A series of tubes

I've been waking up in strange places the past couple of days, forcing me to go without the printed paper and rely on the NYT website instead. Fortunately, it is early in the week, so when I get home at night and can finally start the crossword, I can actually finish it before turning it.

Speaking of the digital version, Jonathan Landman, the NYT deputy managing editor and digital journalism honcho, is moving back to the culture editor desk, a position he held once before in 2004 to 2005. Since I'm not in media, I had no idea who this character was, or why he looked like a high school English teacher. Most of what I learned about him since the move was announced on Monday is from the two "Talk to the Readers" Q&A segments that he did; most questions addressed digital journalism. His responses were thoughtful in both, though the first one, from 2006, seemed delightfully ancient. I believe the phrase "our new blog page" was used. New! God in Heaven. One interesting fact I didn't know is that they split up articles into multiple pages in order to produce more page views, and thus more advertising dollars. Savvy! Somewhat.

More important was his response in the 2006 Q&A (one of few not directly concerning digital journalism) about the audience of the Times from a reader bemoaning the publication of Emily Gould's infamous magazine cover story, among other things. "More and more, I have to weed out The Times, often throwing out the Style section, which has articles on clothes that I can't afford; the Travel section, which has articles about places I can't afford to visit, and the Dining section, which has articles on food too expensive to consume." I definitely agree, to an extent, and I think some of those articles (sections, even) exist to perpetuate a certain image of the NYT. Landman asserts that "Our readers are definitely well above average in affluence. They're also well educated, sophisticated, curious, critical and wide-ranging in their interests and tastes," and I'm sure he has some surveys to indicate this. But are these pieces newsworthy? I'm not always convinced. I also wonder how these lighter sections fare in the print/digital readership differential.

More relevant to my experience are his thoughts from 2006 about the lessening of editorial power in the digital version. Readers are freer to determine what they encounter; it's easier to ignore a headline than a whole article. This can be intentional (bypassing something you're not interested in or, more problematically, don't agree with) or subconscious. This latter tendency is why I prefer the print version. Online, I read the top headlines in most sections, maybe a few shorter pieces in the Science section, and a few City Room tidbits. But I don't tend to find the odd, often illuminating articles about things like Treece, KS (which I posted about on Monday). It's the frenetic nature of online reading. My browser has fifteen tabs open, including Gmail, HootSuite (to monitor multiple Twitter accounts), and someone's blog post on which I've been composing a comment for the past two hours; not to mention what non-Internet programs I've got going.

I force myself to slow down, to read an article all the way through in one go instead of stopping midway, checking Gmail and doing a Google image search for mouse lemur because Stephen Fry mentions something about it being the world's smallest primate, before returning to the article. Deliberately I scroll down each section page looking those articles that remind me how odd this world is. Without this strategy, I would never know that R. Allen Stanford needs a public defender. Now that's rich! In Texas, of all places. I don't know anything about their public defense system, but given the horrible state of their prisons, I would guess their PDs are incredibly overworked, underpaid, that whole bit, more than most states.

On the other hand, I'd have to wait until tomorrow to read in print that Linda McMahon, the wife of Vince McMahon and former CEO of the WWE, is seeking the Republican nomination to unseat Chris Dodd. WTF! Bring on the bodyslam/piledriver/whatever jokes.