Probably not much. TNY has already fallen a long way from Mr. Shawn's standards.
Well, it may have been up to his standards in writing and reporting (though I feel like TNY wasn't as newsy in his day). Ryan Lizza demonstrates astonishing professionalism, under the circumstances. I might have succumbed to just sitting there staring at the receiver in shock.
But Shawn was so vehemently opposed to letting swear words go into print. And simply using the F-word is about the least of Scaramucci's offenses in that phone call.
Thanks for the link. It's so recent that I assume it's only going to be available on line. The July 31 issue arrived in my mailbox only today; I've been wondering where it was. By the time the next hard copy issue is out, Scaramucci's little chat with Ryan Lizza will be long gone from the news cycle.
You can tell the difference when you look at the online version -- if it just says the date, it's online, if it says "From the July 31 issue" or something like that, then ... well, you get the point. Sometimes I find myself reading stories from the print version online.
I guess Mr. Shawn couldn't foresee that day either. I mean the magazine being available on the Internet. I guess he was dead before there was an Internet? 
He died in 1992, so the internet technically existed, but was used mostly by techies and, I think, some academics -- way under the radar for most people. I first got onto the internet in early 1997. Yikes, it's hard to believe it's been 20 years. That means, roughly estimating, I've probably spent something like four solid years on the internet.
But Mr. Shawn was 85, and the majority of people that age don't even venture onto
today's internet. (I just got back from a big convention on aging, so I know this for a fact. I was surprised to hear that even over 65, a third of people don't use the internet.) I can't see @Mr.Shawn on Twitter or anything.
I found out about this story, of all places, on my Kindle, which for some reason offers me
Washington Post stories. (I hope I'm not paying for them somehow.) The WaPo story was linked to the NYer story. Even my own paper covered it in this tone of, like, "Can you believe this latest thing?" I try to be pretty circumspect on Twitter but after reading that story, feel like if I ever got in trouble for saying something (very mildly) negative about this insane administration I would point to that front page.
So yesterday I posted that I felt sorry for "House of Cards" and that watching it now is like watching "The West Wing." Anybody here watch HoC? Kevin Spacey is supposed to be playing this conniving, evil, ruthless politician, but it started during the Obama years. Now, compared to real life, Spacey's character seems like he'd make a pretty decent president. Oh, he may have killed a couple of people, which Trump hasn't done (that we know of). But he'd at least know how to give a decent speech to the Boy Scouts, for Pete's sake. And his staff would know how to talk to a reporter from
The New Yorker. Compared to 45, he's practically Jed Bartlet.
Topic: In the New Yorker... (Read 2590886 times)