Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being.

If we were picking a journalism all-star team, it would certainly be a different lineup. Or a bigger lineup. In some sense, a poor newspaper in a great market represents a greater opportunity, because we know how to improve a newspaper.

It's a brave new world.

The great advantage of tackling a novel is that you don't have to bother with such annoying procedures as checking your facts.

Bush used a version of the same technique: 'I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought.' Somebody? So-and-so? Who could he be referring to?

Newspapers are trying to use their own Web sites to provide 24-hour coverage, even though the old dinosaur, ink-on-paper version only comes out once a day.