Online Media Cultist

The Washington Post is one of my favorite sources for political news, and I often find myself heading over there after checking out ABC News’ The Note in the morning (which has frustratingly been in Mini-Note “under construction” mode for several weeks now).

That said, my eyes nearly popped out this very morning after reading an article entitled Giuliani’s Lead Shrinks, Clinton’s Margin Holds. The reason had nothing to do with the journalistic quality, however, nor anything to do with the current stage of the 2008 presidential horserace.

It was that the first two paragraphs are riddled with links.

11 of them, in fact, in the space of 101 words. That’s a lot of links; in fact, it’s downright linktastical.

If the links went somewhere interesting there could perhaps be concessions made – I’m not an anti-linkite after all – but this is sadly not the case. Each and every one of the 11 links heads for a tag or subject search page. So, as I’m reading “Giuliani’s Lead Shrinks, Clinton’s Margin Holds” and I want to read WaPo and other related stories about such topics as “New York,” “Arizona,” “GOP,” or eight others, I can whisk right over and check it all out.

And don’t get me started about the search result landing page. Check out the New York page. Excitement central, right?

So, in conclusion: a couple of relevant links here and there to add depth and texture and context to the story, great. Linky adventures attached to any word that’s capitalized? Wouldn’t hurt to lay off ‘em every now and again.