‘Newtown forced us to ask ourselves some questions and tighten up our practices,’ Ian Fisher, the assistant managing editor in charge of the newsroom’s digital report, told me. Mr. Fisher said there would be more reluctance to attribute an important fact to other media organizations, as The Times did when it identified Ryan Lanza as the gunman instead of his brother.

In addition, he said, breaking stories may include ‘cautionary language’ that clearly tells the reader that some facts aren’t yet known. In addition, a more streamlined editing process should reduce the internal confusion that resulted in what Mr. Fisher called ‘some self-inflicted wounds.’ In short, he said, ‘We took it very seriously.’

When I first got here and was watching the page one meeting, I’d watch them decide what were going to be the six most important stories in the western world for the following day’s paper. Meanwhile the web’s above their heads, where all stories are becoming interchangeable. I thought, ‘Oh, this is so silly to blow a whistle and say, “Stop! These are the stories worth your attention.’”

But now that I’m bathed in information every single day and stuff is wooshing by me, I kind of love the full-stop arrangement of stories on The New York Times. A lot of times I wake up and think about the day that’s just passed and wonder, ‘What was that? What happened?’ A lot of stuff, and I can’t really tell which part of it was important.