Posts tagged magazines

Preventing errors from appearing in the magazine is not a simple process. For openers, you need to know that in addition to the basic reporting pieces, we also check “The Talk of the Town,” the critics, fiction, poetry, cartoons, art, captions, the table of contents, certain of the several-paragraph-long essays in the “Goings On” section. We also fact-check the contributors page, the cover wrap, the letters column, all the press releases, and a good deal of the recently mounted Web site.

To start checking a nonfiction piece, you begin by consulting the writer about how the piece was put together and using the writer’s sources as well as our own departmental sources. We then essentially take the piece apart and put it back together again. You make sure that the names and dates are right, but then if it is a John McPhee piece, you make sure that the USGS report that he read, he read correctly; or if it is a John le Carré piece, when he says his con man father ran for Parliament in 1950, you make sure that it wasn’t 1949 or 1951.

Or if we describe the basis on which the FDA approved or disapproved the medical tests that ImClone used for Erbitux, then you need to find out what the complexities of that whole situation were. And of course, this kind of thing has consequences, because if you get it wrong, it matters. We also work on complicated pieces such as the ones we’ve been running this fall about the Pentagon’s top-secret team that is trained to snatch nukes away from belligerent countries, or the piece about the Predator drone that had a clear shot at Mullah Omar, for better or for worse, and didn’t take the shot because the CENTCOM attorneys were not clear on the legality of that operation.

Back in 2002, New Yorker fact-checking director Peter Canby gave a lecture at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism about… fact-checking The New Yorker. The lecture is now a chapter in The Art of Making Magazines: On Being an Editor and Other Views from the Industry, an anthology released this September from this and similar Columbia lectures given over the years.

Peter Canby, Columbia Journalism Review. Fact-checking at The New Yorker.

News Kids Can Use? Publishers of a popular Tunisian children’s magazine called Qaws Quzah (“Rainbow”) will be prosecuted for including instructions on how to make a Molotov Cocktail in a recent issue. The Ministry for Women and Family Affairs said the article “encouraged violent and terrorist thoughts.” Via the BBC:  The publication carried a picture of a burning glass bottle to illustrate the history and uses of petrol bombs. The piece appeared in the magazine’s so-called Knowledge Corner. “It is an improvised weapon that is often used in riots and acts of sabotage because it is easy to make and use,” the article explained. The ministry for family affairs said the magazine was endangering children’s lives by encouraging the use petrol bombs “in acts of vandalism or terrorism”. Image: The “Knowledge Corner” of Qaws Quzah with an article about the history and making of Molotov Cocktails, via the Daily Mail.

News Kids Can Use?

Publishers of a popular Tunisian children’s magazine called Qaws Quzah (“Rainbow”) will be prosecuted for including instructions on how to make a Molotov Cocktail in a recent issue.

The Ministry for Women and Family Affairs said the article “encouraged violent and terrorist thoughts.”

Via the BBC: 

The publication carried a picture of a burning glass bottle to illustrate the history and uses of petrol bombs.

The piece appeared in the magazine’s so-called Knowledge Corner.

“It is an improvised weapon that is often used in riots and acts of sabotage because it is easy to make and use,” the article explained.

The ministry for family affairs said the magazine was endangering children’s lives by encouraging the use petrol bombs “in acts of vandalism or terrorism”.

Image: The “Knowledge Corner” of Qaws Quzah with an article about the history and making of Molotov Cocktails, via the Daily Mail.

Meme 1, Newsweek 0 Tina Brown’s latest Newsweek cover does what a Tina Brown cover does best: combine provocative imagery with an inflammatory title that gets people talking about the magazine. In this case, “MUSLIM RAGE” screams the headline with two intense men wailing in protest underneath. The cover itself is meta, playing on the “Why do they hate us?” meme that runs through the American press. Glenn Greenwald, writing in The Guardian, captures the absurdity of the premise: One prominent strain shaping American reaction to the protests in the Muslim world is bafflement, and even anger, that those Muslims are not more grateful to the US. After all, goes this thinking, the US bestowed them with the gifts of freedom and democracy – the very rights they are now exercising – so how could they possibly be anything other than thankful? Under this worldview, it is especially confounding that the US, their savior and freedom-provider, would be the target of their rage… …On Thursday night, NBC News published a nine-minute report on Brian Williams’ “Rock Center” program featuring its foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, reporting on the demonstrations in Cairo, which sounded exactly the same theme. Standing in front of protesting Egyptians in Tahrir Square, Engel informed viewers that this was all so very baffling because it was taking place “in Cairo, where the US turned its back on its old friend Hosni Mubarak”, and then added: “It is somewhat ironic with American diplomats inside the embassy who helped to give these demonstrators, these protesters, a voice, and allowed them to actually carry out these anti-American clashes that we’re seeing right now.” That it was the US who freed Egyptians and “allowed them” the right to protest would undoubtedly come as a great surprise to many Egyptians. That is the case even beyond the decades of arming, funding and general support from the US for their hated dictator. So, Newsweek is playing the ahistorical questions running through traditional media channels and while doing so, asks readers to chime in on Twitter with their thoughts using the #MuslimRage hashtag. And that’s when, the Internet being the Internet, things got fun and users wrestled back the narrative: “Lost your kid Jihad at the airport. Can’t yell for him. #MuslimRage” — @LSal92. “I’m having such a good hair day. No one even knows. #MuslimRage” — @LibertyLibya. “So you’re telling me that in this entire sporting goods store you don’t have a single ski turban? #muslimrage” — @TomGara. “Ramadan in Iceland when days are 23 hours long. #muslimrage” — @iron_emu. Coincidently, Michael Wolff recently wrote about Tina Brown and the challenges she faces with Newsweek from his new column at USA Today: The most famous magazine editor of her generation is engaged in a desperate and operatic struggle, which almost no one anywhere believes has any chance of success, to reinvent Newsweek as a sustainable business proposition. In this, she is arguably no different from anybody else with a venerable media brand, except that Newsweek is in more dire extremis and her notoriety personalizes the fight… …The issue was starkly simple: Could a traditional brand be reinvented in what is called a “digital first” context — and soon migrate entirely to digital — and, even more challenging, could it be reinvented by a traditional editor? This week’s answer to that question is a clumsy MUSLIM RAGE cover with two stand-ins representing a billion-plus people. It’s analog link bait, a purposeful troll. Yet, in a digital world where people can talk back and wrestle premises away from brands and organizations, the audience is mocking it. — Michael. Image: Muslim Rave, via @max_read.

Meme 1, Newsweek 0

Tina Brown’s latest Newsweek cover does what a Tina Brown cover does best: combine provocative imagery with an inflammatory title that gets people talking about the magazine.

In this case, “MUSLIM RAGE” screams the headline with two intense men wailing in protest underneath.

The cover itself is meta, playing on the “Why do they hate us?” meme that runs through the American press. Glenn Greenwald, writing in The Guardian, captures the absurdity of the premise:

One prominent strain shaping American reaction to the protests in the Muslim world is bafflement, and even anger, that those Muslims are not more grateful to the US. After all, goes this thinking, the US bestowed them with the gifts of freedom and democracy – the very rights they are now exercising – so how could they possibly be anything other than thankful? Under this worldview, it is especially confounding that the US, their savior and freedom-provider, would be the target of their rage…

…On Thursday night, NBC News published a nine-minute report on Brian Williams’ “Rock Center” program featuring its foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, reporting on the demonstrations in Cairo, which sounded exactly the same theme. Standing in front of protesting Egyptians in Tahrir Square, Engel informed viewers that this was all so very baffling because it was taking place “in Cairo, where the US turned its back on its old friend Hosni Mubarak”, and then added:

“It is somewhat ironic with American diplomats inside the embassy who helped to give these demonstrators, these protesters, a voice, and allowed them to actually carry out these anti-American clashes that we’re seeing right now.”

That it was the US who freed Egyptians and “allowed them” the right to protest would undoubtedly come as a great surprise to many Egyptians. That is the case even beyond the decades of arming, funding and general support from the US for their hated dictator.

So, Newsweek is playing the ahistorical questions running through traditional media channels and while doing so, asks readers to chime in on Twitter with their thoughts using the #MuslimRage hashtag.

And that’s when, the Internet being the Internet, things got fun and users wrestled back the narrative:

  • “Lost your kid Jihad at the airport. Can’t yell for him. #MuslimRage” — @LSal92.
  • “I’m having such a good hair day. No one even knows. #MuslimRage” — @LibertyLibya.
  • “So you’re telling me that in this entire sporting goods store you don’t have a single ski turban? #muslimrage” — @TomGara.
  • “Ramadan in Iceland when days are 23 hours long. #muslimrage” — @iron_emu.

Coincidently, Michael Wolff recently wrote about Tina Brown and the challenges she faces with Newsweek from his new column at USA Today:

The most famous magazine editor of her generation is engaged in a desperate and operatic struggle, which almost no one anywhere believes has any chance of success, to reinvent Newsweek as a sustainable business proposition. In this, she is arguably no different from anybody else with a venerable media brand, except that Newsweek is in more dire extremis and her notoriety personalizes the fight…

…The issue was starkly simple: Could a traditional brand be reinvented in what is called a “digital first” context — and soon migrate entirely to digital — and, even more challenging, could it be reinvented by a traditional editor?

This week’s answer to that question is a clumsy MUSLIM RAGE cover with two stand-ins representing a billion-plus people. It’s analog link bait, a purposeful troll.

Yet, in a digital world where people can talk back and wrestle premises away from brands and organizations, the audience is mocking it. — Michael.

Image: Muslim Rave, via @max_read.

Diary of a Mad Fact-Checker

sasquatchmedia:

I work on and off as a fact-checker at the most accurate magazine in America. I think so, at least. The checker assigned to this piece may come up with a list of competitors for that title—and in that case I’ll say that, having either been fact-checked by or been a fact-checker at most of them, she can count this fact as my own original reporting. My editor will probably agree and, if she pushes it, tell her that anyway “most accurate” is a qualitative evaluation, like “best defensive shortstop,” or “hottest freshman.” He won’t say, though it’ll be implicit, that the whole idea of The Oxford American assigning an essay about fact-checking works better if the guy they got to write it works as part of the best research department in the country—which makes me seem like an authority—and that it’d be a shame to lose the superlative when the magazine in question isn’t even going to be named. Superlatives, if you pay attention, are how magazines make stories seem worth reading, and not even the checkers at the most accurate magazine in America can fight off all the spurious ones.

Bringing this to my news reporting class Tuesday. 

FJP: Genius. Read On.

oxfordamerican.com

OK, Barry Diller, You Can Kill the Print Newsweek Now — Jim Romenesko FJP: When potentially good covers go bad? UPDATE, via Eater: But oops: The UK’s Observer Food Monthly already used the same stock photo on its cover back in April 2008. This same photograph has also appeared in a May 2012 issue of Harper’s Bazaar in Russia. It’s sort a boring re-occurring stock photo, as found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

OK, Barry Diller, You Can Kill the Print Newsweek Now — Jim Romenesko

FJP: When potentially good covers go bad?

UPDATE, via Eater:

But oops: The UK’s Observer Food Monthly already used the same stock photo on its cover back in April 2008. This same photograph has also appeared in a May 2012 issue of Harper’s Bazaar in Russia. It’s sort a boring re-occurring stock photo, as found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
guernicamag: Sean Stewart: The visuals were indispensable. They were the first point of entry for many people, and, in contrast to the linear, text-heavy layout of the straight press, the focus on graphics and rejection of standard principles of layout in the underground acted as an instant, and very potent, signifier of the differences between the two. A lot of what is standard practice visually in magazines and newspapers today was pioneered by the kids working on these underground newspapers in the Sixties. Shit, I even remember the uproar caused by the New York Times’ decision to finally include color photos back in the 1990s. (via Notes from the Underground, Matthew Newton interviews Sean Stewart - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics) Writer and former radical bookstore owner Sean Stewart talks about his new book on the underground press that was so vital to ’60s counterculture. READ MORE FJP: Adding this to our reading list.

guernicamag:

Sean Stewart: The visuals were indispensable. They were the first point of entry for many people, and, in contrast to the linear, text-heavy layout of the straight press, the focus on graphics and rejection of standard principles of layout in the underground acted as an instant, and very potent, signifier of the differences between the two. A lot of what is standard practice visually in magazines and newspapers today was pioneered by the kids working on these underground newspapers in the Sixties. Shit, I even remember the uproar caused by the New York Times’ decision to finally include color photos back in the 1990s. (via Notes from the Underground, Matthew Newton interviews Sean Stewart - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics)

Writer and former radical bookstore owner Sean Stewart talks about his new book on the underground press that was so vital to ’60s counterculture.

READ MORE

FJP: Adding this to our reading list.

Hi, I really need your help. I've got a job interview on Friday and they want me to come up with some ideas on how to increase the magazine's hard copy readership. It's been going for 25 years and has an established, loyal base but the time has come to increase that to the new generation without radically changing its content. Do you have any ideas on how to go about this? Thanks. — Asked by Anonymous

We don’t envy you because if we had a surefire one size fits all solution we’d be rolling in the big bucks. Instead, we run a Tumblr.

That said, it’s hard to offer advice without knowing anything about the magazine you’re going to interview for. Is it a general interest, fashion, music or sports title? Perhaps it’s super niche?

And that said, take a look at our Magazines Tag. Most of the posts are about magazines and their efforts to go digital but there are some that talk about print magazines making it in print.

For starters, try these:

Our Business Models Tag will be helpful too. It focuses on much more than magazines but should give you good ideas about what people are thinking about when it comes to sustainability and overall audience growth.

Hope this helps and good luck with the interview. — Michael

Oksana Masters ESPN the Magazine’s annual celebration of the athletic form hits the stands this week with six different covers (Rob Gronkowski, Jose Bautista, Tyson Chandler, Daniela Hantuchova, Candace Parker and Ronda Rousey). Says Deputy Editor Neely Lohmann about pulling the issue together: I can’t begin to imagine how many images we shot for this issue — thousands, certainly. And whittling down those images to our favorites is both tremendously fun and incredibly difficult. But the photographers do the first edit; they send us the ones they are most happy with. From that group, I work closely with the photo editors, Karen Frank and Nancy Weisman, creative director, John Korpics, and Editor-in-Chief, Chad Millman, to select the ones we feel best represent the athlete. But even then, we have some tough calls. That’s why we include exclusive extras in our online photo gallery. And that gallery would be here. Image: Oksana Masters, Paralympic rower from the Ukraine. ESPN the Magazine: Bodies We Want 2012.

Oksana Masters

ESPN the Magazine’s annual celebration of the athletic form hits the stands this week with six different covers (Rob Gronkowski, Jose Bautista, Tyson Chandler, Daniela Hantuchova, Candace Parker and Ronda Rousey).

Says Deputy Editor Neely Lohmann about pulling the issue together:

I can’t begin to imagine how many images we shot for this issue — thousands, certainly. And whittling down those images to our favorites is both tremendously fun and incredibly difficult. But the photographers do the first edit; they send us the ones they are most happy with. From that group, I work closely with the photo editors, Karen Frank and Nancy Weisman, creative director, John Korpics, and Editor-in-Chief, Chad Millman, to select the ones we feel best represent the athlete. But even then, we have some tough calls. That’s why we include exclusive extras in our online photo gallery.

And that gallery would be here.

Image: Oksana Masters, Paralympic rower from the Ukraine. ESPN the Magazine: Bodies We Want 2012.

architizer:

Magazine Hanger Chair A Waiting Room Panacea!

FJP: Forget the waiting room, perfect for any room.

I have to tell you, it’s a spectacular relief. The pressures of the present moment in American journalism aren’t just economic; they’re intellectual, or rather anti-intellectual. I feel very confident in saying we’re not going to become quicker, fuzzier, faster. We’re reviving our old standards.

Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, to the Washington Post on Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes becoming the magazine’s publisher. Washington Post, Chris Hughes, once a new-media pioneer, makes bet on old media with New Republic.

The 28-year-old Hughes acquired TNR in early March. The influential magazine is set to “relaunch” — reboot might be a better word — this fall.

If you read through on the Washington Post article, you’ll find a profile of Hughes that takes you through his North Carolina youth, to prep school in New England, to Harvard where he was roommates with Mark Zuckerberg, to becoming to director of online organizing for the 2008 Obama campaign, to starting Jumo, to advocating for marriage equality with his boyfriend and on, and on.

Not bad for your first quarter century.

Want some Gumbo with that Magazine?

Publishers constantly consider their business models. Often it’s the now mundane debate about whether to paywall or not to paywall. Other times it’s about brand diversification.

For example, the Washington Post survives because the Washington Post Company makes millions off of Kaplan, its for-profit education company. The New York Times Company, until recently, was part owner of the Boston Red Sox. Hearst, which publishes magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Popular Mechanics, owns a number of television, radio and cable stations.

In turbulent times, diversification can be a good thing. So take the Oxford American, the 23-year-old quarterly dedicated to southern writing. They’re opening a restaurant.

Via the Oxford American:

The Oxford American, a literary magazine of Southern culture, will soon transform its new buildings in Little Rock’s burgeoning South Main Street (SOMA) district into a home for diverse arts programming, thanks to a significant grant from ArtPlace.

The space will include a restaurant that will celebrate Southern culinary culture. Accompanying the food will be nightly cultural programming that will feature the best of Southern arts and culture across a variety of formats including literature, music, film, art and drama. The Oxford American will focus on community-oriented programming developed through partnerships with local organizations and institutions.

The Oxford American will also outfit this space with recording (audio and video) equipment that will allow all of the programming to be live-streamed over the organization’s website as well as recorded for podcasts, videos, and other presentations. New and unique broadcasts also will be developed through The OA’s existing partnerships with NPR and PBS. As a result, the programming will be viewed and appreciated by people all over the world.

ArtPlace is a new national collaboration of eleven major national and regional foundations, six of the nation’s largest banks, and eight federal agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts, to accelerate creative placemaking across the U.S. To date, ArtPlace has raised almost $50 million to work alongside federal and local governments to transform communities with strategic investments in the arts.

Good reads. Good eats. Good entertainment.

Liking this.

onaissues: “[A]mong magazines there is a new sense of optimism. In North America, where the recession bit deepest (see chart), more new magazines were launched than closed in 2011 for the second year in a row. The Association of Magazine Media (MPA) reports that magazine audiences are growing faster than those for TV or newspapers, especially among the young.” Read more: The magazine industry: Non-news is good news | The Economist

onaissues:

“[A]mong magazines there is a new sense of optimism. In North America, where the recession bit deepest (see chart), more new magazines were launched than closed in 2011 for the second year in a row. The Association of Magazine Media (MPA) reports that magazine audiences are growing faster than those for TV or newspapers, especially among the young.”

Read more: The magazine industry: Non-news is good news | The Economist

In Praise of Print

  • FJP: The Guardian reports on both the success of print magazines, and the symbiotic relationship print and digital delivery can have for a brand. Here are some ideas from the article (http://bit.ly/Ke0hGj).
  • Marcus Webb: We want to make something which is treasured, which ends its days making the bookshelf, coffee table or toilet just that little bit prettier and more civilized.
  • Joerg Koch: You don't need print for news any more. But for long, visual-driven stories, it can offer a business model and an immersive focused quality that digital cannot offer yet.
  • Dave Eggars: To survive, the newspaper, and the physical book, needs to set itself apart from the web. Physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. And if they do, we believe, they will survive.
  • Munro Smith: Computers and video games haven't killed physical toys and games, so there's no reason why the digital world should kill print. Lack of innovation or providing a poor product is far more likely to do that. The amazing range of technological opportunities that can be used to support and interact with print are definitely a bonus, not a threat.
We decided to credit editors because they live and breath the stories they work on, and I felt that some kind of recognition was due. It’s really as simple as that. The kind of work they do varies widely from story to story, it’s very difficult to generalize. What makes our editors so good is they know how to do a light line editing, when that’s all that’s required, and they know how to wrestle something to the ground, when that’s what’s required. Usually, it’s somewhere in between.

Hugo Lindgren, Editor, New York Times Magazine. Reddit. I’m Hugo Lindgren, editor of the New York Times magazine.

Hugo Lindgren spent time on Reddit’s IAmA board yesterday to answer questions about his career, magazines and journalism. Here, he’s talking about giving editors byline credits in the magazine.

His thoughts are great on other topics too, especially for those looking to get into magazines.