Times culture has never produced an excess of radical thinking. With the upheavals of the digital age, though, restraint has become a luxury the paper can no longer afford. “The ways to have impact are to produce exclusive news, write memorable stories, and evince a sense of daring and fun,” says Sexton. “And if that formula fails, then we’re all in fucking trouble.” ... (more...)

There was a time in my life when I had occasion to spend hours every day with Edward I. Koch. He was a first-term mayor. I was City Hall bureau chief of the city's largest newspaper. There were days when he spent so much time talking to me -- and to my journalistic colleagues in the famous Room Nine -- that I wondered where he found the time to be mayor. Then I came to understand that for Edward I. Koch (there were those who put the emphasis on the "I"), talking to me was being mayor.

Front page appears courtesy of the Newseum.

Once everyone was on Twitter, everyone's problems were on Twitter. The early adopters might have been tech-utopians, but the succeeding waves were angry cynics and partisan cranks who used the technology to make the world even louder and worse than it was before Twitter.

Compounding the problem is that — unlike everyone else — if you work in journalism, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Being on Twitter is now part of the job, meaning that you can't not be on Twitter. What was once an inspiring place that gave you a competitive advantage became a prison. (more...)