And a Child Shall Edit Them

Washingtonian, the glossy magazine devoted to life in the nation's capital has a new editor.

Garrett M. Graff, age 28, is replacing the magazine's longtime editor, Jack Limpert, age 75, according to the Washington Post's Reliable Source column. Limpert, who has been editor of the magazine for 40 years—you know, 12 years longer than his replacement has been alive—will be taking on the title of editor-at-large, which had previously been held by Graff. In 2007, Michiko Kakutani called Graff "astonishingly young" in a review of his book The First Campaign; Graff's own magazine even saw fit to include the then-editor-at-large in its 2007 40 Under Forty: Young Washingtonians to Watch spread, a feature in which he can reasonably be considered a viable presence for the next decade.

Other than pointing out how young the new editor is—if there's a younger top editor of a monthly magazine in this country, no names come immediately to mind—it's worth noting that Graff's hiring is a firm nod to political bloggers, who went from being portrayed by traditional media outlets as quasi-outsiders (remember 2004's New York Times Magazine cover story Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail, which featured Wonkette founding editor Ana Marie Cox bathed in the light of her laptop as Jack Germond and the late R.W. Apple stood over her in avuncular poses?) to consummate insiders. (Note to journalists: Maybe it's time to retire all those "pajama" references when talking about them, huh?)

Graff started out as a blogger for Mediabistro's Fishbowl DC and at age 23, when many of his contemporaries were either working as assistants or "finding themselves" in Europe, he became the first blogger to participate in a daily White House press briefing. According to the New York Times' Katharine Q. Seelye, "Mr. Graff said he was surprised at the help he received from 'real' reporters covering the White House, given what he described as the animosity between some bloggers and the mainstream news media."

In his new role, he'll be editing those 'real' reporters. As a writer, he's certainly shown a fondness for many of them, including the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz ("In an age when just about anyone can be a media critic, one fish is still the biggest in the pond...") and the Times' Thomas L. Friedman ("Sitting in his large corner office at the New York Times bureau in Washington, just a block from the White House, Friedman is an audio version of his own writing—accessible and filled with personality").

For a young man, he makes friends like an old pro, a skill that will serve him well at the top of the masthead.