I used to be a fan of Slate. Not so much anymore. It’s gotten to the point where I can have a stupid conversation with a friend and end up thinking that, with the right headline, the conversation could become a 3,000-word Slate tirade. "How Patchouli Came to be the Scent of a Subculture," for example, or, say, "The Death of the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ Joke." So instead of getting my regular dose of savvy and sophisticated news from Slate like I used to, I now turn my browser to The Morning News; the writing is better and the schtick is less easy to mock…or even pinpoint. One of Time magazine’s "50 Coolest Websites in 2006," The Morning News has one of the more modest names out there; in other words, it’s hardly just news. Paste magazine describes it as "a symbiotic mix between The New Yorker’s crackling insight and NPR’s ‘This American Life.’" I think that sounds about right.
To satisfy the news hounds, the site links to all the headlines you need to get through an average day culled from The New York Times to National Geographic. But then, to satisfy newshounds with a weakness for perhaps less urgent forms of distraction (I count myself as among this subset), the site includes humor writing, personal essays, book reviews, profiles, opinion pieces and photography. On a recent day, for example, the site posted such useful articles as "Three Simple Ways to Abandon Your Family" and "How to Cook Thanksgiving Dinner"; it’s in these pieces that you’ll find top-notch writing by regular contributors to the site as well as its staff members. Just to name drop for a second, these folks include Gawker Media godfather Choire Sicha, authors Anthony Doerr and Paul Ford and blogger Margaret Mason.
But whether it’s news or not doesn’t matter. Each morning when I read this thing, I feel smarter than I did the night before.