The Washington Post is launching a new Web section linking readers to the best of political coverage — even scoops by rival newspapers.

The notion behind the Political Browser, expected to start Monday, is to brief political junkies on the top “must reads” of the day, from an scoop on a scandal to a humorous video making the rounds on Google Inc.’s YouTube.

Encouraging readers to leave one’s own Web site to find more composition was unthinkable not towering ago. But traditional news organizations including the Post have started breaking down their “walled garden” mentality in the past few years.

The shift is partly a response to the growing influence of bloggers, who link to items they find interesting regardless of the source.

News organizations that continue to resist could find themselves irrelevant in the digital age — an unnerving prospect when news companies need the Net to offset declines in print advertising and circulation.

“Our relationship with readers is changing,” said Jim Brady, the site’s executive

editor. “We’re not just about providing readers with terrific journalism from The Washington Post but access to great journalism, period.”

Readers may not trust the paper and come back whether they sense Post editors try to play down scoops by competitors, Brady said. Knowing readers tend to check multiple sources anyway, he said, the Post hopes at least to be the front door to political coverage online and inspire more citizens to visit its ad-supported site.

The Post, a unit of The Washington Post Co., already lets some columnists link to other sources in blog-like fashion, but Brady said that would be the Post’s first whole section to offer such urls. The Political Browser will be separate from the Post’s existing political section, which features coverage by the Post’s own reporters.

The Post’s new section won’t be the only outlet aggregating…

Original post by Mike

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