Apt. 11D

Can Andrew Sullivan Make It Work?: Subscription Online News Services

Matthew Ingram has a good article describing Andrew Sullivan's announcement that he's going to step down from the Daily Beast and begin his own site with a subscription fee. 

Would you pay for Sully? 

Nanny Kills Kids, Blame the Mother

Everyone is talking about the horror story in Manhattan. No, not the cop who tried to kidnap women, kill them, and then eat them. I'm talking about the nanny story.

A nanny who worked for a family on the Upper West Side for nine years stabbed two of the children to death, and then tried to kill herself. Just awful. 

But equally awful has been the newspaper coverage and the comment sections. 

The New York Times article went completely overboard on this story and gave way too much information about the mother's reaction to finding her two children in a pool of blood in the bathtub. 

On the Upper West Side, neighbors described seeing Ms. Krim, a towel over her head, clinging to her one surviving child, being escorted by the police to a waiting ambulance.

Ms. Starr said that when she saw Ms. Krim in the building’s lobby, she was in a state of shock. “She was screaming in a psychotic state,” she said. “She was not lucid.”

Overboard.

And then there's the comment sections on this piece and the article in Gawker. I guess the real bad guy in this story is the rich woman who had a nanny. Can't we wait 48 hours before the Internet assholes come out to play? 

The Internet Killed the Print Star

My twitterfeed, which is mostly comprised of writers, bloggers, and political pundits, is going crazy about the news that Newsweek will cease to produce a print magazine and is instead going all digital. Here's a sample of the links:

Russ Douthat at the New York Times

The Newsweek memo to staff

John Podhoretz at Commentary

Tina Brown at The Daily Beast

David Carr, the New York Times

Newsweek is following the path of other news magazines. They are putting all the chips on online, opinion writing. Doubling down. This is where the traffic is. They're moving their offices from DC to NYC. They're hiring tons of IT experts to create new websites and 20-something editors to mass produce content -- cheaply compensated content that isn't sufficiently fact checked. 

I'm benefiting from these changes, so I would be a real ass to complain about this transition, but the speed at which information is being produced scares me a bit. A lot. The writers have no safety net. This is the atmosphere that creates a Jonah Lehrer. 

Campbell Brown Grabs Another 15 Minutes of Fame

A few months ago, Campbell Brown popped up in the op-ed pages of major newspapers writing about teachers' unions, Planned Parenthood, and Obama's woman problem. I confess to reading all of her columns when they appeared, not because of the originality of her ideas, but because of the celebrity factor. I knew who she was. 

Campbell Brown was one of those interchangable female news readers who come and go, while the male news readers get all old and jowly. Brown, like Suzanna Guthrie, was tall and toothy. Perfect for the camera. But people inevitably got bored with her, so she was urged to leave and CNN hired another tall and toothy news reader. I often wonder what happens to last year's tall and toothy news readers. I guess they marry well, retire, and then write op-ed articles. 

Brown has gotten another 15 minutes of fame. People are annoyed that she didn't disclose the fact that she is married to a top Romney advisor at the top of every opinion article that she writes. 

She was just on Morning Joe, complaining that it was sexist to say that her husband's opinions influenced her and discounted the merits of her arguments. 

Brown's problem is that she used to pretend to be an objective journalist, so it's jarring to see her drop the pretence of objectivity and to read some pretty boring articles. It's jarring to see her opinions and it's jarring to see how boring they are. 

Offensive Picture Du Jour

Thanks to my buddy, Allison, for the link to this awesome photo. 

Online Magazine Gossip

Last week, there was a ton of online magazine gossip. Megan McArdle is moving from the Atlantic to the Daily Beast. Tina Brown hired Andrew Sullivan last year from the Atlantic last year. After the GOOD editors were unceremonially fired, they started a new magazine. The Atlantic has become profitable by hiring nice people and making money with online advertising. Politico, the Atlantic, and the New Republic are all moving to New York. Politico is also profitable and expanding. 

Jon Stewart on CNN's Coverage of the Royal Jubilee

The Daily Show
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Female Bylines

The whole report is here.

Ads on the New York Times Website

Please check out Erin's excellent posts on the NSFK (not safe for kids) ads on the New York Times website. 

Covering Women

(I need to be out of the house in 30 minutes, so please excuse the furious scribbling and inevitable typos.) 

In the past few months, I've spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out which topics that I want to write about for mainstream publications. Should I specialize? What should I specialize in? Yadda, yadda. This is a boring topic more appropriate for a conversation in my backyard with a drink in hand. 

In order to make a better decision, I've been keeping an eye on what other women writers write about and what topics make it to the cover of magazines. Here's some data to add to my unofficial research.

Check out the recent cover of Foreign Policy magazine. 

More commentary by the Monkey Cage and Duck of Minerva. 

Also check out the recent cover of Newsweek.

Pretty appalling.