David Plotz Named Slate Editor, Jacob Weisberg To Oversee Newly Formed Slate Group

Running a magazine is a journalistic assignment, and part of the fun of being a journalist is that you get to change jobs every so often. Though there's no stated term limit, four or five years should be plenty of time to put your stamp on a publication. When you find that you're no longer making it new every day, it's time for fresh energy and vision.

When that moment came for me, choosing David Plotz as my replacement was an easy decision. David has been here since Slate began, serving as the first writer of our "Assessment" column, lead political writer, and Washington bureau chief. Along the way he has devised some of Slate's most successful experiments in Web journalism, including the brilliant "Seed" series, which became his 2005 book The Genius Factory, and "Blogging the Bible," which he has also turned into a book scheduled for publication next year. For the past five years, I've been lucky enough to have David as my deputy. He's a brilliant journalist who has the respect and affection of everyone at Slate.

In the past year, I've been drawn more and more into projects that expand upon what we've built at Slate.

My new task at the Washington Post Co. is to consolidate and expand this portfolio of Web sites under the heading of the Slate Group.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[larry278]

Is there any chance of SLATE purging the NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY from the list of de facto US newspapers of record covered by "Today's Papers"? The NYT hasn't been a reliable newspaper of record for more than 20 years. The increasingly rare instances of the NYT publishing an article or two every few weeks which meet the standards present day US newspapers of record meet every day do not merit treating the NYT as a newspaper of record. The NYT doesn't reach the std's SC's, THE STATE or other up & coming regional daily papers print 7 days a week. Including articles from the vastly improving regional papers on an as merits basis make more sense than scanning the NYT every day to find a few articles which would merit space in one of the USA's newer newspapers of record. SLATE has the staff & could rely upon stringers to feed Dan'l Politi(sp?) of TP articles of merit rapidly each day. SLATE's editors don't have to supervise Mr Politi closely for he is both a skilled writer & editor who is an expert at the art & craft of abstracting pithy portions of articles worthy of inclusion in TP.
As for USAT, it is still McPaper & addicted to using short words in short sentences & short paragraphs with a very limited vocabulary in articles which are rarely 1/2 the length of articles in WSJ or the UK's FT. Nation wide circulation or not, USAT isn't a