Drained.

We thought it appropriate to ask AI, the popular modern mass media tool, to paint “sadness.”

Hello. I’m back. A very small and forlorn logo today:

Twelve years ago, in the old Washington Post building, Donald Graham introduced to the staff the man to whom he had just sold his newspaper, Jeffrey Bezos.

Mr. Graham, one of the great newspaper owners of the modern era, felt he no longer had the expertise or financial wherewithal to successfully rescue his newspaper from inevitable financial collapse; he felt that by this move he was doing the best for the newspaper his family had owned for 80 years, and for those who worked there.

Seeking — as he always did — to buoy the spirits and quell the concerns of his staff, now disoriented, he assured them that nothing meaningful was changing. The Post, he said, was not a property or an investment — it was a public trust, a breathing entity made up of all the talented people who worked for it.

“I am not The Washington Post,” he told the room, as people remember. “The Graham family is not The Washington Post. Roz Helderman is The Washington Post…”

Graham went on to mention other current staffers who were doing memorable work, but he started with Rosalind Helderman, then 34, an upcoming star reporter. That’s the thing about Donald Graham: He knew the staff intimately, knew their stories. He read the paper. Cover to cover. Every day. He was not an absentee owner.

Since that day, Ms. Helderman has done splendidly. She has been an integral part of teams that won The Post two Pulitzer Prizes. Her voice, temperament and judgment have been prized by management.

At 9 a.m. today, the Washington Post formally announced that Rosalind Helderman was leaving for a job at the New York Times, where she will edit stories about The Supreme Court.

So.

I don’t really have anything else to say.

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I am sad. Like the AI-drawn illustration above. Only more for real.