Filed under: HEFFERNAN
by Brian Heffernan
I cruise the magazine aisles of a newsstand at the Vienna train station. I’m looking for something unique to Eastern Europe. Something I can brag about to the magazine nerds I roll with back home. But everything I pass is either a Euro-version of an American standard — Rolling Stone, Time, Cosmo — or simply not in English.
A red cover catches my eye down the next aisle. It’s an ominous image of silhouetted military men in front of the Chinese flag. The English headline reads, “Don’t Be Scared of China.” It’s called GOOD magazine, and I’ve never heard of it before. I pick it up and flip to the masthead. Published in Los Angeles. How exotic.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that GOOD, which released its 12th issue, on magazine stands this month, has a recurring problem with its content being completely outdone by its outstanding, witty design.
Filed under: HENDEL
by John Hendel
All right, people, I’m just going to give it to you straight here. Print journalism is on the way out the door and generally for good reason. Media folks have spent the last ten years freaking out about this. Print is dead! Advertising is down! Jobs slashed! Real dramatic stuff.
That daily newspaper, though, man — that used to be gold. So what in the name of Christ happened? The word aching to escape your lips right now is Internet. The big bad Internet’s knocked out our papers and impoverished the noble American reporter, right?
Filed under: PAINTER
by Chad Painter
Teachers teach because they can’t do, the old saying goes. But do critics critique because they can’t perform? Should all music critics be able to play music? There’s little debate that it helps to have first-hand experience in a given subject. But is it truly necessary?
The first complaint lobbied by a musician, artist, or filmmaker after getting a negative review is that the critic isn’t qualified to comment because he or she has never picked up a guitar, paint brush, or camera. Is that complaint valid — that is, must a critic know how to play a G7 chord in order to justify his opinion that a band’s new album sucks?
Filed under: SPIELBERG
by Greg T. Spielberg
Rolling Stone is downsizing its stage space. After 41 years of performing from its 10×11.75” pages, the bi-weekly is going to the standard trim size of 8×10.86”. Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone’s co-founder, told the New York Times that the larger size was awkward on the newsstand. Gary Armstrong, Wenner Media’s chief marketing officer, commented that “The consumer we want to reach … is agnostic to format.”
Despite what Armstrong says, the demand-driven evolution of portable things is smaller, thinner and lighter. Cell phones are a far cry from their brick ancestors, Mac’s Air laptop can fit inside a manila, and iPods compete with pocket lint for featherweight status. Though RS will be sacrificing its iconic, larger-than-life cover, standardizing its trim size will give the title equity on the newsstand.
Filed under: HEFFERNAN
by Brian Heffernan
At age three, I could have rattled off the names of all the native snakes of Missouri, about 15 different earth-mover trucks, and every player on the 1987 Cardinals baseball team. I hadn’t even learned to read. My parents and older siblings quizzed me with homemade flashcards. They found my intense interest in these unrelated subjects hilarious. There’s a home movie of it. It’s embarrassing.
Today I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a bullsnake and a kingsnake, but I could talk at length about the crazy history of breakfast cereal in the United States. (I won’t spoil it, but it involves Christian fundamentalists, Walt Disney and deceiving consumers.) I’ve always been a know-it-all, and I love telling little-known stories. That’s probably why I was attracted to journalism. That’s also probably why I think that mental_floss magazine is da bomb.
Filed under: PAINTER
by Chad Painter
The Mount Rushmore of Journalism would feature the busts of David Halberstam, Seymour Hersh, WoodStein (the collective representation of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) and Gay Talese.
Talese made his name as a reporter for the New York Times and Esquire in the 1960s; his “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” could be the single greatest piece of journalism ever written. With a collection of other writers, he invented the storytelling, reporting, and writing style known as the New Journalism.
In The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits and Encounters, Talese gives advice to young, aspiring journalists. It boils down to: be curious, and never write for money.
Filed under: SUSSMAN
by Emily W. Sussman
The following is a work in progress. It will be edited and expanded on a weekly basis, so please check back now and again if it interests you.
Someone was knocking on my front door. I opened it to find a pretty black teenager with streaks of tears dried on her cheeks.
Come in and sit down? I said.
The girl shook her head. Can I use your phone?
I got her the cell and we stepped outside.
Filed under: PAINTER
by Chad Painter
Tuesday was primary day here in Missouri. A primary is basically an election before the general election, in which the two major political parties decide who is going to run as that party’s representative for office.
A nagging question persists each primary season: Should journalists, whose very core is a sense of unbiased reporting, join political parties and vote in primaries?
Filed under: SPIELBERG
by Greg T. Spielberg
John McCain’s campaign started in earnest this week after airing his celebrity ad. Until Wednesday, his presidential race was meek and ill-defined. Promising to run respectable campaigns, Obama and McCain mostly did their own thing. Sure, there were some skirmishes: health care, Iraq, the economy. But since when do elections hinge on real, complicated issues? I do not know what Obama or McCain’s health-care promises are. I don’t know what Hillary’s was, and I don’t know what mine is.
Filed under: PRESSLEY
by Gretchen Pressley
When you don’t speak the language, It’s kind of hard to tell if the Chinese are eager, annoyed or indifferent about the Olympics. Still, most of them seem excited, at least officially. When I walked into a market with my volunteer uniform and my media accreditation, I was immediately accosted by a young Chinese woman. (This isn’t as unusual as you might think in a market, since most of the sellers will stop just short of physical violence to get you to look at their merchandise.) But instead of showing me a stack of purses I didn’t want, the young women asked me to autograph a large book with a gold pen and then handed me a gift of appreciation for being a part of the media for the Olympics.
