The Fine Print is an email newsletter reporting on the New York City media community, published by Gabriel Snyder and reported by Andrew Fedorov. If you know something we should know, reach out to us at tips@thefineprintnyc.com.
Why Subscribe? There is plenty of discussion about the media these days, but most of the outlets that employed full-time media reporters have either cut back or transformed the beat into an outpost in the political culture wars. There’s now a lot that happens inside New York newsrooms and board rooms that doesn’t get much, if any, reporting beyond a press release and a tweetstorm. While that’s bad for media gossip fiends, it’s also bad for the community of people who work in New York media. It’s time to bolster the bonds between people who actually care about what gets published each day and, of course, the politics and machinations behind the scenes that went into it. Already subscribed? Login hereFreelancer or Underpaid Media Worker? Request a discount
Recent Stories
Ellies on Parade
Basking in the glory: Jake Silverstein, Jay Kirk, Amanda Kludt, Clara Jeffery, Sid Holt, David Haskell, Mitchell S. Jackson, Willa Bennett, Nicholas Carlson, Susan Chira, Jeffrey Goldberg, Meghan O’Rourke, Sophie Schmidt, Nicholas Thompson, Anna Wintour, David Remnick (who may want to rewatch On the Waterfront) and many, many more…
Loss & Ground
Marking new territory this week: Sam Sussman, Charlie Tyson, Nicholas Thompson, Charles Duhigg, Kate Myers, Joanna Coles, Frank McCourt (no, the other one), Vinson Cunningham, Rachel Tashjian, Willy Staley, Jia Tolentino, Jennifer Wilson, Miriam Gordis, and many, many more…
Families, Fiefdoms, and Feuds
In this installment of our series on media nepotism, we examine the children of the media beat (Wolffs, Aulettas, Carrs), multigenerational sagas (Hedermans, Cockburns, Roiphes, Marantz Henigs), family enterprises (Carters, Wenners, McCormacks), old intellectual dynasties (Podhoretzes, Kristols, Buckleys), and throw in one totally gratuitous mention of Olivia Wilde
Anthony Haden-Guest: When Magazines Were Young and Radical
A fixture of London and New York society for decades, the writer and late-blooming cartoonist reflects on his arrival into our strange new meme-driven visual media moment
A Master List of This Year’s Media Massacre Victims (Updated)
With a tsunami of job losses continuing to swamp the media industry, we’ve added more names to the list of those affected, including The Intercept, NowThis, Law360, Engadget, WAMU, and Vice, as well as cuts made late last year at Popular Science, Vox, The New Yorker, Wired, and The Washington Post
Swords & Aerostats
Holding their own this week: Dean Kissick, Roberta Smith, Alissa Wilkinson, Alex Brinkman-Young, Joe Bernstein, Madeleine Schwartz, Christopher Shay, Evan Hill, Matthew Zeitlin, Sam Frank, Lucy Sante, Sara Rafsky, Estelle Tang, Hira Ahmed, Maryam Adamu, Naib Mian, Zainab Shah, and many, many more…
Actors & Artists
On display this week: Erin Somers, Sarah Weinman, Colin Dickey, Kendall Storey, Gabriella Paiella, Sarah Leonard, Tara Isabella Burton, Peter Kingsley, James Marsden (not the actor), Jordan Castro, Nate Freeman, Mark Jacobson, Steve Earle, Steven Levy, Rachel Handler, Marc Tracy, Melissa Flashman and many, many more…
Midcentury Modern Media Nepotism
The rise of America into the great aberration of the 20th century transformed the media landscape. In this installment, we look at the families spawned by Time Inc. (Luces, Whites, Agees, and Fadimans), those who were part of the Bay Area counter-culture (Maria Streshinsky), the children of the Watergate generation (Tali Woodward, Jacob Bernstein, Ben Bradlee Jr.), a media power couple (Susan Glasser, Peter Baker, Theo Baker), and veterans of the new left (Marc Cooper, Natasha Vargas-Cooper)
Permanence & Ephemera
Carousing through the city: Talia Baiocchi, Amanda Kludt, Stephanie Wu, Brian and Jamie Stelter, Carolyn Ryan, Carl and Christine Bernstein, James B. Stewart, Jeffrey Toobin, Elena Kostyuchenko, Bela Shayevich, Matthew Shen Goodman and many, many more…
When Tina Met Harvey
The Fine Print’s first-ever podcast revisits Talk, the last great magazine launch of the 20th century, born of the unlikely pairing of star editor Tina Brown and blustering film mogul Harvey Weinstein
Podcast Transcript: The Rise and Fall of Tina Brown’s Talk
We dissect the premiere issue of Talk magazine, Tina Brown’s ill-fated collaboration with Harvey Weinstein, featuring a young Tucker Carlson profiling George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton talking about Monica Lewinsky, some very uncomfortable-looking Gwyneth Paltrow photos, and so much more. Lux editor-in-chief Sarah Leonard joins as our inaugural editor-critic and the magazine’s former staff, including Tina Brown and Rebecca Traister, recount the story of the issue’s creation.
The Sound and Fury of Media Softball
Congratulations to repeat champions Chartbeat, who doused the comeback hopes of former champs, The Wall Street Journal
Smiles and Teeth
Reveling through the fall: Christine Smallwood, Keith Gessen, Emily Gould, Jen Percy, Andrea Long Chu, Meredith Simonoff, Eric Simonoff, Kevin Lozano, Jianying Zha, Alec Ash, Howard French, Miranda July, David Byrne, Elif Batuman, Tavi Gevinson, Nicholas Thompson, Katie Drummond, Bill Wasik, Ben Mullin, Katia Bachko, Mark Allen and many, many more…
Fran Lebowitz’s Life in Print
How a consummate New York personality has been defined by the magazines — large, little, old, and short-lived — that have always surrounded her
Carbon Hustles, Byronic Travelogues, and Vampire Poetry
Get autumnal with works by Heidi Blake, Slightly Foxed, and Willem Dafoe
Con Men, Set Design, Extreme Novelty, and Marxist Poetry
This week, curl up with works by Sean Williams, Noah Gallagher Shannon, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Abbey Lustgarten, and Kim Hendrickson
The Way We Print Now
Matt Mazar oversees one of the two offset press shifts at the Quad printing facility in Hartford, Wisconsin
Present and Past
Frenzying their way into fall: Lindsay Peoples, Max Tani, Charlotte Klein, Mark Stenberg, Angelina Chapin, Carl Swanson, David Haskell, Sonali Basak, Gay Talese, Michael Lewis, Rachel Kushner, Ethan Hawke, Christopher Beha, and many more…
Weird Reptile Editing, Tradwives, Glutted Snakes, and Slow Comedy
Sun yourself dry with works by Zach Baron, Gaby Del Valle, Maggie Freeman, and Joe Pera
Critical Distance, Pulp Fiction, Blatant Nonsense, and Fun at Parties
For this season of atonement, works by Vinson Cunningham, Joe Kloc, Devendra Banhart, and Andrew Norman Wilson
Praxis, Rutters, Dead Hedgehogs, and the Third Dimension
Enjoy the city’s best weather of the year with works by Ali Breland, Dan Xin Huang, Philip Larkin, and Film Forum
Dungeons & Dragons, Gisele Fetterman, Kyrgyzstan, and Fashion Week
We go back to school with works by Keri Blakinger, Anna Peele, EurasiaChat, and Rachel Comey
Gitmo, Class Privilege, Studs Terkel, and Tom Verlaine
There’s still time for some summer reading, with works by Elise Swain, Jesse Barron, Ben Welsh, and Dave Morse
Books, Orals, Sunken Rivulets, Garbled Architect Speak, and Missing Magazines
For your lumbering late-summer consideration, works by Dan Piepenbring, Anna Silman, Adlan Jackson, About Buildings + Cities, and the Brooklyn Public Library
An Elegy for Goings On About Town
The New Yorker’s decision to cut its venerable listings section from six pages to two “for budgetary reasons” eliminated a steady income for freelance critics and is part of the wider disappearance of once-thriving coverage of the city’s cultural life
True Crime, Family Ties, Poison, French Style, and Lost Donkeys
For your languid mid-August perusal, works by Rachel Monroe, Lucy Sexton and Joe Sexton, Elena Kostyuchenko, Nymphet Alumni, and Everett Ruess
You Can’t Make This Up
A publicist’s email snafu reveals the lax editorial standards — allowing sources to review copy before publication and writers to concoct fictional scenarios — at the Forbes contributor network and riles music journalists
The When and Now
Bobbing and weaving this week: Felix Salmon, Laurel Touby, Jon Fine, Jared Hohlt, Brian Stelter, Jesse Angelo, Megan McCarthy, Matt Levine, Jacob Weisberg, Drew Millard, Zach Sokol, Amy Rose Spiegel, Jeremy Gordon, Ben Widdicombe, Colleen Curtis, Lachlan Cartwright, Zackary Drucker, Mark Krotov, Lisa Borst, Sophia Stewart, and many more…
Trundling On
Contending and attending this week: Clea Conner, Nick Gillespie, Rob Long, Molly Jong-Fast, Reihan Salam, Mark Jacobson, David Hershkovits, Robbie Myers, Bill Tonelli, Gary Indiana, Tobi Haslett, Andrew Marzoni, Audrey Wollen, Dean Kissick, Rachel Tashjian, Matthew Linde, and many more…
It Takes a Village to Raise a Nepo Baby
Magazines may come and go, but their legacies of nepotism span generations. In this installment, we look at the families who have populated The New Yorker (the Fleischmanns, Whites, Lardners) and the children of other publications who became contributors (Anthony Bourdain, Evan Osnos, Antonia Hitchens), the children of The Paris Review (Sarah Koenig, Taylor Plimpton), and book world babies (Sam Sifton, David Grann, Molly Jong-Fast)
Ellies and Hors d’Oeuvres
Saluting the victors this week: Sid Holt, John ‘Rick’ MacArthur, Christopher Beha, Clara Jeffery, Jake Silverstein, John Thomason, Carl Swanson, Bill Wasik, Andrea Long Chu, David Haskell, Avery Trufelman, Jia Tolentino, ‘Asparagus Guy’ Dan Souza, Nathan Lump, Katherine Bagley, Jazmine Hughes, Rozina Ali, Rachel Tashjian, Emily Greenhouse, David Remnick, Joe Hagan, Tom Junod, Allison P. Davis, Nicholas Thompson, Jeffrey Goldberg, Adrienne LaFrance, Susan Chira, Brock Colyar, and many more…
A Compendium of Media Nepotism
In the first installment of a series, we look at the ways family connections have shaped journalism careers, from The New York Times’s Sulzberger clan (including current 5th-generation publisher A.G. Sulzberger), children of their newsroom employees (Clifton Truman Daniel, Ben Raines, Maggie Haberman, Emily Greenhouse), and the spawn of the rich and famous who take up journalism (Bill Keller, Joe Kahn, Nicolas Niarchos, Emily and Ben Dreyfuss)
Queues and Bones
Pressing their luck this week: Noah Hurowitz, Mike Hurowitz, Madeline Leung Coleman, Nolan Hicks, Nathan Tempey, Molly Osberg, Rick Paulas, Sean Lavery, Kiara Barrow, Rebecca Panovka, Jon Caramanica, Ross Barkan, Joanna Biggs, Alex Press, Rachel Poser, Saahil Desai, Andrew Eckholm, Nancy Ko, Edmund Lee, Kenneth Li, and many more…
Transits and Embarkations
Scaling new heights this week: Siddhartha Mahanta, Evan Hill, Arielle Angel, Elizabeth Bryant, Sophie Kleeman, Bob Bryan, Maggy Donaldson, Graham Starr, Josef Reyes, Susie Armitage, Bradley Hope, Tom Wright, Ellen Wong, a pair of Homeland Security agents “ready to party,” Loïc Gouzer, Josh Dean, Eric Kohn, Jasper Wang, Lucy Woods, and many more…
Late-Winter Dreams
Venturing out this week: Julia Black, Mitch Moxley, David Gauvey Herbert, Mallika Rao, Alex Pritz, Sam Sussman, Stuart Reid, Jill Filipovic, Kara Mavros, Michelle Legro, John Kilbane, Megan Greenwell, Claire Carusillo, Seyward Darby, Colin Dickey, Angela Serratore, Kate Daloz, and more…
HE SAID
Armie Hammer had a story to tell to exonerate him of sexual assault accusations; Graydon Carter’s Air Mail ran with it and billed it as the “fact-checked version of what happened”
Stoop and Cover
Treasure hunting with Pitchfork head of video Arjun Ram Srivatsa and Artnews senior writer Karen K. Ho
The First Time Matt Taibbi Named Something ‘Racket’
After years of dithering, the Substack star and Elon Musk collaborator chose a title for his subscription newsletter that was awfully familiar to the veterans of his aborted First Look Media venture
Arts and Graphs
On the town this week: Mangesh Hattikudur, Hillary Frey, Ashley Carman, Colin Stokes, Charlotte Klein, Kate Osborn, Foster Kamer, Costas Linos, Philip Bump, China Ziegenbein, Jen Doll, Dashiell Bennett, Sarah Yager, James Hamblin, Brian Feldman, Samantha Guff, Allie Jones, Kelly Connaboy, Leah Finnegan, Donie O’Sullivan, Josh Sternberg, Michelle Carney, Elle Reeve, Jeremy Greenfield and many more…
Let’s Play Penskopoly!
A little over a decade after wading into the Hollywood trades, automotive heir Jay Penske has mastered the art of buying distressed media properties and dominating once-thriving niches such as entertainment, music, fashion, and now (he hopes) fine arts.
Screen Tests
Ready for their close-ups: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Archer Sylvan, Tom Junod, Seth Wickersham, Chris Heath, Ryan D’Agostino, Devin Gordon, Mark Byrne, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Reyhan Harmanci, Patrick Hoffman, Edgar, John Cook, Allison Benedikt, Raphaël Bourgois, Ben French, Noah Robischon, Rachael Savage, and more…
High Resolutions
Marking new beginnings: Scott Nover, Rebecca Fisher, Leanne Shapton, Colin Grant, Christopher Browning, Laura Marsh, and more…
Holiday Slide
Reveling this week: Hannah Zeavin, Alex Colston, Mark Krotov, Lisa Borst, Marco Roth, Lila Shapiro, Blair McClendon, Kay Gabriel, Hussein Omar, Alana Pockros, Medaya Ocher, Bela Shayevich, Matthieu Aikins, Jon Lindsey, Allie Rowbottom, and many more…
Season’s Fleeting
Making merry this week: Laurel Touby, Jon Fine, Christopher Bonanos, Michael Hirschorn, Allison Fass, Esther Dyson, Jennifer Saba, Katy Waldman, Kate Lindsay, Nick Catucci, Alec Meeker, Sam Eifling, Justin Peters, Alexa Mills, Nancy Einhart, Nestor Lara Baeza, Tommy Craggs, and many more…
In a Celebratory Mood
For science journalist Sabrina Imbler, a book launch isn’t just about worrying whether people will turn up at the Strand, a ritual of eating cheeses and gummies, and filing stories about mice penises — it’s a mindset
‘Make a Beautiful Magazine — Here’s Some Money’
Born out of a collision between China’s economic boom and a New York literary scene accustomed to skimpy budgets, the fate of short-lived Astra magazine came down to global economic forces far outside its editors’ control
Will Sam Bankman-Fried Show Up for Next Week’s DealBook Summit?
The fallen crypto mastermind was announced as a speaker at The New York Times’s conference weeks before his multi-billion-dollar empire crumbled, but he hasn’t been taken off the list for the event — yet
Catching the Light
Glimmering this week: Mangesh Hattikudur, Oz Woloshyn, Rowan Jacobsen, Joanna Coles, Glynnis MacNicol, Rachel Sklar, Michael Wolff, Foster Kamer, Leon Neyfakh, Mickey, Kate Osborn, Felix Salmon, Paul Greenberg, Kate Dwyer, Ben Mullin, Colin Stokes, A.J. Jacobs, Ryan Brown, Allie Rowbottom, Jon Lindsey, Brock Colyar, Delia Cai, Elizabeth Nicholas, Helen Holmes, Tyler Bainbridge, Terry Nguyen, Drew Ohringer, and many more…
Inside the Big Metrics Fight at Insider
A newsroom known for emphasizing traffic quotas for its writers, Insider is the center of a union battle to end the use of metrics to discipline journalists
A Very Close Reading
Representatives of former HBO head Chris Albrecht have been diligently monitoring coverage of Felix Gillette and John Koblin’s recent book about the rise and fall of the cable channel, leading to corrections and additions to a New York Times book review, a Bloomberg news article, and Dax Shepard’s podcast
Peaks and Bounds
Radiating this week: Benjamin Soloway, Malcolm Harris, Rebecca Panovka, Kiara Barrow, Lake Micah, Chloe Arnold, “bookstore guy,” Suzy Katz, Greta Rainbow, Thayer Anderson, Felix Gillette, John Koblin, Chris Rovzar, Joel Weber, Gilbert Cruz, Alexandra Jacobs, Sadie Stein, Ellen Pollock, Susan Berfield, Ashley Carman, Alexandra E. Petri, Chris Cohen, Devi Lockwood, Max Tani, Amy Padnani, Nicole Blades, and many more…
Where Media Money Went in the Midterms
Big backers of Republicans include Rupert Murdoch, Stephen T. Hearst, and Bryan Goldberg, while Democrats got big checks from Laurene Powell Jobs, Win McCormack, and Jann Wenner
Taro and Mishi Take Manhattan
The charming tale of how two humble rats made it from Bed-Stuy to become New York magazine cover stars
The Bold and the Bountiful
Making the scene this week: Win McCormack, Molly Jong-Fast, Craig Newmark, Margaret Sullivan, Jeremy Peters, Michael Grynbaum, Shawn McCreesh, Brian Stelter, Jamie Stelter, Sarah Ellison, Carl Swanson, Noah Shachtman, Elizabeth Spiers, Kelli Korducki, Michael Calderone, Sophie Kleeman, Anup Kaphle, Michael Zelenko, Sophie Schmidt, Camille Bromley, Sarah Todd, Gabriel Boylan, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Paul Ford, Clay Shirky, Leslye Davis, Charles Leerhsen, and many more…
Editing Among the Kamikaze Drones
The Village Ukraine editor Yaroslav Druziuk reflects on the irreality of pivoting a website that once chronicled Kyiv’s new bars and restaurants amidst Russia’s aerial siege of the city
Treks and Memorials
This week we follow the journeys of Dodai Stewart, Max Pearl, and Rick Paulas and check in with the manager of the Elizabeth Wurtzel estate sale
A New Life and New Editor-in-Chief for Popula
Tom Scocca, a veteran of Slate, Gawker, and Deadspin, is relaunching which began as a Civil cryptocurrency publishing experiment and has fresh support from Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive
Chaos and Raincoats
Making the scene this week: Victor Navasky, Jeet Heer, Chris Lehmann, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Richard Kim, Robert Boynton, D.D. Guttenplan, William Lewis, Kamal Ahmed, Matt Murray, Daisy Veerasingham, Jessica Coen, Nadja Spiegelman, Wayne Koestenbaum, Brontez Purnell, Julian Lucas, Jack Crosbie, Kara Mavros, and many more…
The Shrinking Roster of New York Times Subscriber-Only Newsletters
A little over a year after the opinion section brought on seven “new voices” — including Kara Swisher, Jay Caspian Kang, and Tressie McMillan Cottom — for the highly touted initiative, most have departed the project
Commitments and Dissents
Turning a page this week: Pat Kiernan, Blake Montgomery, Julia Black, Emily Stewart, Sara Morrison, Vladimir Sorokin, Max Lawton, Mark Krotov, Aaron Timms, Jennifer Wilson, Lisa Borst, John Maher, Andrew Eckholm, Natasha Lewis, Paul Berman, Deborah Meier, Christopher Shay, Sarah Jones, Ross Barkan, Sam Adler-Bell, and many more…
Lost and Found
Finding their place this week: Joe Hagan, Samantha Hunt, Valerie Ricordi, Nick Flynn, Mark Rozzo, Danny Hakim, Molly Jong-Fast, Joel Smith, Will Lawrence, Jessica Winter, Kiki, Noah Hurowitz and many more…
The Baffler Gets Buffeted by Masthead Turbulence
A string of departures including editor-in-chief Jonathon Sturgeon have left the little magazine rudderless, but publisher and benefactor Noah McCormack vows to carry on
All That Glitters
Shining bright this week: Deepti Kapoor, John Maher, Naheed Patel, Lizz Schumer, Nnenna Odeluga, Elizabeth Nicholas, Sarah McGrath, Jynne Dilling Martin, Ed Cara, Jim Spanfeller, Molly Taft, Arielle Angel, Lisa Levy, Daniel May, Rebecca Alter and many more…
Input Logs Off at Bustle Digital Group, While Mic Is Muted
After years of investing heavily in building a Culture & Innovation group, CEO Bryan Goldberg announced a reversal in strategy, shuttering the tech title and gutting the staff of the millennial news site
Championship Nights
Winning big this week: Marlon James, Dayna Tortorici, Mark Doten, Peter Terzian, Caleb Crain, Mark Greif, Allison Lorentzen, Tobi Haslett, Audrey Wollen, Clare Fentress, Leon Neyfakh, Alice Gregory, Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn, Will Purcell, Randall Lane, Mark Davis, Rob Agueli, and many more…
The Art of Quotation in the Age of Automated Transcription
After smartphones made audio recording ubiquitous and A.I.-powered robots made transcribing fast and cheap, that most sacred element of news, the quote, is going through its most profound aesthetic and ethical transformation since the invention of the portable tape recorder
Engagements and Audiences
Going back to school this week: Wendy Lu, Andrew Soboeiro, Abigail Wise, William Mushen, Alex Barker, Adrienne Shih, Mark Jacobson, Noreen Malone, Christopher Bonanos, Kaitlyn Tiffany, Robbie Myers, Alex Vadukul, Jim Windolf, Kate Dwyer, Chris Crowley, Allison P. Davis and many more…
James Pogue on Making It as a Roving Dirtbag Reporter
In the Swing
On the town this week: James Yeh, Jacob and Rebecca Shamsian, the City Swingers, Billy Lennon, David Gendelman, Laura Marsh, David Marcus, Mark Yarm, Garance Franke-Ruta, Shruti Ravindran, Tom Kludt, David Taintor, and many more…
What Is Pamela Paul Thinking?
After struggling to get out of marketing, a brief and quarrelsome marriage to Bret Stephens, and ascending to one of publishing’s most powerful perches, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review made a confounding choice to jump head first into the fractious culture wars
Islands and Coasts
Making waves this week: David Bressler, Brittany Mehmedovic, Eddie Rice, Sophie Erickson, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Liz Boyd, Joe DeLessio, Joshua Hunt, Christopher Hooks, and many more…
The Saga of Erin Overbey
The New Yorker’s library was once a central hub on the office grapevine; after its archive editor shone a light on the magazine’s historic lack of diversity and impugned top editor David Remnick, the institution’s whisper network turned on her.
Broken Windows and Lonely Pretzels
Dodging and weaving this week: Ben Goggin, Chris Miller, Taylor Lorenz, Nick Lichtenberg, Matt Lynch, Joe Coscarelli, Jayson Buford, Delia Cai, Chris Cox, Andrew Rice, Jay Bulger, Noah Hurowitz, and many more…
A Long, Twisting Road Back to the Office
Little has been predictable about the pandemic, including the date when journalists would finally return to newsrooms
Bosses at Bat
Tagging up this week: John R. “Rick” MacArthur, David Remnick, Emily Stokes, Lake Micah, Ariel Schulman, Krithika Varagur, Charlie Lee, Elizabeth Bryant, Sophie Haigney, Matt Lynch, Hailey Gates, Tim Rohan, Natalie Meade, and many more…
Avast! Boats and Zines
Making waves this week: Olivia Kan-Sperling, Dean Kissick, Lily McInerny, Amalia Ulman, Andrew Norman Wilson, Ezra Marcus, Arjun Ram Srivatsa, Beckett Rosset, Jessie Kindig, Lisa Borst, Marco Roth, and many more…
Who Won BuzzFeed’s SPAC Debacle?
The company may be a poster child for the short-lived and ill-fated SPAC boomlet, the numbers of shares some executives hold means that sizeable windfalls are still within reach
At The New York Times, News Reads You!
When subscribers started seeing the option to see their “Story Portrait” on the footers of Times web pages, they found something quite similar to artist Brion Gysin’s newspaper cut-ups from 1959.
‘They Gave Us Basically Everything We Need to Be Writers, But Didn’t Give Us Any Kind of Business Help at All’
Last April, Substack committed $1 million to a program to give grants for local journalists to launch publications, but now that the funding has run out, most of the newsletters are no closer to being sustainable businesses, and some are shutting down
Hot Fun in the Summertime
Moving and shaking this week: Zain Khalid, Alexander Chee, Elena Saavedra Buckley, Peter Blackstock, Michael Ames, Nina Mesfin, Matt Sherrill, Marella Gayla, Joanna Biggs, Dan Oshinsky, and many more…
She Soldiers On
After chronicling and glorifying the mercenary ethos for nearly half a century, Soldier of Fortune founder Robert K. Brown has handed command over to longtime contributor Susan Katz Keating, the first woman to ever write for the magazine
Peals and Illuminations
Lighting up the social column this week: Rebecca Greenfield, Daniel Hurwitz, Laura Helmuth, Rebecca Traister, Bhaskar Sunkara, Amanda Kludt, Tom Bissell, Michael Tomasky, Taylor Lorenz, Charles Duhigg, Ben Smith, and many more…
It’s Rivalry Week
On deck this week: Susan Matthews, Emily Bazelon, Mark Joseph Stern, Seth Maxon, Hillary Frey, Steve Bloom, Matt “Skip” Kiebus, Damion DaCosta, Tim Rohan, Sophie Haigney, Zach Helfand, and many more…
The Party Hop Won’t Stop
On the town this week: Katy Tur, Tony Dokoupil, Rashida Jones, Lindsay Lerman, Madeline Cash, Mitch Moxley, Sophie Haigney, Magdalene Taylor, Lake Micah, Cat Marnell, Dean Kissick, Ben Goggin, Chris Miller, and many more…
Unit Chairs in the Hot Seat
So far this year, five heads of media unions in New York — a role they describe as like holding a second unpaid job that can give them a new perspective on the publications they work for — have quit their jobs
Let’s Play Ball!
Making moves this week: Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn, Noah Hurowitz, Kermit Alayon, Joshua Pashman, David Haskell, Tirhakah Love, Choire Sicha, Mark Krotov, Lisa Borst, Jordan Castro, Honor Levy, and many more…
Love Comes Swiftly
Oh, the Hangovers We’ve Seen
Out and about this week: Jacob Shamisan, Jessica Pressler, Emily Palmer, Katie Drummond, Mitch Moxley, David Gauvey Herbert, Preya McMahon, Katie Gee Salibury, Sam Sussman, and more…
How The New Yorker’s Ukraine War Reporting Reaches Russians
Contributing writer Joshua Yaffa’s combat dispatches have found a second life in translation on Mediazona, an independent news outlet founded by members of Pussy Riot
The Wall Street Journal Tires of New York Times Poaching
According to recent departees and newsroom sources, editor-in-chief Matt Murray is increasingly frustrated by the steady of stream of losses to the expansionist Gray Lady
Podcasters Let Loose!
In the social column this week: Leon Neyfakh, Steven Phillips-Horst, Evan Hughes, Emily Blunt (sort of), Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Wesley Morris, perpetual party guest Matt Zeitlin, Elvia Wilk, and many more…
Among the Betas: Unpacking the New York Times Audio App
After a string of early breathtaking successes, the New York Times audio department — like its audio app — seems to be struggling to find its place in the subscription bundle
Pulitzer Prizes Come with a Surprise Inside
While awards stalwart New York Times won in three categories, the most unexpected award went to first-time winner Insider for illustrated reporting for a comic about Xinjiang internment camps
Party Politics
In the social column this week: Mari Cohen, Peter Beinart, Jonathan Cohen, Kathleen Peratis, Arielle Angel, Nora Caplan-Bricker, David Meyer, David Walsh, Jacob Pittman, Mark Egerman, and a mask maker on a first date with a poet
Offshoring Comes for Condé Nast’s Copy Editors
After a round of layoffs in New York last year, the publisher set up an English-language copy editing hub in Mexico City, leaving remaining employees fearful their jobs are next to be shipped across the border
Hooking Up with The Believer
After the literary magazine published its final issue and laid off its staff, a novel genre of content is now appearing on its website
The Organization Man
How Joseph Kahn spent nearly a quarter-century navigating the politics and pitfalls of the New York Times newsroom to rise from foreign correspondent to executive editor
Late Spring Is Coming
In this installment of our social column: Matthieu Aikins, Dean Baquet, Mark Yarm, Tina Brown, Leah Finnegan, Kim Kelly, Micah Uetricht, Jad Adumbrad, Molly Jong-Fast, and more…
A Young Man in a Hurry
Propelled by privilege, talent, and ambition, Joseph Kahn’s path to leading The New York Times ran through elite enclaves in Harvard and China where he fit in comfortably with the media’s future power elite
No, The New York Times Should Not Bring Back the Public Editor
As previously designed, the position was more likely to set up the person in it for failure than success. That may have even been the point.
And the Winner of the Betting Pool Is…
Congratulations to Wesley Lowery for successfully wagering on Joseph Kahn being named The New York Times executive editor
IT’S KAHN! New York Times Picks Next Executive Editor
Publisher A.G. Sulzberger announces that Joseph Kahn will succeed Dean Baquet
Making Sense of Vox Media’s New Org Chart
After years of growing through acquisitions, the publisher recently created a new tier of group publishers who oversee both editorial and business operations of its titles
It’s Gala Season! Plus, a Wedding and a Newborn
In this week’s social column: Nadja Spiegelman, Jackson Howard, Kay Gabriel, Betsy Sussler, Mitch Moxley, Joe Bernstein, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, Kat Stoeffel, Adlai (but not Stevenson), and more…
Carina del Valle Schorske and the Precarity of the Careful Critic
This is the second year the recent National Magazine Award winner for her work in The New York Times Magazine has made her living as a writer. “I find that thrilling as a fact about my life,” she says, “but it’s also quite frightening.”
A Columnist Fails to Meet the Press
Nicholas Kristof pledged to apply the full “communication toolbox” of journalism to his run for Oregon governor but struggled with the basics of interacting with reporters during his ill-fated campaign
Springing Forward
In this week’s edition of our social column: Rachel Seville Tashjian, Kira Brunner Don, Abby Rapoport, Jake Silverstein, Andrew Marzoni, Adriane Quinlan, YuJung Kim, and more!
Inside The Fine Print’s Inaugural Subscribers, Sources, and Friends Mixer
Did a media party really happen if there’s no party report?
The National Magazine Awards Ceremony Makes a Return
After two years of handing out prizes remotely, grateful editors gathered to revive one of the biggest occasions on the magazine industry’s social calendar
After Resigning, Jami Floyd Plans to Sue WNYC for Discrimination
New York Public Radio has retracted more than 45 stories written by the former director of its Race and Justice Unit for plagiarism
WNYC Staffer Resigns Following Retractions for Plagiarism
Jami Floyd, director of the the public radio station’s Race and Justice Unit, was the author of 45 stories that were removed from the web last Friday
Taking the Plunge
In this week’s edition of our new social column tracking the ways lives are lived… Kate Lee, Sam Adler-Bell, Ari M. Brostoff, Dana Brown, Emily Nussbaum, Alex Shephard, and plenty of cake
Condé Nast’s Big Union Moment and the Plight of the Permalancers
The announcement that eleven titles representing 500 employees have formed a union comes as welcome news to the publisher’s ranks of “contingent workers” who work full-time for meager wages and without employment protections
‘Journalist’ and ‘Influencer’ Are Different Jobs
Everyone would probably be better off if they agreed at the get-go that being a journalist and being an influencer are two different jobs.
Birthdays, Books, Engagements, Trips, and Diplomacy
Introducing our new social column, Vital Moments, tracking the ways lives are lived… featuring Allison P. Davis, Mary Childs, Jack Crosbie, Jo Livingstone, and “that guy Adam”
How the GMG Union Plotted a Course Through Turbulence
Now working for G/O Media, its third owner in six years, the union that kicked off the digital media unionizing wave is demonstrating the value of collective bargaining agreements in a precarious industry
Kesha Crashes the Ghost of Gawker Legal Battle
A recent ruling in the legal battle between the pop singer and music producer Dr. Luke has undercut The Daily Beast’s motion to dismiss Carson Griffith’s defamation claim
A Bad Day for BuzzFeed News
After the investigations, politics, science, and inequality teams were offered buyouts, CEO Jonah Peretti says BuzzFeed News going forward will concentrate on “the biggest news of the day, culture and entertainment, celebrity, and life on the internet.”
Growing Up Gus Wenner
A scion of the magazine empire his father, Jann Wenner, founded and sold to Penske Media, the CEO of Rolling Stone is now “basically an employee versus ‘my dad owns the company’”
Don’t Equate Anti-Cancel Culture With Promoting Free Speech
Those most concerned about people feeling too shamed and shunned to speak show little curiosity about what holds people back from speaking out and the not-so-distant history when broadcasting an opinion in public was reserved for a privileged elite.
Toeing the Party Line with The Drift
The little magazine of the moment takes Manhattan, filling the ballroom of The Jane Hotel with Brooklyn literary types, bloggers, publicists, and sheepish tech workers excited to be out somewhere
The Influential Rise and Fated Fall of Entertainment Weekly
How a magazine that pre-dated video streaming, smartphones, and the internet helped create an entertainment media landscape where it could no longer survive
‘We Are Prepared for This Ukrainian War Fatigue… The Hope Is You Guys Will Continue to Cover These Stories’
Soon after the Russian invasion began, New York magazine scrambled to assemble an ambitious cover package featuring Ukrainians under 30 living through the first weeks after the world they’d known fell apart
The Last Days of Condé Nast Russia
The arrival of Vogue Russia was synonymous with the country’s re-emergence after the Cold War. The decision by it and other American glossies to shut down signals the depths of the nation’s isolation following its invasion of Ukraine.
Why Isn’t The Fine Print on Substack?
Here are the three reasons why we decided against using Substack — and a response from Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie on why we should reconsider
All Over But the Managing Editor Decision
Joseph Kahn is looking like a lock to be The New York Times’s next executive editor. But who will be his second-in-command and potential successor?
Back to Fashion at The New York Times’s Style Section
Stella Bugbee’s Style section has tacked towards the kind of runway coverage and clothing reviews that her predecessor Choire Sicha once eschewed
All Yesterday’s Media Parties
A celebration of Andrew Rice’s new book, The Year That Broke America, draws a crowd nostalgic for their turn of the millennium heyday
A Radical Takes Over as President of The Nation
Bhaskar Sunkara, founder of the socialist quarterly Jacobin, once bemoaned The Nation’s limp leftism. Now he’s in charge of growing its business.
Introducing a Discount for Underpaid Media Workers
The biggest challenge of building a subscription business for New York media workers has been the profound income inequality in this industry.
Is Harper’s $40,000 Assistant Editor Salary Against the Law?
New York State minimum wage laws require salaried employees to be paid at least $58,500 to be exempt from overtime pay
War and Sanctions Hit Ukrainian and Russian Editions of U.S. Glossies
International editions of Condé Nast and Hearst Magazines titles like Vogue Ukraine and Marie Claire Russia face an uncertain future
G/O Media Goes Out on Strike
GMG Union, originally the Gawker Media Union, has gone through three owners since it became the first New York digital outlet to organize in 2015, setting off a media unionizing wave
The Ellies Long March Back to Normalcy
National Magazine Award judging once served as a de facto annual convention for editors. Though this year’s finalists were selected virtually, the winners will be presented (fingers crossed) in person.
Into the Abyss in Ukraine
War came suddenly for the hordes of reporters who streamed into the country ahead of Russia’s full-scale assault of its neighbor
The Quest to Overturn Actual Malice
Worries that Sarah Palin’s defamation case against The New York Times stems from calls by conservative judges — notably Justice Clarence Thomas — to make it easier for public officials to win libel suits against journalists.
Susan Orlean Gets to Work with the Dead
The longtime New Yorker staff writer on how she’s holding up after enlisting to write a weekly obituary column for the magazine. “David Remnick really wanted me to do Betty White.”
Havana Syndrome and the Search for a Smoking Ray Gun
Science reporters have been rolling their eyes over their national security colleagues’ reports of an invisible weapon attacking diplomats. “Call the neurologist and not like, secret sources, you know, ‘intelligence agencies assure me that Fidel Castro is zapping people from the grave.’”
A Headless Slate Awaits the Other Shoe
The site has lost five of its top editorial leaders since New Year’s — including its editor-in-chief, two editorial directors, and an executive editor — while management has begun a push for profitability
The Editor Who Became a Song and Dance Man
After 20 years as an editor at Wired, Mark Robinson, who sung jazz standards at San Francisco nightclubs in his off-hours, quit last month to pursue show business full-time
James Bennet’s Day in Court Arrives
Since resigning as New York Times opinion editor in 2020, the distinguished editor’s most prominent moments have been as a defendant in Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit
The New Republic’s Pendulum of Power Swings Back to the Beltway
The elimination of New York-based culture staff writer Jo Livingstone’s job comes as part of editor Michael Tomasky’s project to refocus the magazine on political affairs
Sarah Palin, James Bennet, and The Atlantic Wire
After following this case for nearly five years, I was entirely unaware until this past week that a news site I edited played any role in it
Sarah Palin Prods a Camera-Shy New York Times into the Spotlight
Former opinion page editor James Bennet ducks the paparazzi as the attention-seeking former Alaska governor’s defamation trial opens following her bout with Covid
An Outsider from Insider Moves In at Fortune
A reputation for micromanagement and meddling preceded Alyson Shontell’s arrival as the first female editor-in-chief of the legacy business title
What Is Substack For?
As the first wave of Substack Pro deals expire, which writers thrive on the email newsletter platform and which ones struggle is coming into focus
Announcing Our New Name… The Fine Print!
The name may be new, but the mission remains the same: deliver media reporting about New York City you can’t read anywhere else
Catching The Drift
Co-founders Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka explain how their little magazine born at the onset of the pandemic captured the hearts and minds of young literary Brooklyn
Unions Target Newsroom Metrics and Quotas
Sports Illustrated’s union became the first to ratify a contract forbidding the use of traffic stats to discipline journalists. Unions at BuzzFeed News and Time are pushing for similar terms.
About That Napoleon Hat Bryan Goldberg Bought…
Did the French emperor ever truly wear the hat that the CEO of BDG spent $1.43 million on? The 27-year-old Scottish aristocrat who originally bought it while touring Europe sure thought so!
Hanya Yanagihara and Dean Baquet Take the Stage
The editor-in-chief of T talked with her boss about her latest novel, To Paradise, but not about staff departures and complaints at the magazine
All the History Fit to Frame
Tucked inside The New York Times is a museum overseen by David Dunlap, a former reporter whose life has been intertwined with the paper for more than 40 years
A Tempest at T
Hanya Yanagihara’s latest novel has attracted lavish public attention, but the staff who work for her at The New York Times’s fashion magazine say the portrait of her management style is incomplete
The New York Times Subscription Strategy Is No Longer About The New York Times
The deal to buy The Athletic seems to signal a significant change in the company’s thinking about who it thinks its future subscription customers will be
A Reckoning for Recommendations
To those who hoped ambitious narrative journalism would flourish on the open web, the end of Longform’s curation service feels like the closing of an era
What’s Eating Ruth Shalit Barrett?
The fallen star scribe’s nearly 30-year-old journalistic sins were exhumed by missteps in a now-retracted feature in The Atlantic, but her recent lawsuit turns on a decidedly modern magazine concern: television rights.
All the Pandemic’s Parties
How underground nightlife reporters Michelle Lhooq of Rave New World and Brock Colyar of New York shine a light on places where people don’t always want to be seen
The Smiths’ Challenge: A Great Ad Sales Pitch in Search of an Editorial Product
Justin Smith and Ben Smith’s announcement brings back memories of the promise — and pitfalls — of an earlier global media startup. Plus: a digest of our best reporting from the last week.
Who Wants to Be the Next New York Times Media Columnist?
Ben Smith’s departure for a media startup opens up one of journalism’s plum jobs. Potential successors tell us what they’d do if they were tapped next.
Scratch One from the Betting Pool
Our A.G. AI 3000 was just as shocked as The New York Times masthead to learn that Ben Smith was departing the paper.
On the Front Lines of an Insurrection
Covering right-wing extremist violence is creating a generation of a new kind of combat journalist who is at risk both on and off the field
The Way The New York Times Won Its Slack Back
Once a free-wheeling space for the newsroom to air its grievances, the paper has mounted a campaign to pacify its internal chat platform
The Week Omicron Came to Town
A surge in the new variant surprised a media community longing for a return to holiday parties, resulting in breakthrough infections at BuzzFeed, Insider, New York Magazine, and The Paris Review
The Celebrity Profiler and the Viral Tweetstorm
The fallout over Michael Schulman’s piece on Succession star Jeremy Strong has confounded other practitioners of the form
Do Morning Newsletter Writers Dream of the Hectic Half-Asleep?
Surveying the ongoing battle to be the first thing people read when they grab their phones in the morning
A Field Guide to Byline Doppelgängers
Similarly named journalists can be confusing. We’re here to help.
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Inside the Ghislaine Maxwell Media Scrum
Pre-dawn lineups, laggy lo-res live streams, print stars turned podcasters, impounded electronics, frantic phone call filing, hotel room cooking, doodles, and more…
What Happens to BuzzFeed News Now?
After the SPAC, the Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom is now a small money-losing division of a much larger publicly traded media company
Anti-Woke-Off Breaks Out at Harper’s
Publisher and president John R. MacArthur considers Walter Kirn’s accusation that the magazine terminated him to appease young leftists an outlandish slur
Lump of Coal Arrives for White House Reporters Picked for Christmas Pool Duty
The December rotation for the White House In-Town Pool was announced on the first of the month, which means political reporters learned who would have to include monitoring President Biden’s whereabout in their holiday plans.
Curse of the Byline Doppelgängers
As The New York Times’s Julian Barnes (“Not the British Author”) and a pair of Alexandra Petris (Washington Post and New York Times) explain, it’s not always easy sharing a name in journalism
Wirecutter Union to Return to Work After Black Friday Strike
While the 65-member editorial team spent the holiday with family instead of combing the Internet for deals, the site continued to publish without staff bylines
Wirecutter Union Announces Black Friday Strike and Boycott
Working without a contract since The New York Times recognized the NewsGuild unit in 2019, the product recommendation staff is walking out during its busiest stretch — and asking readers not to shop with the site
Travel Journalism in the Age of Lockdowns
What do you do when a magazine’s reason to exist disappears overnight?
The New Yorker’s Long Battle Over Long Covid
An organized and vocal online community of Covid sufferers made criticism of a piece they viewed as too skeptical a cause of it own
What Nikil Saval Misses After Trading in Editing for Politics
After being sworn in last year as a Pennsylvania state senator, the former co-editor of n+1 has had to adjust to life as a public official
New York Times Unions Return to the Office for a Labor Rally
At the first in-person event that included all three NewsGuild units at The Times, members denounced management for union-busting and called for better compensation
Mapping a New World Order at Condé Nast
A new strategy for the publisher’s sprawling international editions has scrambled org charts and reporting structures, ushering in the era of the “global editorial director”
The End of the Race May Be Near, Per the Wisdom of the Pool
We’re temporarily turning away from the question of “Who will be the next executive editor of The Times?” and focusing instead on “When will the person who succeeds Dean Baquet be announced?”
Remote Control: Looming Back to Office Mandate Roils New York Times
“The company says that one of the reasons we need to be back in the office is for the culture … and many people say that the reason they don’t want to go back into the office is because of the culture at The New York Times”
Freelancers Notch a Rare Win as Hearst Moves to Net Zero Payments
After a Twitter kerfuffle sparked by author Roxane Gay, the magazine publisher will no longer ask writers to pay a fee for the privilege of prompt payments
Perpetual Frailty and the Ever Shrinking Internet
Recent image purges at BuzzFeed and G/O Media serve as reminders of the challenges of creating a cultural legacy in a medium designed for disposability
The End of the Facebook Papers Consortium
The group of news outlets sharing access to a whistleblower’s trove of documents shut down their Slack a day after their stories published, while publications outside the U.S. are still locked out and trying to get access
The Ghost of Gawker Past
BDG’s first attempt to relaunch Gawker was aborted in 2019, but a defamation suit filed by its editorial director, Carson Griffith, against The Daily Beast lives on
Please Allow Our AI to Introduce Itself
This week’s big odds moves in our NYT Succession Betting Pool were at the bottom of the table.
I’m Not Tired, You’re Tired: Newsletter Writer Fatigue Sets In
Attracted by the dream of being your own boss and writing whatever you want, a hidden truth behind the Substack-driven newsletter boom is sinking in: it is absolutely exhausting
Union Spirit Erupts in New York Times Newsroom
A last-minute contract negotiation cancellation by management on Monday sparked an outpouring from one of New York City’s oldest editorial guilds, even among “the longtime traditionalists”
TL;DR Axios Wants to Change the Way the World Writes
A professional service for corporate clients is meant to help communications professionals — and the rest of us — think in bullet points and creative bolding
Meet Stanley Chow, the Artist Who Draws All The New Yorker’s Contributor Portraits
“Sometimes, I just don’t think I get enough credit for this job.”
How Time Got Hooked on NFTs
Inside the crypto skunkworks set up by magazine president Keith Grossman, who has turned a personal passion into a new revenue line for the sober news chronicle
The Second Tier Tightens; a Polgreen Longshot Surge
The competition to be the leading not-Kahn contender only got stiffer in the second week of wagering in The Fine Print’s NYT Succession Betting Pool
What Is the New York Times Audio App For?
Details about what the new service is — or why they are creating it in the first place — are murky. Perhaps that’s the point.
Farewell to The Believer
Writers from across the literary journal’s history mourned UNLV’s announcement that the publication will cease next spring
Beyond a Shadow, Doubts Mount
Six months after its editor resigned in disgrace, The Believer’s masthead has thinned and its current owner UNLV says its future is under “review”
How Amazon Ate Service Journalism
Tethered to the whims of a tech behemoth, product recommendations are looking less like editorial and more like e-commerce marketing
Kahn Cools, Ryan Rises After a First Week of Wagering
After a week worth’s of betting, our quants’ neural network has spit out a new set of odds on who will be selected as the next executive editor of The New York Times
How Did The New York Review of Books Get $7.5 Million to Buy Milton Glaser’s Townhouse?
One year after the purchase, the publication has yet to move into the Kips Bay property where New York Magazine was born
How a Viral Feature is Made
Robert Kolker and his editor Raha Naddaf explain how The New York Times Magazine‘s longform sensation “Who’s the Bad Art Friend?” came to be
Place Your New York Times Succession Bets
We’ve set the odds on who will be named the next New York Times executive editor; now it’s your turn to get in on the action
Paper Famine Hits Magazines
A pandemic-induced print shortage is upending press runs and sending titles scrambling to lock in supplies