has spent more than four decades at the paper and will become a vice president at the Washington Post Company. The Post's weekday circulation is down from 800,000 in 2000 to about 670,000 this year. It has more than 9 million Internet readers a month, trailing only The New York Times and USA Today, but like its peers it hasn't been able to turn that readership into significant revenue.

The Post is also in the early stages of trying to merge print and digital newsrooms that have been kept more separate than at other large papers, fostering a sometimes less-than-friendly rivalry. Insiders say that merger is a priority for 42-year-old Weymouth.

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