I got in journalism for any number of reasons, not least because it's so much fun. Journalism should be in the business of putting pressure on power, finding out the truth, of shining a light on injustice, of, when appropriate, being amusing and entertaining - it's a complicated and varied beast, journalism.

There's nothing wrong with creating jobs. What's wrong is to seed the illusion that you will magically bring back the economy of 1970, that you will reopen coal mines.

There are days when you might enjoy being an editor a little less, due to one crisis or another. It is absolutely vital, to me, in a period of technological evolution and sometimes financial stress that I and my colleagues not only put out a fantastic magazine and Web site and all the rest, but also that we are smart enough about what we are doing.

Maybe Santa Claus is real. Here's the problem: reality.

The future is itself a story, and predictions are stories we tell to amaze ourselves, to give hope to the desperate, to jolt the complacent.

Every good journalist is aware that his trade may one day go the way of phrenology-and, what's more, the population will hardly protest the extinction.

Disaster can take a nation by surprise, slowly, and then all at once.