Washington Post email went down

February 6th, 2004
By AP

The e-mail system for writers and editors at The Washington Post failed Thursday for hours because the newspaper did not renew its Internet address, the company said.

Network Solutions, which handles domain-name registration on the Internet, had sent the company a bill for washpost.com, the site that handles e-mail traffic for the Washington Post's reporters.

But the invoice ended up in a dormant e-mail account and wasn't paid and early yesterday morning, Network Solutions pulled the plug.

In a statement, the Washington Post said the oversight was "inadvertent" and "the domain name was immediately renewed."

External e-mail, however, was deflected for hours from the site, meaning early-morning deep throats took their scoops elsewhere.

The newspaper itself, which is published online at washingtonpost.com, was unaffected.