Now that it’s public, I want to publicly congratulate my friend Ezra Klein on his imminent move to the Washington Post. Ezra’s been a great blogger and a great writer for years. What’s been impressive during the last year, especially, is watching him step up his reporting game. I am barely conversant in the issues he covers in depth so well — health care, the federal budget — and so he’s become an invaluable resource to an inexpert reader like myself who wants to understand the moving parts of these things. Principled, rigorous, fair and energetic: if you know Ezra, you know that’s who he is and who he can’t help but be.

This is a great move by the Post, and a risk. Ezra is among the cream of the crop of the new phase of journalism — a mixture of reporting, analysis, opinion, and expertise, told in modular sequence and with granular detail. It’s great that the Post is embracing it. On one reading of it, they’re asking their readers to expand their definition of what to expect from Post journalism. On another, they’re catching up with the way readers already are getting their news, and expect their news to be delivered, as organizations like TPM, FDL and the Washington Independent are demonstrating to different degrees. I’m not totally sure which reading is correct — probably both are, to different elements of Post readership –  but whatever, the outcome is watching Ezra innovate for years to come in an MSM format. The gates are crashed, and it’s important to have people like Ezra demonstrating that what comes next is viable, valuable journalism. 

And if the Post wants to make some more hires, may I recommend a certain fearless, rigorous, tireless progressive legal expert and investigator? (Not to drive anyone away from FDL.)