As I wrote in the magazine, “Today, as Washington has become known not just for its diplomatic and federal power but also for its technological, financial, and cultural clout, there are dozens of new power venues. While power breakfasts in DC are generally focused around three hotels—the Four Seasons, the Hay-Adams, and the Mayflower—lunch can mean anything from gumbo at DC Coast to veal ravioli at Teatro Goldoni to a steak at the Capital Grille to a sandwich in downtown Bethesda.”

Huffington Post, reacting to the CNN piece today, focused on the transactional nature of many of these lunch spots—they’re close by the Hill often and thus places where lawmakers can raise money easily. That’s certainly a not insignificant part of their appeal. “You’re going to be seen, you’re going to see who else is there, and to sort of hobnob and be part of the club,” I told CNN. “The private rooms, the private dining is an important thing if you’re holding a fundraiser or you’re trying to bring together a group to try to have a private conversation.”

While my lunch favorites rotate through the year, I often end up at the Palm and West End Bistro, both of which are just a few blocks from the office.

Print:

• CBS’s Public Eye (January 20, 2006)
• Washington Post’s The Reliable Source (November 28, 2005)
• The Hill (September 9, 2005)
• Washington Post’s Names & Faces (August 17, 2005)
• New York Times (March 7, 2005)
• Washingtonian (March 2005)

Television:

• CNN’s On The Story (October 22, 2005)

Radio:

• NPR’s On the Media (March 11, 2005)
• KCRW’s To The Point (March 9, 2005)
• WBUR’s On Point (March 7, 2005)

“’The best newspapers are going to end up looking like the best blogs, and the best blogs are going to end up looking a lot like the best newspapers,’ predicted a 20-something new-media prodigy named Garrett Graff five years ago. Now, ‘that’s virtually happened,’ Mr. Graff says. In 2005, he made news as the first blogger ever to be issued credentials as part of the White House press corps. This month, he takes over as editor in chief of long-established Washingtonian magazine, with 400,000 monthly readers of print and 400,000 more online.”

Probably the most interesting thing to watch is how the traditional media is giving way so quietly. There’s certainly a lot of attention about the failing of the print media empires, yet the rise of the first online media empires aren’t nearly as well covered. As I told the CSM reporter,  “It’s a really fascinating evolution that I think has happened much more quickly and with less hurrah than most people expected it to.”

For their segment “Unplugged Under 40,” CBSNews came by my office last week and spent some time talking with me about the magazine and my new job. If you watch the interview, you can see lots of my office and the strange things on my walls—plus get a nice fisheye lens-view of my nose:

There was a fair amount of pretty amusing media coverage of the announcement, most of focusing on the handover of the magazine from a 75-year-old longtime magazine legend to a 28-year-old new media newbie. Here are some of the choice excerpts:

The Washington Post called me a “hotshot” in their write-up; Portfolio headlined “And a Child Shall Edit Them,” noting that Jack’s been editor “12 years longer than his replacement has been alive”; and the Washington Examiner noted that I was “a 28-year-old former blogger who has been with the magazine for one-tenth of Limpert’s tenure.”

Gawker’s post made me laugh: “Young Garrett Graff, who started at Fishbowl DC at the age of like 15 (ROUGH ESTIMATE) and then got a job at Washingtonian, is now the new editor of Washingtonian. He is an up and coming whippersnapper if we have ever seen one. Don’t end up a cabinet member recommending foreign wars based on vague Georgetown cocktail party gossip ten years from now, Garrett. That’s how they get you.”

Perhaps my favorite commentary on the incident was the mean-spirited back-and-forth on the Washington Post’s story, including this one: “Ben Bradlee he ain’t.”

Anyway, I’m quite excited. As I told my hometown newspaper, The Times Argus, for their story: “Becoming editor, I’m not sure there is a better job in Washington, except for maybe President of the United States.”

The subject of new media seems particularly of interest to foreign political groups visiting the U.S.; I’ve spoken recently to groups from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, and a whole host of Latin American countries.

Here are some of the articles that I’ve been quoted in recently:

Miami Herald:

Garrett Graff, author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, believes young voters — especially the first-timers — are savvier and more committed than they’re getting credit for.

Graff pointed to the Iowa caucuses: “Four times as many under-30 voters participated in the Iowa caucuses this year as in 2004. In Missouri we saw three times as many, and in Tennessee three times as many.”

Graff believes that outreach to younger voters using technology familiar to that age group — text messaging and social websites such as Facebook — will keep them engaged through Election Day.

I was also a guest on The Guardian’s weekly tech podcast: “Garrett Graff of the Washingtonian told me more than a month ago that if Barack Obama won the election it would be because of his innovative use of the mobile phones. Mobile phones were part of an overall digital strategy that turned millions of supporters into an army of volunteers and donors. Even before the general election, Obama’s internet strategy had already proven decisive, Garrett said. He had already defeated the most powerful machine in the Democratic Party: The Clintons.”

The Boston Phoenix: “McCain is actually no Luddite…. But you wouldnít know that from the way the McCain campaign has seemed to distance itself from technology. Though the Republican candidateís Web site does have the nowadays-requisite Flash videos and a blog thatís updated a few times a day, ‘the McCain campaign seems like itís going out of its way to avoid using modern technology,’ says Garrett M. Graff, author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House. ‘There is no documented proof that the McCain campaign has sent out a text message. I have never heard of it [a McCain text message], and I know of no one who has.’”

Now, just for the record, the McCain campaign did, after this article came out, send a single text message to voters the day before the election. One text message. Once.

Continuing my unofficial international speaking tour, I’m off to Duke next weekend for a panel and then on to the University of Missouri, Westminster College, and then, of all places, Spain to speak at the 2008 NewsXchange conference.

I’m happy today that it was caught on video. On the other hand, if Hillary had won, I probably wouldn’t be bragging about my crystal ball powers.

Here’s the chart that accompanied the article:

My debut op-ed in the New York Times today deals with the Obama campaign’s innovative use of text messaging for offline organizing:

“Sometime between now and the convention, Barack Obama, just like the cool kid in study hall, will surreptitiously send a text message announcing his pick for vice president. The ploy may seem silly— the fad candidate adopts the latest tech fad—but it’s an important part of one of Mr. Obama’s most under-recognized campaign efforts.”

Read the whole thing here. I have to say: It’s pretty cool to be published on the same page as Thomas L. Friedman.

My favorite is still the Chuck Norris facts ad: