From the Editor Around the Web

Need a reason to become a member of The Faster Times? Here are nine:

9.  We’ve invented a new form of interactive journalism. First readers vote on a topic they want us to investigate, and then our reporter works together with readers to uncover important stories.  Read about it in the Columbia Journalism Review.

8.  Smart essays about Justin Bieber

7. Members of The Faster Times receive the sort of  great gifts you might expect, including New Yorker magazine subscriptions and Faster Times tote bags. But that’s just the beginning. In addition, we’re offering a wide assortment of bonus gifts – including answers to great philosophical questions and personalized erotic fiction. (Note: This is not a joke.)

6. You get to choose a favorite writer during the sign-up process, and that writer will receive 70 percent of the earnings — meaning your membership is a vote for the content you enjoy most. The more money a writer makes from this program, the more he or she will be able to write for The Faster Times.

5.  We’re a collective of journalists. There are no millionaires behind The Faster Times calling the shots. What you see is what you get: a group of smart and funny…

The print newspaper is in trouble. A lot of journalists joke about it. We don’t think it’s funny. Most of the writers and editors at The Faster Times have written for a print newspaper. They were our livelihoods, but they were also much more than our livelihoods. They were a way of pushing back the chaos of the modern world. Things happened, and the next day you could read about those things in your morning paper. The orderliness might have been an illusion, but it was a comforting illusion.

Time is always fast, but some times are faster than others. For American journalism, these are faster times.

A few years ago, a daily accounting of the news still felt sufficient. Now, by the time our newspapers arrive on our doorsteps, we already know what they will say. This, of course, is not news. Everyone recognizes that the medium of the daily newspaper is too slow for our faster world. But the slowness itself is not the fundamental crisis facing American journalism. If speed is the solution, then the problem has already been solved. We have all of the blog posts and tweets we will ever need right now.

The crisis of American journalism is, instead, a financial crisis. Opinions…