The rock star of this new kind of journalism is Ezra Klein, the leading founder of Vox, who has the gall to have been born in 1984. Klein believes, with some justice, that the current method of reporting the news is highly inefficient. If called upon to report on a rumor that the earth may be flat after all, a traditional newspaper would send a reporter out to interview a few scientists in order to quote their takes on the subject. The result would inevitably depend on whom the reporter talks to. On subjects other than Donald Trump, there will be a premium on “balance” and “objectivity”: making sure that the flat-earthers have their fair share of the quotes. By contrast, an Ezra, as we will call it (because that’s my middle name), will look for data. If the data point to the conclusion that the earth really is round, then that is what an Ezra will report. You won’t find any coffee grounds swirling at the bottom of the cup.

An Ezra also will shuffle the deck and summarize ruthlessly. This seems to be an inherent tendency of the Web: the search for ways to put the news, and analysis of the news, in some kind of new order—something more satisfying than the random cacophony and confusion you must plow through today if you want to pass yourself off as well informed. But there are so many Web sites summarizing and shuffling that in fact you feel you are falling ever farther behind. This process of summarizing and shuffling is called “aggregation.”

I believe it was Tina Brown—or was it Arianna?—who coined a fancier term for aggregation. (“Of course it was me, darling,” says Arianna. “I’m just much too modest to say so.”) The fancier term is “curation.” In this context, curation means applying your superior intelligence to the mountain of data out there and putting together a summary that no reader could be expected to assemble on his or her own. One imagines an editor wandering through room after room, as in a museum, planning a new exhibition called “Today’s News”—choosing a small war here, a mass shooting there, rejecting yet another meat-loaf recipe using popcorn and balsamic vinegar for the weekend magazine, and so on.

Some folks have yet another word for aggregation and related activities on the Web. They call it “plagiarism.”