Frank Rich: Why I link

By Edward J. Delaney

In the web version of his most recent column, The New York Times’ Frank Rich squeezed 32 links among his 1,560 words. The mere presence of links might not seem so notable — except that only one of the Times’ 10 other op-ed columnists had included even a single link in his or her most recent piece.

Not Brooks nor Cohen nor Collins nor Dowd nor Friedman nor Herbert nor Kristof nor Kristol nor Krugman. (The lone exception: Charles M. Blow, whom the Times calls its “visual Op-Ed columnist.”)

Why has Rich embraced linking when his peers have not? “The theory was: Why not be as transparent as possible by showing sources, when we could?” he told me recently.

That’s a philosophy followed by much of the rest of the Internet; it’s the very foundation of blogging. But most newspapers — including their top columnists — haven’t signed on.

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