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New York, 5:36 PM
Wed Nov 11
57 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of TheBusinessGuy TheBusinessGuy
    05:12 PM

    In reply to Hearst Is Amazingly Not Broke
    With Drew Schutte, Conde has a smart, web-savvy guy running digital--finally. Let's hope that he, like Hearst, has a war chest. Let's also note that Conde Digital is not at 4TS and that, as surely as the luncheon seating plan, is a measure of status. #media
     Reply
    TheBusinessGuy was starred TheBusinessGuy was unstarred
    Image of Magister Magister
    05:02 PM

    In reply to Hearst Is Amazingly Not Broke
    The Ombudsman wrote a Sesame Street piece about a Sesame Street piece. Unfortunately, nobody who was offended will ever hear of it. #media
     Reply
    Magister was starred Magister was unstarred
    Image of lionel-mandrake lionel-mandrake
    03:26 PM

    In reply to Al Gore's TV Network Firing 80 People Due to Wild Success
    They're moving to LA, ultimately they'll be closing down all the SF production. #currenttv
     Reply
    lionel-mandrake was starred lionel-mandrake was unstarred
    Image of Unsolicited Advice Unsolicited Advice
    03:17 PM

    In reply to Al Gore's TV Network Firing 80 People Due to Wild Success
    We're not losing money, these 80 people are just useless! #currenttv
     Reply
    Unsolicited Advice was starred Unsolicited Advice was unstarred
    Image of BearDownCBears BearDownCBears
    03:13 PM

    In reply to Al Gore's TV Network Firing 80 People Due to Wild Success
    Think of all the greenhouse gasses those journalists won't emit by sobbing on the couch in a pile of Cheetos rather than running their dirty ol' laptop 40 hours a week. #currenttv
     Reply
    BearDownCBears was starred BearDownCBears was unstarred
    Image of LoveHandles LoveHandles
    12:32 PM

    In reply to The New Yorker, by the Numbers
    Honestly, these numbers seem rather pedestrian, given the content. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    LoveHandles was starred LoveHandles was unstarred
    Image of snugbug snugbug
    12:57 PM

    @LoveHandles: True. It's interesting that regular readers seldom realize the enormous effort that goes into producing complex articles like those in the New Yorker that flow, both on a logical and literal level, like liquid butter. The flow of the printed word is very different from the flow of the spoken word. Wordsmithing is way more difficult an art that most of us are aware of--but that's the point that the New Yorker illustrates so beautifully. You just read, and you're never aware of how much work it went into making writing come across so effortless on the page. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred
    Image of Monte Wooley Monte Wooley
    11:45 AM

    In reply to The New Yorker, by the Numbers
    Bloated staff, unreadable magazine. No wonder Si loves it. So Proustian. A remembrance of things past. Tiny mummies live! #thenewyorker
     Reply
    Monte Wooley was starred Monte Wooley was unstarred
    Image of lionel-mandrake lionel-mandrake
    12:01 PM

    @Monte Wooley: Unreadable? You're not saying very much about yourself, are you? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    lionel-mandrake was starred lionel-mandrake was unstarred
    Image of FormerEnglishMajor FormerEnglishMajor
    11:31 AM

    In reply to The New Yorker, by the Numbers
    What is the ratio of writers to editors at other magazines? Is 2:1 a lot or the industry norm? (unless critics are considered writers as well, in which case it's 2.5 to 1).

    And could someone, ANYONE, please explain to a non-journo what the difference is between a "copy staff" and an "editorial assistant"? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    FormerEnglishMajor was starred FormerEnglishMajor was unstarred
    Image of Guggenheimlich Guggenheimlich
    12:18 PM

    @FormerEnglishMajor: Editorial assistants are half-grunt work editors, half-personal assistants. Copy staff does way more fact-checking and style-proofing. Editorial assistants get the Plexiglass-reflected glory of their overlord; the copy staff gets to not live in terror of serving cold coffee. And if they have seven years of experience and a master's, slightly more than minimum wage. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    snugbug promoted this comment Guggenheimlich was starred Guggenheimlich was unstarred
    Image of snugbug snugbug
    12:44 PM

    @FormerEnglishMajor: "Editorial assistant" is the entry-level staff position at magazines. You often start as an intern, and if hired, join in as editorial assistant. You occasionally get to do some fluffy, blurby-type writing that runs in print, but your job is to assist more senior writers with research, fact-checking, etc. No smart person ever spends more than a year as an editorial assistant--it's a threshold position by definition. You either get promoted out of it or drop out.

    Copy staff means copy editors. Their main responsibility is to ensure that the flow of the printed word is both grammatically correct and in accordance with the conventions of journalism.

    They review copy for grammatical accuracy, spelling, flag things such as "widows," faulty word breaks, etc. etc. Occasionally they have some last-minute input in fact-checking, but in Magazineland, the bulk of fact-checking is usually done by the time copy gets to a copy editor. It's a pretty technical job, complex yet not creative, but very essential. It's a career-type job as opposed to a mere station to something else.

    Does this help? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred
    Image of snugbug snugbug
    01:09 PM

    @Guggenheimlich: I disagree, based on my experience. Editorial assistants don't ever do any sort of editing work, ever--be it line-editing of copy-editing. They seldom write, for that matter. And I think you're confusing editorial assistants with personal assistants to the editor in chief. The latter are glorified secretaries.
     Reply
    Edited by snugbug at 11/11/09 1:10 PM snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred
    Image of FormerEnglishMajor FormerEnglishMajor
    01:24 PM

    @snugbug: Hugely. So that would mean the E.A.'s don't get paid much (one step above intern?) while the copy editors would - could they try to replace the latter with the former to cut costs or is that above an EA's pay grade...?

    Big help. If I could heart you again, I would.

    When you are not in publishing, the titles/duties are a complete mystery as to hierarchy, job content, etc. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    FormerEnglishMajor was starred FormerEnglishMajor was unstarred
    Image of pssshwhatever pssshwhatever
    01:43 PM

    @FormerEnglishMajor: The EAs get paid next to nothing, copy staff gets paid...next to next to nothing. A lot of publications have drastically reduced copy staff in order to cut costs already, but I don't think the two jobs will be melded together - most EAs wouldn't be effective at it, it's not an easy task and it takes some real experience to be a good copy editor. Like a previous poster pointed out, EAs are transient by definition and they either move up or move on.

    I have some friends that work at small publications that now have no copy staff and that farm out their editing to a separate service, but I'm not sure how common that is at bigger publications. I work for a website, and they expect me to copy edit my own stuff. Which, honestly, is next to impossible to do in any effective way. Having fresh eyes on a piece of writing is a big help. But as HamNo would say, this is how we live now: with tired eyes and grammatical errors. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    pssshwhatever was starred pssshwhatever was unstarred
    Image of Guggenheimlich Guggenheimlich
    03:45 PM

    @snugbug: I bow to your wisdom. I should have disclaimed that these were wild guesses from someone barely with a foot in Bookland. So, then, what DO editorial assistants at magazines do? Just go to meetings and read submissions? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    Guggenheimlich was starred Guggenheimlich was unstarred
    Image of naugahydeinplainsight naugahydeinplainsight
    11:23 AM

    In reply to The New Yorker, by the Numbers
    Six with "makeup" in their titles but seven with "web," plus a blogs editor and a multimedia producer. Go, go Eustace! #thenewyorker
     Reply
    naugahydeinplainsight was starred naugahydeinplainsight was unstarred
    Image of Baroness Baroness
    11:08 AM

    In reply to The New Yorker, by the Numbers
    They need a lot of makeup- have you seen those ghastly pale lit-nillas? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    Baroness was starred Baroness was unstarred
    Image of manchops manchops
    11:07 AM

    In reply to The New Yorker, by the Numbers
    wow, the weird part is I know someone who freelances there three days a week as a researcher and she's not even on that masthead!
    I do worry about the timeliness of publishing this thing right now though. I worry for everyone in magazine's jobs. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    manchops was starred manchops was unstarred
    Image of If_I_Had_a_Poodle If_I_Had_a_Poodle
    11:21 AM

    @manchops: Jobs? At magazines? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    If_I_Had_a_Poodle was starred If_I_Had_a_Poodle was unstarred
    Image of Tremonius Tremonius
    11:52 AM

    @If_I_Had_a_Poodle: There used to be magazines. It's hard to imagine how it was then.

    Fitzgerald in The Saturday Evening Post; Hemingway in True, the Man's Magazine; Isaac Asimov writing for Playboy; Carl Sagan a regular in Parade. Everybody with gravitas back then traded it in for the huge numbers reached by the pop press.

    Now both gravitas and numbers are gone. Isn't there a Greek tragedy on this feature? #thenewyorker
     Reply
    Tremonius was starred Tremonius was unstarred
    Image of lionel-mandrake lionel-mandrake
    12:03 PM

    @Tremonius: There still are jobs at magazines, just not at Nast or Hachette. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    lionel-mandrake was starred lionel-mandrake was unstarred
    Image of Dirty_Terry Dirty_Terry
    12:27 PM

    @lionel-mandrake: You're right. There are jobs...WORKING FOR THE SCIENTOLOGY MAGAZINE. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    Tremonius promoted this comment Dirty_Terry was starred Dirty_Terry was unstarred
    Image of Tremonius Tremonius
    12:49 PM

    @Dirty_Terry: I see the comically-named "Freedom" is looking for experienced dirt-diggers in Tampa. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    Tremonius was starred Tremonius was unstarred
    Image of lionel-mandrake lionel-mandrake
    03:30 PM

    @Dirty_Terry: Or, apparently Hearst, with its $1B war chest. #thenewyorker
     Reply
    lionel-mandrake was starred lionel-mandrake was unstarred
    Image of Motoko Kusanagi Motoko Kusanagi
    02:14 AM

    In reply to Adobe Joins Pre-Holiday Layoff Wave
    Adobe is just a horrible, horrible, insanely awful company.

    It is the Microsoft of graphic design...stifling innovation and making life harder since the earliest years of personal computing. #layoffs
     Reply
    Motoko Kusanagi was starred Motoko Kusanagi was unstarred
    Image of FriendlyFloyd FriendlyFloyd
    03:18 AM

    @Motoko Kusanagi: Nah. Autodesk is the Microsoft of graphic design. They bought the rights to the two definitive 3D graphics programs that are basically the same and sell them separately. #layoffs
     Reply
    Motoko Kusanagi promoted this comment FriendlyFloyd was starred FriendlyFloyd was unstarred
    Image of Cecil's Wielder Cecil's Wielder
    11/10/09

    In reply to Adobe Joins Pre-Holiday Layoff Wave
    On the bright side, the quality of crude, amateur Photoshops is bound to improve. #layoffs
     Reply
    Cecil's Wielder was starred Cecil's Wielder was unstarred
    Image of random_play random_play
    11/10/09

    In reply to The Time Marissa Mayer Invented Google
    But she did invent cupcakes and 41 shades of blue, right?

    That photo is fabulous. #marissamayer
     Reply
    random_play was starred random_play was unstarred
    Image of abettertomorrow abettertomorrow
    11/10/09

    In reply to Computer Zombies Pity Television Zombies
    Re the CJR review - who is telling journalists that it's appropriate to start sentences with "But ...". It's the sleaziest construction out there. ---- "We don't support a journalist bailout. But, in some scenarios, like the one today, journalists need government support."

    So now you've got plausible deniability - "we stated VERY CLEARLY that we don't support government bailouts for journalists" - and, an argument for that very thing.

    The NYT uses this little trick all the time, in what are meant to be straight news articles. "Statistics do show that welfare reform was effective in some ways. But, says Green, it is really a failed program." So annoying...
     Reply
    Edited by abettertomorrow at 11/10/09 2:46 PM abettertomorrow was starred abettertomorrow was unstarred
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