The Washington Post's editor, Len Downie Jr., is resigning, which means it's time for some hand-wring about THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM. Vying to replace him are Jonathan Landman, digital editor of The New York Times, and Marcus Brauchli, of The Wall Street Journal. Speaking as an internet person, I have no preference. But insofar as The Washington Post is taking articles they write and putting them on the internet, I think their digital strategy is largely fine (their site, however, should be redesigned such that things can actually be found, and accessed). It would be nice, however, if the paper got a bit more readable. Every so often, an older and wiser colleague or interlocutor will ask, sighing, if I read newspapers. And I do. Sort of. I scan newspapers. But increasingly, I read things that take newspaper content and repackage it in more useful formats (blog posts, op-eds, think tank reports, quick news hits, summaries, etc). I recently had drinks with an editor of a major political magazine who was telling me about his learning curve. "It took me about 10 years to really learn how to read a newspaper article," he said. "But now I can zip through the paper, really getting the relevant facts."
