Opinion and perspective

There is reported analysis in The Root, but even that often comes with a first-person perspective. But there are many reporters with traditional reporting jobs that write for it.

There are other people, like Jack White, who writes only opinion. White most recently wrote "A Thank You to White Voters."

Clemetson said if Obama had won, and won handily, White was going to have to reconsider his core beliefs about white America.

"This piece takes that on," she said.

When people come to a site like The Root, "they want honest talk about the things they're really feeling," she said. "...One of the things we say is we debate, we don't rant."

Reaching across audiences

Slate.com picks up stories regularly, as does MSN.com, she said. When pieces are picked up on other sites and the audience changes, responses to stories will vary.

People have many different opinions about stories, but Clemetson said she just believes those reponses help to foster dialogue. There haven't been any real instances of true abuse, she said.

"It would be out of sync with the Web to turn the comments off," she said.

Writers and stories

The Root's staff is small and its background is varied. It is an all-freelance publication. It has regular writers who write almost every week.

"That's its own challenge, dealing with all freelance pieces," she said, adding you might know what you want to do, but don't have someone to call up quickly and ask to do something if the story needs to be done right away.

But it's better to do fewer things and do them well and make them interesting than do everything, Clemetson said.

The write stuff

Publications from around the world have asked to reprint "In Our Lifetime" by Henry Louis Gates Jr. It is one of the many serious essays published by The Root that has generated household discussion.

But The Root also has several lighter pieces. "5 Obama Hair Don'ts," by The Root staff, ran the Friday after the election, Clemetson said.

The Root editor plants seeds in the minds of AU grad students

Lynette Clemetson, managing editor of The Root.com, a daily online magazine published by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive that provides commentary and analysis on news through a variety of black perspectives, spoke with American University professor Amy Eisman's Comm 535 class Saturday afternoon about her work and the recent election of Barack Obama.

Clemetson left the New York Times to start The Root at the end of October 2007. The idea for the site was a cool idea, she said, and almost immediately after it launched, it became "an incredible idea."

As a niche publication, she said, she is able to decide what the publication will and will not do. For instance, the magazine does not focus on sports, but on politics and news.

The publication models on the Web lead to entertainment, she said, because "that's what gets clicks. And everything is about clicks."

"But really, it has been good for us," she said, adding readers have asked for more harder news items, like politics and health.