The Post's Internet-era Approach to the Investigative Series

Kevin Maney writes, briefly: With its stories on the disappearance of one-time Congressional squeeze Chandra Levy, The Washington Post is taking an interesting, fresh approach to the grand and dying journalistic tradition of the investigative series.

For decades, a newspaper industry's pride and joy -- some might say it's favorite vanity project -- was the multipart series. They conferred gravitas. They won prizes. They made the reporter a momentary star in the newsroom. And nine out of ten times, they put the newspaper's reader to sleep. A typical series might be spread over three or four days, and each day the story would eat up vast newsprint acreage. Maybe at one point in time these things were a good idea, helping a newspaper win readers and advertisers. But I'm pretty sure that hasn't been true since the Internet took root as a news medium more than a decade ago.

The Post's Chandra series takes a different tack. In the print newspaper, the series is running over an unheard-of 12 days, and breaking each story into small chapters. (Today is Day 2.) This is abetted by the Post's Web site, which of course will publish every chapter plus ancillary stuff. The approach is more in tune with a kind of Webisodic, YouTube version of the world, and I think the Post might be onto something.

I'd have one suggestion: Give both print and Web readers an easy way to get an e-mailed version of the story each morning. I think it would help give busy people a way to stick with the story -- and it would bring The Post valuable e-mail addresses of interested readers.