The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on December 16, 2014, 02:07:04 pm ---Still, I think Packer's article is at least twice as long as it need have been, if not even more than twice as long as it need have been. I guess The New Yorker no longer has anybody who knows how to edit.
--- End quote ---
Right, because the New Yorker has never been known to run long boring overly detailed articles about topics that are, at most, mildly interesting. ::) [/sarcasm]
I swore off forcing myself through duty articles the time I found myself about halfway through what seemed to be about a 10,000 word behind-the-scenes piece about a supermarket. "On Thursday, the dairy suppliers drop off milk, butter, cheese, yogurt ..." (At that point, it's not even duty! Who needs to know that much about grocery stores?)
Controversial as Tina Brown's editorship was, one of the many improvements she made was to require articles to be shorter and/or on more intrinsically interesting topics. She may have gone a bit overboard at times -- probably erred on the side of too pop culture-y -- and I think David Remnick has turned the pendulum back a bit. But sloggish New Yorker articles are not a recent invention.
Front-Ranger:
My thoughts exactly! javascript:void(0); :)
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on December 16, 2014, 10:16:43 pm ---But sloggish New Yorker articles are not a recent invention.
--- End quote ---
I didn't mean to imply that I thought they were. Perhaps that didn't come out quite right because I had two other thoughts in my head as I was writing that. The first was the evident sorry state to which the magazine's much-vaunted fact checking has clearly fallen. The second was that when Mr. Shawn was the editor of The New Yorker, Mr. Shawn was the editor of The New Yorker. He wasn't pursuing his own writing while he was also the titular editor of the magazine.
And, yes, articles were shorter during the Tina Brown regime, and, where appropriate, that was a good thing--and the magazine could benefit from somebody who knows how to pare down an article like the Merkel profile. There doesn't seem to be anybody around right now who knows how to do that sort of thing--how to edit.
And, sarcasm or not, don't forget that what's only mildly interesting to you may be fascinating to someone else. ::) I do find the Merket profile, as I said, interesting and informative; it's just too long and repetitive.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on December 16, 2014, 10:43:00 pm ---javascript:void(0);
--- End quote ---
???
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on December 16, 2014, 10:46:05 pm ---And, sarcasm or not, don't forget that what's only mildly interesting to you may be fascinating to someone else. ::) I do find the Merket profile, as I said, interesting and informative; it's just too long and repetitive.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I wouldn't criticize them for running a profile of a pioneering world leader. Or really any world leader.
But a supermarket? Believe me, the audience for that one was limited to people who work in supermarkets.
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