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I don’t know whether to be relieved or shocked. Erica Smith pointed out a great article by the Washington City Paper that depicts the sometimes disconnect between the Washington Post print edition and the washingtonpost.com.

The City Paper story opens with a vignette on how the WaPo Walter Reed Army Medical Center story was handled between the paper and the news site. The paper’s reporters had been working on the story for months, and one of the reporters had discussed the project weeks in advance with an NBC producer.

NBC Nightly News ran a spot teasing the WaPo story to be released the following morning. Did the washingtonpost.com have the video? Nope.

How much notice did she give washingtonpost.com? “Anne and I basically didn’t tell them anything about the project until two days before it was going to run,” says Priest.

Burrrnnnnnnn. But I’m not surprised. The story notes that the WaPo editor’s had mentioned the story to the online team, but it didn’t generate much interest.

In their defense, Priest and Hull didn’t publicize the Walter Reed investigation in their own newsroom. The stories were a hush-hush proposition, rendered vaguely on story budgets and kept from folks who were routinely in the loop. Web-site staffers, though, occupied their own rung on the bottom of the ladder. “We kept [the story] from them because we hadn’t worked for them that much, and we were really worried about any kind of leaking,” says Priest, who worked more fully with washingtonpost.com on subsequent parts of the series.

It’s also interesting to note that the paper and online teams work about 20 minutes apart. They don’t share a newsroom. I imagine this is the case with many newsrooms bridging print and online.

Did distance between the paper and online staff grow into disagreements and misunderstandings?

Many people in the Post newsroom would prefer that their peers at washingtonpost.com restrict themselves to technical stuff. Post the brilliant news stories that come from 15th and L, put together slide shows, edit the videos, and go home. But it doesn’t work that way.

Of the 100 employees on the editorial side of washingtonpost.com, 10 provide content of one sort or another, a count that jumps to 20 if you add in contract writers and bloggers. Once their bylines go up on the Web, they become the competition.

…

Duplication of functions has a way of offending journalists who are feeling the pain of budget cuts. Why is dot-com paying for nightlife coverage and political coverage when the main newsroom does the same things—and is losing staff via early retirement offers and attrition? Such considerations merely stoke the outrage when Posties see techies typing into their turf. The annoyance extends beyond just the Weekend pod.

The City Paper reveals many more interesting stories that may help put the relationships between papers and news sites in perspective. Despite being online leaders, even washingtonpost.com has had its struggles integrating with the print staff at the Washington Post.

How nicely/cooperatively do your newsrooms play together? Will relationships ever improve or will tensions always exist and flourish?