You need cartoons to read?

Two serious publications have recently fallen to the trend of larger print, more colors, more illustrative drawings -- and less text. As of Christmas, the Economist, arguably the best English-language weekly (strong ideological bias notwithstanding), has joined most other publications in coming ever more to resemble an old-fashioned comic book. The Wall Street Journal, which used to serve its texts straight, now also seems to hold that, if I am to read an article about this year's wines then it must draw me a picture of a person drinking from a wine glass, and so on. At the rate we are going, by the year 2020 every newspaper page (assuming that there still be such a thing) will carry one word, six colors, and at least two cartoons. By the way, thanks Arianna, for keeping the Huffington Post relatively free from such infantilization.