
Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style content. Who is going to write it? - acangiano
http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/12/suddenly-everyone-wants-new-yorker-style-content-only-one-catch-who-is-going-to-write-it/
======
luu
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
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.

~~~
pron
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.)

~~~
stevenj
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.

------
Tycho
All 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. Except some articles are padded out with
details of what the reporter is having for lunch during the interview... I've
got no idea why that type of writing is in demand. I'd rather read a flat
transcript in most cases.

~~~
pirateking
"Journalist" has somehow mutated into "Blogging" and "Live streams", with a
page hit, view count, ad revenue pumping machine that tries to incinerate
whatever relics remain.

I agree with your notion of "journalist". A rebranding of the burnt name may
be in order. I like the idea of calling those who practice the craft
Detectives.

~~~
rhizome
I think eventually the pendulum will swing and information density will start
to come to the fore a bit more. The aggregation & internal-link architecture
approaches are just gaming the advertising industry and will eventually die
out (a bit).

------
barkingcat
This is a strange article. I say strange because Sarah Lacy hasn't seem to
look into what "New Yorker style" prose / stories look or feel like. The New
Yorker is not only a publisher of journalism. It also does short stories,
serializations, and I generally consider it an incubator of literary thoughts,
methods, and practices the way YCombinator is an incubator of
entrepreneurship.

Just look at the list of authors:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_Yorker_contribu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_Yorker_contributors)

Raymond Carver, JD Salinger, Alice Munroe, Vladimir Nabokov, VS Naipaul,
Dorothy Parker, Philip Roth among others.

I don't know if Sarah has looked through the some New Yorker Magazines and
actually read the stories.

Who's going to found those startups that YCombinator is looking for? Those
dedicated, driven, individuals and teams with a single-minded focus to
creating a service, a company, a product that people will pay for.

Who's going to write New Yorker style stories? Those driven, single-minded,
not-immediate-money-driven and creative individuals and teams (writer/editor
teams, etc) who will do whatever it takes to push forward the written form.

But of course, writing the truth never bought anyone any favours with
advertisers.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
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.

~~~
barkingcat
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 publish this photo on this day,
and where?

I'd say make mandatory fact checking a prerequisite of the writer's
submission. All forms of public/recordable and fact-checkable (inventing a new
word here) resource must be recorded, logged, delivered in electronic form for
searching and listening.

For those cases where you can't keep these records, you won't be able to
"fact-check" them anyway.

For actual facts and events, historical records, etc - I'd say we have a whole
internet that is waiting to connect us with the actual people who it happened
to. Use skype to call direct contacts, heck, I'd even support the New York
Times creating their own verified wiki. Fork wikipedia and create a
journalism-standard wiki.

I can't believe that the NYT hasn't actually done this yet. It's so obvious -
they have teams of people on fact-checking duty. Create places where these
facts that are gathered don't just disappear into the air after this issue is
printed. Keep everything. With the cost of electronic storage so cheap, I
highly believe that we can keep every single fact that we check, together with
references and probabilities of accuracy and correctness (ie this factoid came
from a scientist, maybe it's true. But now, I have found this paper that shows
these equations and has been peer reviewed by these additional scientists and
debated by these media and these researchers, then perhaps I can rate this to
be more believable than just what the scientist said.)

These are all doable things with the amount of resources we have.

Just missed opportunities.

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

~~~
lostlogin
If you just kept an eye out for recent updates and looked to see who had added
them you could totally beat someone to a scoop. Or am I missing something?

~~~
daemin
You could, but if each "Question" was only one specific fact, and the people
asking were anonomised and time-order-randomised then you would have to do a
lot of heavy lifting to get the scoop. Plus if you published a 'scoop' ahead
of the facts being checked, and one of the 'facts' ended up being bogus, then
it wouldn't be any better than repeating a press release or re-blogging
someone else's story.

------
aaronbrethorst

        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...](http://observer.com/2012/08/conflict-journalism-how-online-media-
is-inherently-compromised/?show=all)

~~~
001sky
\-- Or your investor's friends

Or business acquantances or political pet-project holders. pretty soon, the
world looks small, though...at the top :/

------
anigbrowl
_The 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.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Yeah it's a stray comma but it doesn't alter the meaning of the sentence at
all. What am I missing?

~~~
stan_rogers
With the comma, the phrase is equivalent to:

"... readers will _only_ read long-form content, and that only if it is
excellent."

(Forgive me if my usage of _that_ is no longer current. It has been quite a
while since I've spent an extended period of time with current formal
writing.) The intended meaning was probably something like this:

"... readers will only put the effort into reading long-form content if it is
excellent."

------
waterlesscloud
The question isn't really who is going to write it.

It's who is going to pay for it?

~~~
mcantelon
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.

~~~
waterlesscloud
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.

~~~
jeffool
I worked in local TV journalism for about five years; an industry thrashing
around to find its new footing to be sure. There are very few people there who
are willing to do serious journalism. They don't know how to Google, or who to
call. Many of those fresh out of college simply have no curiosity, and little
imagination.

It's not unusual to talk to some and find out their dreams of being the next
Oprah or Brian Williams. (I'm not knocking those people or celebrities mind
you. Even then often the reporters don't realize the work and dedication those
people put into their craft. They just know success when they see it.) These
people are chasing the popular respect, popularity in culture, and money. Of
course, not all. Just many.

There are some people who really do have an interest in the work. I say this
as a producer with five years experience, who has been looking for a job just
over a year now[0]. The three times interviews with top 80 markets have gone
far enough to talk money the offers were around $20k. I'm going to have to
take the next job like this offered to me.

[0] I lost my last job because I visited 4chan. My boss said the news wires we
subscribed too had enough information, and there was no excuse to try to look
at the site myself. Therefor, I was obviously going to look at porn. Which I
assume there were thumbnails of on my harddrive.

~~~
astrange
What were you looking for? Did you find it? It seems pretty unlikely you
would, honestly.

~~~
jeffool
I've mostly applied for other producer positions at TV stations. I've also
applied for news writer positions and just a couple of journalism jobs in
print/Internet media.

If you're asking what I was looking for money wise? I was in a market around
150 (DMA rank), in a city that was very cheap to live in. I had student loans
of $800/month, and I'd like to be able to pay them, afford rent, water, power,
food, and an Internet connection. I managed that in a cheap city with a
roommate at 30k, so I'd like to make more in a larger city, given I have five
years experience producing and five in the studio.

Which do you think unlikely? Me finding another job at all, or me finding a
job that pays a wage approaching middle class?

~~~
astrange
Well that's certainly an answer, but I meant: what were you looking for on
4chan?

~~~
jeffool
ahaha, gotcha, sorry about that.

A few different times they popped up in the news over the years I went there
to get a feel for why people were joining in any certain cause, (yes, mostly
for the fun of it), and often to find out exactly what they were doing.

Probably the best example is around Christmas 2010. People were pissed that
credit card companies were not processing payments towards Wikileaks. There
were tons of posts about taking down their websites (and arguments for
Amazon). Of course, it did eventually happen, and while I was at work. It's
not some major earth shattering story for a local newscast, but, it's easy to
get.

Yes, a lot of the actual goings on of some of the operations are smaller
clandestine groups on IRC and the likes, and I'd love to work my way into one
or two of those. But a lot of them do rely on populist support, be it from
actual outrage or potential for schadenfreude. A lot of wire copy is just
"secret hacker group!"

It's not like I browsed it nightly lying in wait or anything. But it was in my
history, and I when asked I told my boss that yes, I'd visited it. As I
started to go into why, he stops me and tells me the company can't have people
visiting these kinds of sites, etc... Had I been smarter, I could've made a
better defense, like asking to be shown the offending material.

At first I was angry, depressed, and all kinds of other things. Now, I
genuinely think it was just a case of wanting to get rid of someone, and look
for a way to fire someone without paying them. I don't take it as personally.
I don't think he thought I was trying to do anything untoward at work. (I
mean, it's not like I didn't have a bigger monitor and privacy(!) at home...
And if I was, why wouldn't I use Privacy Mode, or at least erase the history
and cache?) I don't know. Just a bad situation.

------
mcantelon
This is the most WTF article I've seen in awhile. A shortage of writers?
Really?

------
ComputerGuru
Funny. For the past few years, I've been an avid evangelist of the articles
written by both _New Yorker_ and _Vanity Fair_ (I'm not seeing any references
to this one in the article or here in the comments. Don't balk at the name or
genre, they have some of the very best feature articles on the most random
topics that I have ever come across). People called me crazy.

 _The Economist_ has been mentioned here in the comments, but while good, it
does not compare in terms of length and sheer quality to the offerings by
these two. Apples and oranges, really.

------
bigthingnext
"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 would likely be criticized today as "walls of
text" and for not having enough JavaScript or using enough of the latest CSS
or HTML features.

The more interesting question to me is the relationship between talented
journalists and website developers. They do not necessarily see the world the
same way. They operate from different models.

What if salaried journalists committed to the craft of writing (not pandering
to advertisers or search engines) had the technological empowerment to build
high speed, highly organised distribution (publishing) systems without the
need to consult with web developers and accept developers' dreams of dodgey
pay by the click web advertising? Do I believe there is a disconnect between
the two groups? Yes.

There are still middlemen in publishing. They are just new middlemen. Alas,
they can't afford to pay salaries as their predecessors could.

Perhaps what needs to be taught is the technical skill so that ageing
journalists schooled in long form can cut out the middleman, start their own
publishing businesses and hire the top talent to train the young people
entering the field.

~~~
barkingcat
great ideas - now we go and do it.

Check out <http://mozillaopennews.org/>

note - I work for mozilla.

~~~
bigthingnext
The idea is good i.e. teach journalists to hack. But there's a conflict of
interest. Look who's doing the teaching. Mozilla and Google are in business
together.

Mozilla != journalists

Mozilla == web developers == middleman

FAIL. (It's been tried before: Web developers purporting to "help"
journalists. The results have not been good.)

------
heyitsnick
The article it mentions in the preamble i believe is this (it took be a couple
of googles):

[http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/10/tumblr-continues-its-
quest-...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/10/tumblr-continues-its-quest-for-
original-content-sending-out-a-call-for-paid-freelancers/)

Bizarre they don't even interlink to their own pando articles.

------
commanderkeen08
On the topic of "who is going to pay for this?!" it's really just a matter of
time. This article really strikes a nerve with me because, while I was
majoring in English, I questioned the whole point of publishers in today's
world. What do I need a publisher for these days? What do I need a record
label for? Surely I can just post my content on the internet and presto,
right?

I forgot what the value of publishing was. Fast forward to today and the noise
of content-farming and SEO keyword-stuffing is deafening.

And on the topic of long form, rarely have I ever gained anything from 500
words.

------
politician
Observation: If you're going to write long-form content, _use a serif font
designed for reading_. Changing the font from ars-marquette-web to Georgia
immediately and drastically reduced the headache I got when reading this
article.

------
mmphosis
Suddenly everyone wants New Yorker style software. Who is going to develop it?

------
stevenj
Does anyone know what a good long-form writer gets paid?

~~~
mchafkin
I would guess that the median New Yorker staff writer gets more like
$150-200k, all in (when you add up magazine fees + book advances + speaking
fees.) The mean is much higher, because a handful of outliers (heh, Gladwell)
make $1 million plus.

------
ghurlman
I'm pretty sure the article author meant "New York style" journalism, not
stories written as if they belonged in the _New Yorker_ magazine.

~~~
gmkoliver
I think she meant _New Yorker_ , so it was funny that she talked about
newspapers for most of the article.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
In the first couple paragraphs..."Simply put: It was easy and cheap for a lot
of other players on the Web to outdo daily newspaper journalism for cheap or
free."

But her point is that investigative journalism like that seen in the New
Yorker won't convert to free web content as easily.

