When people think about the top problems facing Washington, information overload probably isn't one of them.
But National Journal has heard the same thing over and over from our audience: There's not enough time to both read and fully digest the news and analysis of the day. At the same time, the pressure to stay informed has only grown stronger.
Today, we're launching what we hope will become a solution.
At the beginning of August, we began working on an idea to deliver fast analysis to Washington decision-makers, our core audience. Armed with reader data, we set out to create a short-form product that addressed a growing need—separating what's valuable from the firehose of what's available—while staying true to our journalistic priorities and history of high standards.
So what are we doing?
We built what we call a "live briefing," a project that hand-curates the best news in real time and pairs it with short-form, nonpartisan analysis and commentary from National Journal correspondents. You'll find it on our homepage under "What We’re Following."
The first stab at this idea mimicked the feel of a social feed. We thought that this would be a smart choice, as it would be "the best of Twitter." However, while it solved the problem of cutting out the noise of social media, it still conveyed the feeling of an endless scroll of information without any context.