This is the most WTF article I've seen in awhile. A shortage of writers? Really?
Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
11–20 of 76 posts
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#12Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style software. Who is going to develop it?
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#13All I really want from journalists is the information that most of us are too lazy or busy to collect. I want them to make phone calls, speak to insiders, cross reference public statements with available records, generally make a nuisance of themselves until they have some new insights to bring to light. Most times though it seems they're barely doing any more research than what went into a well received HN comment.…
And it doesn't even have to be about really significant stuff. For example our local paper had a story recently about a new website for one of the city services. No mention of:
a) What it cost.
b) Why it was 12 months late (based on deadline in original RFP).
c) Why key requirements specified in the original RFP were not implemented.
I mean if I wanted to just read the city's one-sided press release, I would do that.
And the paper wonders why nobody subscribes to the print version anymore.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#14 In our recent reader survey almost every
respondent answered why they read PandoDaily
with a variation of the following: Long form
content that isn’t afraid to call out powerful people.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#15The question isn't really who is going to write it. It's who is going to pay for it?
Yeah, 4 cents/word (what Tumblr is paying) is a joke. Claiming there's a shortage of writers is ridiculous. There's lot of good writers out there.
Now that I've actually finished the article (heh), I think it's asking a very good question.
What she's really saying is:
1) Readers want good long-form articles 2) Some sites are even willing to pay for it 3) But, there are no longer up-and-comers being trained to produce such work, there are only the writers who already have the experience.
What she's saying is not all that different from the complaint you see about hiring developers- Everyone wants someone with 5 years experience, but there's a lack of opportunities for people to get that 5 years experience.
I think that's an exaggerated complaint in the software industry, but maybe not as much in the journalism biz.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#16Who's going to write it? How about the writers for The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, The Economist, The Paris Review, etc. I could fill up the length of a long-form article with names of publications that have long-form writing.
The real question is, who's going to pay for it? This is like when someone complains that there aren't any good programmers out there, and, P.S., they're paying $25k a year. The article talks about 2000-3000 word articles. At the rate Tumblr's paying, that's $80-$120 per article. Who are they kidding? At those rates, if you're an established writer, you're better off posting to a personal blog and relying on ad revenue.
There have been a few magazines (both online and print) that have recently managed to establish themselves as reputable publications that have good writing. What they've done is pay above-market rates to attract good writers. After all, why would you publish in some no name publication instead of The Atlantic? Tumblr seems to be using the opposite strategy.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#17All I really want from journalists is the information that most of us are too lazy or busy to collect. I want them to make phone calls, speak to insiders, cross reference public statements with available records, generally make a nuisance of themselves until they have some new insights to bring to light. Most times though it seems they're barely doing any more research than what went into a well received HN comment.…
And it doesn't even have to be about really significant stuff. For example our local paper had a story recently about a new website for one of the city services. No mention of: a) What it cost. b) Why it was 12 months late (based on deadline in original RFP). c) Why key requirements specified in the original RFP were not implemented. I mean if I wanted to just read the city's one-sided press release, I would do that.…
More newsworthy would be if it actually came in as promsed, on time and under budget. Only the Onion seems interested in breaking real news like that, however.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#18Who's going to write it? How about the writers for The Atlantic , The Nation , The New Republic , The Wilson Quarterly , The Economist , The Paris Review , etc. I could fill up the length of a long-form article with names of publications that have long-form writing. The real question is, who's going to pay for it? This is like when someone complains that there aren't any good programmers out there, and, P.S., they're…
Agreed. You could easily find writers for 3000 words articles if you were willing to pay enough to be worth the writer's time that is spent on researching and writing the article.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#19All I really want from journalists is the information that most of us are too lazy or busy to collect. I want them to make phone calls, speak to insiders, cross reference public statements with available records, generally make a nuisance of themselves until they have some new insights to bring to light. Most times though it seems they're barely doing any more research than what went into a well received HN comment.…
I'd go a bit further than that - I think the most important work for professional journalists involves doing things most of us are too scared to do.
Would you get out your camera and start taking photos after My Lai? Be willing to wear being on Nixon's enemies list as a badge of honor? Uncover police corruption? Be shot while working foreign correspondence? Go undercover in the Ku Klux Klan? Publish information about a corporation after they've given you a cease and desist?
Maybe you would. And I'd like to think I would too sitting here in the comfort of my office feeling principled, but I'm not sure that means much.
Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?
#20The Internet is still a leveling bitch on dysfunctional industries. This is hardly a free-for-all; readers will only read long form content, if it’s excellent. I think the major change with the advent the internet is that since one can publish so easily, one cannot count on the presence of an editor to help with things like eliminating stray commas which alter the meaning of one's sentences.
Yeah it's a stray comma but it doesn't alter the meaning of the sentence at all. What am I missing?