I'm all for it. Great. It's a smart adaptation to the news cycle acceleration the web has produced.

But nothing is free, and change always brings a new mix of challenges and problems.

Jack mentioned one. Reporters who can't write will have to be kept out of publication, or handled on a different editing track. Some of them have talents we might regret losing if a way to include them isn't found.

Another consequence might be a heightened risk of crap making it into print. Sometimes a single pair of harried eyes is not enough to detect bullshit, and like clockwork, some reporters will always fall prey to the temptation to make stuff up.

I might worry, too, that all of this streamlining and acceleration might exacerbate the already troubling tendency of the news media to flock like starlings after a worm. You know how that works. Let one bird spot a worm, and the sky is immediately darkened with fluttering wings and ear-splitting shrieks, and soon your lawn is covered with fresh fertilizer.

By this time next week, the birds have forgotten all about that worm and are mobbing someone else's lawn. It works for birds, but I'm not so sure it's the best model for news reporting.

Still, if any newspaper can make this work, it's the Post. They've got great writers, they've got the best on-line division of any newspaper in the world, and their editors - at least those on-line - know how to use a light touch.