Roy Greenslade at The Guardian recently conducted an interview with Andrew Rashbass, the “chief suit” of The Economist. As the chief executive, Rashbass’ commercial story “turns out to be more of a digital story,” even with their impressive print circulation numbers.

Rashbass draws a distinction between the “lean-back, immersive, ritual pleasure” that comes from reading The Economist in print, to the “lean-forward, interactive” way that people use the website. He was previously in charge of The Economist’s website, and its own research found that readers were eager to build a community and have discussions on the web. Read more

Earlier this week, 10,000 Words’ Jessica Roy brought you the top five explainers for Osama Bin Laden’s death. Today, there a few new projects to add to this historical week in news coverage as the 10-year hunt for the world’s most wanted terrorist comes to a close.

The New York Times’ reaction grid

A brilliantly executed crowd-sourcing project from The New York Times is a reaction grid that lets users click within a quadrant to express how they feel about the significance of Bin Laden’s death. The horizontal axis displays emotional responses (negative and positive) and the vertical axis displays significance (insignificant or significant). Most of the responses, denoted by little black and blue squares, fall into the positive and significant quadrant.

Hovering over the squares also shows you reader comments for people who clicked on that area of the grid. Read more

The tragic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week caused major damage to the nation’s infrastructure and has incited a potential nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. For those of us who are unfamiliar with the science behind nuclear technology or natural disasters, several news organizations have created infographics that can help provide a better understanding of the complicated events in Japan. Here are the best interactive and informative graphics we’ve come across so far.

1. The New York Times
The New York Times has coupled a number of their stories with interactive graphics that integrate illustration with Google Earth satellite images. The site has published several helpful images, including an earthquake damage map and an explainer graphic on the accident at the nuclear plant.

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