Katharine Weymouth, the late Katharine Graham's grand daughter who has long been identified as the heir apparent to her uncle, Don Graham, chairman of the Washington Post company, has been named publisher of the Washington Post and chief executive of Washington Post Media, a newly created division that will oversee the Post newspaper and its website, washingtonpost.com.

The daughter of redoubtable Newsweek contributor Lally Weymouth, Katharine, 41, is a popular figure within the Post. For many years she has been the odds-on-favorite within her generation of Graham descendants to take over the family business. A graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law, Weymouth worked for the Washington powerhouse law firm of Williams & Connolly before joining the Post in 1996. Williams & Connolly was the firm of the late Edward Bennett Williams, who became one of Kay Graham's consiglieres when she succeeded her husband as the Post's publisher—after Philip Graham committed suicide in 1963.

Like all other major metropolitan newspapers, the Post is shrinking in the Internet era: its daily circulation is now 638,000 on Monday through Saturday, down from a peak of 832,232 in 1993. Between 2003 and 2006, the paper shrank its operations by 120 people through buyouts, and a new round of them is about to be announced.

Part of Weymouth's mandate is to bring the newspaper and its website closer together. Weymouth succeeds Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr., 61, who has been Post publisher since 2000, and will become vice chairman of The Post Co. For the time being, Katharine will continue to report to her uncle Don, the Post Co.'s chairman.