Is his name “Fran Coombs”?

I was the first reporter outside the founding group hired in February 1982 by owners of The Washington Times and spent 21 years there as a national news beat reporter for the first several years and the last five, and was a senior investigative reporter for most of my years at The Washington Times reporting to Francis B. Coombs Jr., who came to the Times in 1988, when he was national editor, then assistant managing editor, then deputy managing editor, then managing editor, his current post.

Fran Coombs’ views on immigration strongly parallel those of Patrick J. Buchanan, former presidential candidate, conservative pundit, and former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon. Coombs and his wife, Marian Kester Coombs subscribe to views on racial and cultural issues of former Times editorial writer Samuel Francis, Thomas Fleming of the Rockford Institute’s Chronicles magazine, and Times culture page editor Robert Stacy McCain. They are far-right and anti-black. Fran Coombs once told many of us at a party at his home, and repeated the same view often to national desk staff members at the paper, that he favored abortion as a eugenic solution because it was the only way to cut the growing population of blacks, latinos, and asians.

As to Coombs’ elevation to editor-in-chief of The Washington Times when Wes Pruden ultimately retires with his wanted “golden parachute,” I get very different reports from kep people including some on the “selection committee” for a new editor. Sources on that team have repeatedly told me that Preston Moon does not want Fran Coombs, and the recent ouster of Douglas Moon Joo as president of The Washington Times Corp., biggest supporter of Pruden and Coombs, seems to bolster this scenario.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, former editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, now editor-at-large of The Times and United Press International, another property of parent companyNews World Communication headed by Preston Moon, has pushed Martin Walker, a former reporter for The Guardian newspapert in Great Britain and longtime reporter for UPI as The Washington Times’ next editor-in-chief. Walker is a close friend of England’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair and ones wrote speeches for Blair.

So there you have it. The succession and new direction at The Washington Times is very much in the air, but Preston Moon, the owner’s oldest son and an MBA graduate of Harvard University, is very much in the driver’s seat.

Fran Coombs is a bad-tempered man, there has been a huge loss of good talent from The Times to the Washington Examiner — most recently White House senior reporter Bill Sammon and chief Pentagon reporter Rowan Scarborough. Morale in The Times newsroom is very low because of Coombs’ management style.

Just watch that space.

[…] Earlier: Shakeup @ Wash Times? […]