Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

frequently asked questions

When relatives and acquaintances find out where I work, there’s always a lot of questions. A lot of the same questions, actually. There’s the requisite “Do you know Woodward and Bernstein?” and “So who’s Deep Throat?” half-joking interrogations I get almost every time. I got those very questions from family members Monday night — ironically, the day before Deep Throat outed himself. Which, of course, brought on more questions (and, since I was on vacation at the time, made me half-wish I was actually at work while the story was breaking).

Anyway, to clarify what I do for family and friends, the FAQ:

So you work for the Washington Post?

Not exactly. I work for washingtonpost.com, which is actually part of Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive, a separate company from the Washington Post newspaper. We’re based in Arlington, Va., not at the main Post office in D.C. Of course, since we’re the online face of the paper, staffers at post.com and the paper work very closely together throughout the day to get the news out.

Do you know Woodward and Bernstein?

No. (And Bernstein doesn’t even work for the Post anymore.)

In my role, I generally don’t have any contact with anyone over at the paper, except for occasional calls over to designers and editors in the paper’s graphics department.

Do you know who Deep Throat is?

Of course. It’s part of the standard orientation when you come work for the Post, right after they give you your health insurance paperwork and show you where the restroom is. Even the interns have to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Ha. Not a chance.

Current events have rendered that question moot anyway. W. Mark Felt, former number two guy at the FBI, outed himself earlier this week as Woodward’s source, and Woodward, Bernstein and co. confirmed it.

Prior to this week’s revelation, no one knew Deep Throat’s true identity for sure except for those closest to the story — Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee, Downie, Felt, Felt’s family and the folks working on the Vanity Fair story.

So what do you do? Are you a reporter?

I’m a news designer, part of a three-person team that creates icons, graphics and page designs for news-related topics. (We have a separate team that focuses on features, entertainment and classfieds.) While I don’t go out “in the field” and do interviews and write big stories, I believe that creating readable, easily navigable page designs and informative graphics is a form of journalism in itself — visual journalism — aiding in the communication of a story.

Projects I’ve worked on include page and logo design for coverage of the 2005 Inauguration, explainer graphics after the death of the Pope and random icons like this.