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Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

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Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#51

"Suddenly everyone..." Hyperbole. I'll believe it when I see it. Even in print, there is only one NewYorker. There are some other mags that are almost comparable, but it's not like there are scores of them to choose from. And how exactly does longform help websites advance their dodgey advertising tactics? It's just my opinion but I honestly think writing on the web was better in the 1990's. These type of websites wo…

I honestly think the web was better in the 1990s, period.

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#53

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. As long as those powerful people aren't your investors, no doubt. http://observer.com/2012/08/conflict-journalism-how-online-m...

The PandoDaily readers have chosen the wrong blog to hitch their hopes to.

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism and creative writing are not the same thing. Journalism of the form found in the New Yorker requires financial investment, in the form of funding travel, and in the form of funding full-time fact checking. Also, if you think that startups are not-immediate-money-driven, I would disagree.

Perhaps the model of full-time fact checking needs to change? I've been a fact checker at a magazine. My job consisted of calling sources up, and asking them each line of identifiable facts - to see if they actually said this, or whether this person's birth date is actually x month, y day, z year. Whether the moon really was waxing on this time of this month like the writer said in the article. Whether Nasa did publi…

So creating a fact checking Stack Exchange, like the one recently created for crowd sourcing prior art for patents.

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#55
post #16

Who'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…

Another one to check out if you're interested in the soft sciences, culture, & history is Lapham's Quarterly .

Any others?

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#56
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one to check out if you're interested in the soft sciences, culture, & history is Lapham's Quarterly .

Any others?

Well, the founder of Lapham's, Lewis Lapham, was previously the editor for Harper's, so that's something else you might want to check out.

However, I feel that Lapham's is unique in that it picks a single topic for an issue, and then goes into great depth on that topic by interleaving primary sources and analysis.

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abou…

I know several people who are amazingly talented writers who've been unable to find paying work. Writing prose is sort-of like software, in that you can get a lot of practice in before you ever get a job, but it's hard to prove that your practice was valuable until you've had a few years of professional experience.

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#58
post #48
post #16

Who'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…

I spent 4 years freelance writing long-form narrative journalism stories for a foreign magazine, and let me tell you that I wouldn't even consider getting out of the house for less than $1500 per story + expenses. And that's for a short one. (Oh, and I find Harper's to be the king of general-interest magazines.)

I have some questions about freelancing as it pertains to writing long-form journalism.

Would it be alright if I sent you them via email? My email is stevenj134@gmail.com. Or if you leave your email I'll contact you. Would really appreciate it.

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#59
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any others?

Well, the founder of Lapham's , Lewis Lapham, was previously the editor for Harper's , so that's something else you might want to check out. However, I feel that Lapham's is unique in that it picks a single topic for an issue, and then goes into great depth on that topic by interleaving primary sources and analysis.

Lapham's Quarterly is unique, and a pleasure to read and hold, but, to be fair, I wouldn't really call it a magazine. But Lewis Lapham has certainly made Harper's into the most interesting, subversive, funny and whimsical high-brow general interest magazine in circulation. The last few issues, though, have taken a slight dip in quality, so I'm following it with some concern.

Like the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and unlike the Atlantic or the NYT Magazine, Harper's prefers on-the-ground reporting over covering "issues" or "trends". But the writing quality in Harper's tends to be much superior to that of both the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Harper's best features are usually non-mainstream, and even intentionally bizarre stories.

A few years ago, Gawker had a great review of Harper's, called "Harper's Doesn't Want To Grow Up": http://gawker.com/5042234/harpers-doesnt-want-to-grow-up

To get a taste of Harper's, take a look at their regular science column, which I find hilarious. Here's the last one: http://harpers.org/archive/2012/10/0084112. I post it to HN every month but it never gets more than a few votes...

Re: Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it?

#60
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one to check out if you're interested in the soft sciences, culture, & history is Lapham's Quarterly .

Any others?

The Baffler and N+1 http://thebaffler.com/ http://nplusonemag.com/
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