The Internet Gets To The Point, Ctd

Ackerman adds to the discussion:

[H]ere’s a refinement of the point that, I think, can soothe Kinsley’s irritations: modular journalism! Make just one specific point and leave, developing the story through hypertext and tag clouds.

So here’s what I mean.

Check out this Los Angeles Times piece. It’s a good piece about Maj. Gen. Flynn’s intelligence overhaul in Afghanistan and corresponding CNAS paper. But then it’s also a piece about the Afghan parliament rejecting Hamid Karzai’s cabinet. And it’s also a piece about the first U.S. casualties in Afghanistan of the new year. That’s because newspapers that have contracted staff, and particularly foreign staff like the Los Angeles Times – can rarely allot the space on the physical newsprint for three Afghanistan stories. So poor Julian Barnes and Laura King, being responsible for the edition’s Afghanistan coverage, have to shoehorn three (in this case) newsworthy Afghanistan developments into one piece, even though those developments are perfectly distinguishable.