The extraordinary life of Garrett Graff is best told by numbers.

At the age of 24, after seven months writing the media-insider blog FishbowlDC, Graff is to become editor at large at Washingtonian, the capital’s dominant monthly magazine since 1965.

He isn’t intimidated by high-powered positions. He started in Howard Dean’s press office as a ninth-grader — he’s from Vermont — and moved up quickly to become the Vermont governor’s first Web designer.

“He was the last governor in the country to go online at the time,” Graff says with a breezy smile, underscoring the irony of the tech-savvy Dean’s failure to adapt.

Graff can claim a few more impressive numbers. He was the first blogger to access the White House briefing room, after staging a weeklong public campaign inspired by James “Jeff Gannon” Guckert’s controversial stint in the press corps. As executive editor of The Harvard Crimson, he wrote more news stories than any journalist in the history of the storied Ivy League newspaper.

Despite his precocity on paper, in person Graff is laid-back and urbane. The gold buttons on his navy jacket might look establishment, but his vision for the Washingtonian is thoroughly modern.

“I have some ideas,” he says, to help the mainstream media stay relevant. “One of the biggest challenges facing magazines is how to respond to incredibly short online news cycles.” Graff predicts that as more magazines introduce Web-only content to seize breaking news, the competition will produce sharper coverage and higher readership.

And Graff dismisses the hand-wringing of many of his fellow media critics who lament the declining popularity of print.

“I sit on a lot of panels, and in every one they say, ‘Young people don’t read newspapers anymore,’” Graff says. “I don’t think there’s been a generation better informed than our generation. Maybe we don’t subscribe to The Washington Post, but most people I know read the website, in addition to half a dozen other papers and blogs.”

Graff’s forward-thinking mentality convinced Washingtonian editor Jack Limpert to take a chance on the former Senate page who was 16 when he worked for Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.). Graff is also a closet Avril Lavigne fan.

Graff’s first challenge at the magazine has been following in the footsteps of his legendary predecessor, Chuck Conconi, the originator of Washingtonian’s must-read gossip column Capital Comment. Working with a six-week lead time is new to the young reporter, who took minutes to break the story of CNN’s federal lawsuit against government attempts to bar TV cameras from Hurricane Katrina recovery sites.

Still, he is already quick to quash another Washington misconception — that the city lacks a cultural identity.

“They create a culture of work here,” Graff observes. “The energy that twenty-somethings pour into the city comes entirely during their insane work hours, made more insane now by BlackBerrys.” To get through to post-collegiate Hill dwellers, Graff plans to steer the Washingtonian clear of tactics used by other outlets.

“The Washington Post seems to think it has to dumb down its content. I don’t think that’s the case at all,” he says. Speaking of iPods, for instance, “the Post never met an iPod story it didn’t like.”

Graff does find coverage to admire in the crowded Washington news universe, most of them online. He is a faithful reader of DCist, the magazine-blog hybrid created by Washington Examiner editor Mike Grass, a former rival in the cutthroat college press. Wonkette and Marginal Revolution, an accessible but intellectual blog written by local economics professors, are also Graff must-reads.

Graff’s first Capital Comment will appear in the magazine’s October issue, and he will contribute longer articles while lending Washingtonian more of what the first President Bush called the “vision thing.”

Graff has already added more jaw-dropping numbers to his personal story.

“My second day on the job, I had lunch with Chuck at his table at the Palm,” Graff says, recounting the moment that he knew his world had changed. “It was my first time at the Palm. Although probably not my last.”