Last week, most newspapers ran a 2008 Doonesbury re-run featuring its character Rick Redfern getting laid off from the Washington Post after 33 years at the job. The Washington Post didn’t run that one or more specifically, it started the story-line on Monday and Tuesday, but printed another rerun on Wednesday and Thursday. Alert readers wondered if it was due to a potential sore topic of layoffs at the Post a year earlier in which 100 employees lost their jobs. On Friday the Post reprinted both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s with a note of explanation.
According to executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, there was confusion over who had selected the rerun story-line – editors at the Post or the syndicate? The question from the executive editor was interpreted as an objection and the strip was replaced until the error was reported and the missing days were reprinted on Friday.