Andrew Fedorov
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…
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…
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
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…
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!
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
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
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”
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’”
‘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.
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.
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
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
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.”
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
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 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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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?
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”
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
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
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
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 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
Paper Famine Hits Magazines
A pandemic-induced print shortage is upending press runs and sending titles scrambling to lock in supplies
A Betting Guide to New York Times Succession
Speculating about who will be picked as the next executive editor is the media's favorite pastime
Literary Serfs in an Age of Revolt
In a recent novel centered on the underpaid interns of New York’s fanciest publications, Hermione Hoby asks whether a cultural legacy can be simultaneously saved and overthrown
The Feature Creatures of Vox
How is Vox Media making sure its bevy of longform editorial units, now including ones at New York, Epic, The Verge, Vox, Eater, and Polygon, get along?
Done Climbing Mountains, Arthur Sulzberger Takes a Hike
Retired in New Paltz, the former publisher of The New York Times has walked more than 3,000 miles through the pandemic
Tom Bissell’s Wild Ride from Magazines to Video Games to TV
‘There may be money for writing longform, just not for me’
Nick Kristof Wins New Republic Owner’s Vote in Potential Oregon Governor Run
Win McCormack and Carol Butler, a political power couple in the Beaver State, are prominent backers of The New York Times columnist’s foray into electoral politics
Harper’s Has (Yet Another) New Editor, This Time Without All the Drama
Christopher Beha, the magazine’s fourth top editor in the last six years, is taking a six-month book leave… and promises he’ll be back