Interesting news in the journo world today—Spencer Ackerman, the prolific national security reporter and blogger for The Washington Independent, is moving on to join Wired’s Danger Room blog. Here’s the post announcing the move from Aaron Wiener, the Independent’s managing editor, and here’s Ackerman’s tweet.
It’s a move that makes sense in a lot of ways. Ackerman has expressed his professional admiration for Danger Room and its editor Noah Shachtman before, and there’s a lot of overlap between what they do—basically, smart reporting and commentary on national security issues for an interested-but-not-necessarily-specialist audience. Meanwhile, with Ackerman’s departure coming on the heels of Dave Weigel’s move to The Washington Post, the Independent looks like it may be becoming a sort of digital age Washington Monthly—helping to incubate the rising generation of journalists before they move on to publications that offer bigger audiences (and, presumably, better pay).
One of the characteristics of many digital-age journalists, of course, is a willingness to think out loud about their work, and Ackerman’s no exception. That occasionally leads to logorrhea on his personal blog, but it also makes him a good interview, as CJR learned last August. Part One of that interview focused on his thoughts about the media, including his favorite feature at Danger Room. Part Two focused on counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and other national security topics. We hope you enjoy if you haven’t yet read them, and congratulations to Ackerman.
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.