With one sentence, The Atlantic Wire changed their editorial direction and, in the last six months, their traffic has exploded. According to digital director, Bob Cohn, this is the secret: “No More Stories That No One Will Read.” Simple. Bob Cohn via MediaBistro
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In this week’s New York Times, David Carr reports on a new committee to formulate standards for content aggregation. The committee, created by Ad Age columnist Simon Dumenco, has the support of some of the major media websites, but few prominent bloggers. Dumenco decided to form the committee after writing a series of columns in
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In May’s “The Story So Far” (also available as a downloadable pdf), the Columbia School of Journalism’s Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave and Lucas Graves all but conclude there is not a sustainable business model to support top-quality journalism at current levels. They see at least three main factors upsetting journalism’s business model: Audiences’ expectation of
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Stumbled across an old but interesting memo from Gawker Media writer Paul Boutin to managing editor Noah Robischon (which was immediately leaked to New York Magazine’s Vulture site). Valleywag (a Gawker sister site) then reported on the leak, linking to NYMag and running the piece themselves. Here are the bullets: How About Headlines? James
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Paris, 1927. For 100,000 francs, author Georges Simenon agrees to write a novel while suspended in a glass cage outside the Moulin Rouge. Passersby would contribute subject, characters and title. A newspaper backs the stunt and pays Simenon a 25,000 franc advance. For a moment, it was the talk of Paris. Then the newspaper went
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Veteran journalism professor Jay Rosen on four things he’s learned after 25 years of teaching: The more people who participate in the press the stronger it will be. The profession of journalism went awry when it began to adopt the View from Nowhere. The news system will improve when it is made more useful to
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In a review of Mark McGurl’s book “The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing,” N+1’s Chad Harbach offers a clever, tangential attack on MFA culture. His basic premise is this: there are two distinct literary cultures in America: MFA vs. NYC. And NYC is better. There were 79 degree-granting programs in
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The New Yorker’s George Packer breaks down how he handles reporting his prize-winning stories: Don’t go in cold — research, learn the history of the subject or place Find a guide to show you around — get a local to introduce you. Ask your interviewees who else you should talk to Go in with a
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Ann Patchett has a piece in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com), suggesting that writers living large on Conde Nast’s expense accounts may have hastened the end of Gourmet magazine. Using herself as an example, she describes the lavish trips and posh resorts she experienced courtesy of Gourmet. Did Gourmet’s writers’ extravagance tip Gourmet over the
Did Expense-Account Journalism Kill Magazines? Read More »