Chris Anderson's Presidential Reading Habits

Chris Anderson doesn't read newspapers. In an interview with Der Spiegel (syndicated on Salon), the Wired editor-in-chief and author of Free tells Frank Kornig that if The San Francisco Chronicle went out of business (a very likely proposition in the current climate), "I wouldn't notice. I don't even know what I'd be missing."

Anderson says he gets his information his own trusted sources:

"I read lots of articles from mainstream media but I don't go to mainstream media directly to read it. It comes to me, which is really quite common these days. More and more people are choosing social filters for their news rather than professional filters. We're tuning out television news, we're tuning out newspapers. And we still hear about the important stuff, it's just that it's not like this drumbeat of bad news. It's news that matters. I figure by the time something gets to me it's been vetted by those I trust. So the stupid stuff that doesn't matter is not going to get to me."

If that sounds familiar, it should: In September 2003, Fox News' Brit Hume asked then-President George W. Bush, "How do you get your news?"

Bush offered this: "I get briefed by [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and [then-national security advisor] Condi [Rice] in the morning. They come in and tell me… I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves."

So, was Bush on the vanguard of our aggregated media age? Unlikely. Should Anderson think about running for president? Unlikelier, still: The Berkley-based editor was born in London and even though Michael Lind (also in Salon) made a plea this week to "Birthers" to change Article II of the Constitution and allow immigrant presidents, it seems pretty unlikely.

But if it the change did happen, who would tell Anderson?