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>> There's nothing in traditional media that works that way.

And that is exactly the point - it feels like we are finally waking up to what the web can really do that traditional media cannot. I'm sure in a few years having the content reflow will be something users expect of every website (not that it is something people do all the time - see the comment that guywithabike made).

That's just it - for me, it seems like they achieved responsive design without being broken and annoying.

But some of it is subjective, and I only saw the new design today. It might not hold up so well to heavy use.

Just curious: how do you resize "traditional media"?

Well, you can fold a newspaper up so you're reading one part of it at a time, for example.

Why would you resize your browser while reading a page?

To answer your question: to make the page more readable, if resizing changes column width.

But your question is the wrong question. The reason to have a fluid layout is to have a single version of the page that looks good on screens of all sizes, computers, tablets, and phones.