Keller will continue at the paper as an op-ed columnist.

He emailed Women’s Wear Daily to explain the decision to fold his magazine column:

The magazine column has been fun — and I’ve loved being part of Hugo’s relaunch — but op-ed has greater license to have opinions, and a day-before deadline.

While we’d hesitate to call Keller’s magazine column “beloved,” New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren said he enjoyed the controversy Keller’s column often stirred up, such as his criticism of The Huffington Post, describing the site as being little more than kitten videos with a “left-wing soundtrack.”

WWD also offers this tidbit:

Keller’s correction rate on the column works out to 41.6 percent.

“Thanks for noticing the corrections,” said Keller. “I don’t think any of them undermined the point of the column, but every one made me wince. And I’ve gotten better with practice, so there’s probably hope for me.”

h/t WWD

The profile, titled “America’s Favorite Talking Hot Head,” colorfully reiterates a lot of what we’ve already known about Olbermann: He loves to be on camera. He has something of a temper. And he firmly believes his own hype.

But Carr is regarded as one of the most insightful media writers of our age, and is well known for finding the most insightful bon mots that illustrates his subjects true character. In that spirit, we’ve gathered a few of the most illuminating, delightful, horrifying and telling anecdotes and details from the piece for your perusing pleasure:

By all means, please do yourself a favor and read the entire piece on NYT.com.

Image via Kristian Hammerstad

“It may just be that Christie has stumbled onto the public-policy issue of our time, which is how to bring the exploding costs of the public workforce in line with reality… Then again, he may simply be the latest in a long line of politicians to give an uneasy public the scapegoat it demands. Depending on your vantage point, Chris Christie is a truth-teller or a demagogue, or maybe even a little of both.”

Check out the Vanity Fair headline below. (I did not read beyond the headline because it is so dopey that I figured the rest of the article was blah blah blah.)

I have been at Fox News Channel since Glenn Beck arrived and I have never never heard any Fox employee say Glenn Beck is despised. Despised? Where do they get this stuff? Whether you agree with Beck or not on lots or none, the fact is that Glenn Beck is very cordial and nice to his colleagues. People talk about that. Despised? Not at all. Even before he came to Fox from CNN’s Headline News, the people I knew at CNN said he was very nice. Despised ? Nope. Vanity Fair just made that one up.

Not “making up” exactly. Had Greta bothered to read beyond the headline she would have realized VF was simply picking up on the NYT Mag’s big cover story on Beck which notes half way through that things are not all roses between Fox and Beck:

When I mentioned Beck’s name to several Fox reporters, personalities and staff members, it reliably elicited either a sigh or an eye roll. Several Fox News journalists have complained that Beck’s antics are embarrassing Fox, that his inflammatory rhetoric makes it difficult for the network to present itself as a legitimate news outlet.

The NYT meanwhile was picking up on Howie Kurtz‘s report from last March that all was not rosy between Fox and Beck. So maybe less a case of Vanity Fair making up than picking up. Either way, always a good idea to read past the headline, especially in these heady days of SEO-friendly headlines.

Olbermann singled out passages from the profile that said Roger Ailes “has complained about Beck’s hawking his non-Fox ventures too much on his Fox show,” as well as Ailes’ feeling that “Beck does not fully appreciate the degree to which Fox News has made him the sensation he has become in recent months.” Oh, and there’s the matter of some journalists at Fox News not being fond of Beck’s shtick, and that nearly 300 advertisers don’t want ads featured during his show.

Needless to say, all manna from heaven for Olbermann, and he brought in Paul Waldman from The American Prospect to talk it over. Olbermann could barely contain his glee as he delivered the line:

“The gist of this is, in the Times, that Glenn Beck is the universal solvent? He’s great at first, and then you realize: you don’t have anything in which to keep him, ’cause he eats through everything?”

Waldman, for his part, said Beck “offer[s] something pretty compelling to his viewers” in telling them that “the end is near.” He also figured, though, that “there’s only so long you can kind of sit there on the edge of your seat grinding your teeth, thinking that the walls are all falling down and Armageddon is around the corner” before people stop believing you. Video of the conversation below.

The profile, penned by Mark Leibovich, is less revealing than a nice sort of summing up of the Beck phenomenon for Times readers who only know Beck from the periphery or as a common reference point (correct or otherwise) to illustrate the more extreme elements of the conservative movement. Essentially this is the NYT answering the question: who was that guy who just got 350,000 people to show up on the National Mall and started talking about God and individual responsibility. Here are a couple of highlights:

Fox And Beck – All is not lovey dovey

[Roger] Ailes, who declined to comment for this article, has generally been supportive of Beck. But he has also been vocal around the network about how Beck does not fully appreciate the degree to which Fox News has made him the sensation he has become in recent months. In the days following Beck’s Lincoln Memorial rally, which by Beck’s estimate drew a half-million people, Ailes told associates that if Beck were still at Headline News, there would have been 30 people on the Mall. Fox News devoted less news coverage to the rally than CNN and MSNBC did, which Beck has pointed out himself on the air…When I mentioned Beck’s name to several Fox reporters, personalities and staff members, it reliably elicited either a sigh or an eye roll. Several Fox News journalists have complained that Beck’s antics are embarrassing Fox, that his inflammatory rhetoric makes it difficult for the network to present itself as a legitimate news outlet. Fearful that Beck was becoming the perceived face of Fox News, some network insiders leaked their dissatisfaction in March to The Washington Post’s media critic, Howard Kurtz, a highly unusually breach at a place where complaints of internal strains rarely go public.

Women love Beck

Women tune into Beck’s radio show more heavily than they do to other conservative commentators, says Chris Balfe, the president and chief operating officer of Mercury, which employs more than 40 people. And Beck’s television show is on at 5 p.m. Eastern, traditionally a slot with more women viewers…But Beck also appeals to a more traditionally female sensibility. “He works through things in real time,” Balfe told me. “Maybe he’ll come back tomorrow and say, ‘You know what, I’ve given this some thought, and here’s what I’m thinking now.’ ” Or maybe he’ll come back sooner. Within a few sentences of proposing Obama’s “deep-seated hatred for white people,” he added this caveat: “I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people.”

Beck loves Oprah

Beck’s staff and loyalists love to compare Beck with Oprah Winfrey [also us...a year ago]…As Winfrey does, Beck talks a great deal about himself and subscribes to the pop-recovery ethic…The presumed Oprah parallel is corporate as well as stylistic. Beck, like Winfrey, has a knack for making best sellers of books he mentions on the air. He publishes a magazine, sells more than a million dollars in merchandise and speaks of an array of possible multimedia ventures….Beck himself is a study in fusions. He blends TV-ready empathy with push-the-edge conservative talk, as well as self-doubt with the self-absorbed grandeur of a man whose hard-won recovery grants him the power to speak from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Senator Joe Lieberman helped get Beck into Yale

He even enrolled at Yale, with a written recommendation from an alum who was a listener at the time, Senator Joe Lieberman. He took one class, early Christology, but says he “spent more time trying to find a parking space” than in class and quickly dropped out.

Who knew?

“If you were in an imaginary meeting for a TV show,” Bill Shine, Fox News’s programming director, says, “and someone said: ‘I have an idea. Let’s spend a month talking about the founding fathers and get a bunch of pictures of Benjamin Franklin and hang them up,’ you’d be like, ‘What?’ But it works.

Time, April 28, 2008. Art director and illustrator: Arthur Hochstein.

Mother Jones, July 1981. Art director: Louise Kollenbaum. Illustrator: Ron Giacomaro. Noted Esquire cover designer George Lois commented about this cover in a subsequent letter to the editor, calling it “the best I’ve seen in years. It’s…everything a great cover should be.”

Earth First! is the journal of the radical activist direct action Earth First! movement. “We put our bodies on the line to stop the destruction” is how they describe their activities. Back issues and covers from Earth First! are available here.

Newsweek, April 16, 2007. Art directors: Bruce Ramsey and Amid Capeci. Photographer: Nigel Parry.

Mad, October 2008. Art director: Sam Viviano. Illustrator: Mark Frederickson. See a complete gallery of Mad covers from 1952-present here.

CoEvolution Quarterly, Winter 1980. Illustrator: R. Crumb. CoEvolution Quarterly was a successor to the Whole Earth Catalog. They have a complete archive of issues here.

Robert Newman is a print and online media consultant. His Facebook page can be found here. Linda Rubes is a magazine art director and consultant.

FIRST LOOK — “BLACKBERRY BREAKFAST” — N.Y. Times national political reporter Mark Leibovich’s 8,100-word cover story of Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, “THE MAN THE WHITE HOUSE WAKES UP TO: Mike Allen and the Politico-ization of Washington … The Insider’s Insider”: “Playbook has become the principal early-morning document for an elite set of political and news-media thrivers and strivers. … [M]any in Washington … [describe] Allen with some variation on ‘the most powerful’ or ‘important’ journalist in the capital. … Allen’s ‘data points’ … have become the cheat sheet of record for a time-starved city in which the power-and-information hierarchy has been upended. … ‘He is part mascot and part sleepless narrator of our town,’ Tracy Sefl … told me by e-mail. … ‘Washington narratives and impressions are no longer shaped by the grand pronouncements of big news organizations,’ said Allen … ‘The smartest people in politics give us the kindling, and we light the fire.’ … … Playbook has become the political-media equivalent of those food pills that futurists envision will replace meals. … [T]he Playbook community … includes a former president, two former vice presidents, C.E.O.’s and network anchors … If … Axelrod can’t read the papers before rushing off to the White House, he will scroll through Playbook during his six-block ride to work … [Leibo:] I read Playbook every morning on my BlackBerry, usually while my copies of The New York Times and The Washington Post are in plastic bags. … [John] Harris readily acknowledges that Politico is ‘not for everybody,’ and [Jim] VandeHei said they have begun focusing their recruiting on New York, because ‘the city produces reporters who are fearless, fast and ruthlessly competitive.’”

[h/t Patrick Gavin]

The story, by Mark Leibovitch, just went live on the Internet and one suspects the less flattering aspects of it may not have made it to Playbook this am [update: nope, nothing terrible]. Allen, who does wield enormous power in Washington, has drawn fire in the past for sometimes being little more than a mouthpiece to pols (and/or Dick Cheney) who want to get their arguments out there without having to answer any questions. Will update once I have read.

UPDATE: From the piece:

• [Politico] wants to “win” every news cycle by being first with a morsel of information, whether or not the morsel proves relevant, or even correct, in the long run — and whether the long run proves to be measured in days, hours or minutes. [Yes.]
• Allen — who is childless and owns no cars or real estate — perpetually picks up meal and beverage tabs for his friend-sources (the dominant hybrid around Mikey). He kisses women’s hands and thanks you so much for coming, even though the party is never at his home, which not even his closest friends have seen. It is as if Mikey is the host of one big party, and by showing up anywhere in Washington, you have served the Playbook community and are deserving of the impresario’s thanks (or “Hat Tip” in Playbookese).
• Money quote (why this profile was written): “As a practical matter, here is how Allen’s 10 stories influence the influentials. Cable bookers, reporters and editors read Playbook obsessively, and it’s easy to pinpoint exactly how an item can spark copycat coverage that can drive a story. Items become segment pieces on “Morning Joe,” the MSNBC program, where there are 10 Politico Playbook segments each week, more than half of them featuring Allen. This incites other cable hits, many featuring Politico reporters, who collectively appear on television about 125 times a week. There are subsequent links to Politico stories on The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post and other Web aggregators that newspaper assigning editors and network news producers check regularly. “Washington narratives and impressions are no longer shaped by the grand pronouncements of big news organizations,” said Allen, a former reporter for three of them — The Washington Post, The New York Times and Time magazine. “The smartest people in politics give us the kindling, and we light the fire.”
• While most Playbook subscribers live around Washington, significant numbers work on Wall Street, in state capitals and at news and entertainment companies on both coasts. Major retailers (Starbucks) and obscure lobbies (Catfish Farmers of America) pay $15,000 a week to advertise in Playbook, a figure that is expected to rise.
• UM: “Allen is known as a legendary hoarder and pack rat. At The Post, enormous piles of yellowing papers, clothes, bags and detritus leaned ominously above his cubicle. While reporters are rarely neat freaks (I remember hearing rumors about Nixon-era sandwiches that are still being excavated from David Broder’s office), Allen’s work areas have been egregious. It got so bad at Time, where Allen was given his own office, that it became difficult to even open the door. His chair was raised at a crooked angle, as if it were not touching the floor, and the debris rose so high in some places that it blocked a portion of light coming through a picture window. Colleagues took pictures, as if the place were an archaeological site. It was disturbing to those who cared about Allen, especially after a photo of the office in a seemingly uninhabitable state made the rounds of the press corps and George W. Bush’s White House.”

Last year hyperbolic accusations that school boards were trying to “indoctrinate” students with pro-Obama views flew around the news cycle after it was revealed there was plan afoot to encourage schoolchildren to write letters about themselves about what they could do to help President Obama (gasp!). For a while there “who is indoctrinating America’s schoolchildren” turned into a favorite headline of the right. For all the ridiculousness that came out of those concerns, the actual answer to the question — perhaps Fox just hasn’t got around to exposing it yet — appears to be the Texas State Board of Education. This is what is called the real deal.

Following the appeals from the public, the members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative, submitted their own proposed changes to the new social-studies curriculum guidelines, whose adoption was the subject of all the attention — guidelines that will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for the next 10 years. Gail Lowe — who publishes a twice-a-week newspaper when she is not grappling with divisive education issues — is the official chairwoman, but the meeting was dominated by another member. Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming.

McLeroy moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.” The injection of partisan politics into education went so far that at one point another Republican board member burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation, “Guys, you’re rewriting history now!” Nevertheless, most of McLeroy’s proposed amendments passed by a show of hands.

Finally, the board considered an amendment to require students to evaluate the contributions of significant Americans. The names proposed included Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy. All passed muster except Kennedy, who was voted down.

Worried yet? Well this part may really make your head spin (or not). It’s a bit how I imagine things to be should Glenn Beck ever be put in charge of the nation’s education system.

The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation’s Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn’t merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a “Christian nation,” they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country’s roots and the intent of the founders.

The answer to the question “How Christian Were the Founders” is both a lot and a little, something which readers of the Constitution have probably already sussed out for themselves. The article goes to some lengths to point out that of course the Founders were influenced by religion — both the good and the bad aspects: “In fact, the founders were rooted in Christianity — they were inheritors of the entire European Christian tradition — and at the same time they were steeped in an Enlightenment rationalism that was, if not opposed to religion, determined to establish separate spheres for faith and reason.” We will have to see whether Fox News will cover this latest “indoctrination” debacle; that said, I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that Glenn Beck had a Founders documentary in the works.

Related:
How Christian Were the Founders? [NYT]
Your Moment of Glenn: Meghan McCain Is ‘A Useful Idiot’ [Mediaite]
Inherit the Wind [Wikipedia]

T: The New York Times Style Magazine

Silva, who tweeted real-time coverage via T’s Twitter account @TheMoment, bashed Dexter star Michael C. Hall‘s dark-colored beanie. The tweet:

“Is Michael C. Hall playing Bob Marley in an upcoming movie? Don’t get the hat or what he is hiding under it. HS”

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to to Silva, Hall wore to cover hair loss as a result of a recent treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Gawker, Perez Hilton and WWD quickly jumped on Silva’s back, but to be fair, he quickly apologized when he realized the snafu:

“It was a question I posed entirely without malice…I know from the effect it had on my family, how devastating cancer can be and it’s not something that I take lightly. I apologize for any hurt that I may have caused.”

NY Times staffer Andy Port, however, straight up called people fat.  In a slanderous post on T’s The Moment blog, she opened with “Maybe it’s just me, but I could have sworn that some of the ladies who showed up at the Golden Globes on Sunday had put on a little weight.”

No names were named, but pictures of Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Courtney Cox accompanied the post. “You could definitely see the difference if you concentrated solely on the upper arms,” quipped Port.

What is this: the New York Times or high school? Maybe Ms. Port should check out Glamour’s plus-sized models to realize that “womanly” is in.

As far as President Obama is concerned it will be fascinating to see how the piece changes the tone of last week’s finger pointing. There seems to be a sense that the President is returning to a different Washington than the one he left less than two weeks ago. Not so much. According to Baker’s must-read article (seriously, make time for this piece) Obama has been dealing with significant terrorist threats since before he even became President, including a serious one aimed directly at himself, the First Lady, and their daughters on Inauguration Day last January. You read that correctly. This is clearly not a man oblivious to the threats facing the country. Some nuggets:

>>>NEXT: Obama in danger on the podium?

The NYT Magazine added a little something to the middle — an 80-page special advertising supplement (for Super Lawyers). The rest of the magazine is 66 pages, including the other ad pages.

But we know this is really nothing new — ye’ olde special advertising has always been a good way to put some meat on those bones when times are tough — and we don’t mind flipping through the whole thing because, you know, we don’t need a lawyer, but plenty of New Yorkers do. We just hope the proceeds go towards another $400,000′s worth of reporting. Or maybe two pages of Ethicist.

Denizet-Lewis writes:

When a 12-year-old boy matter-of-factly tells his parents — or a school counselor — that he likes girls, their reaction tends not to be one of disbelief, dismissal or rejection. “No one says to them: ‘Are you sure? You’re too young to know if you like girls. It’s probably just a phase,’ ” says Eileen Ross, the director of the Outlet Program, a support service for gay youth in Mountain View, Calif. “But that’s what we say too often to gay youth. We deny them their feelings and truth in a way we would never do with a heterosexual young person.”

And the writer is unafraid to play up the shock factor for dramatic effect:

“When I first realized I was gay,” Austin interjected, “I just assumed I would hide it and be miserable for the rest of my life. But then I said, ‘O.K., wait, I don’t want to hide this and be miserable my whole life.’ ”

I asked him how old he was when he made that decision.

“Eleven,” he said.

Though it is captivating and obviously heartfelt, the expansive piece (it totals nine online pages and 6,775 words) also features a handful of passages that leave me feeling a tad icky, and more viscerally, protective of the interviewees, nearly all of whom are in their early teens. I have no doubt that the author meant to champion their pride and their cause, but along the way, certain passages (and especially quotes) come off as glib and disrespectful of the kids’ views of sexuality, magnifying their immaturity and forwardness for impact and humor.

“I believe children should discuss their sexual selves amongst their peers and with mediators, not in the media. Kids are largely too fragile, too fickle and too precious to be utilized in this way.”

But as with all in-depth investigative reporting — in which subjects reveal deep and intimate insights only to have their thoughts and feelings chopped, rearranged and quoted selectively — there exists the question of exploitation. The issue is all the more sensitive when the central characters are children, confounded by the fact that the focus is on sexuality. It’s inherently prickly, and the Times handles it in an expectedly tactful manner. Mostly.

For fear of seeming nitpicky, some caveats: Surely no piece of journalism, especially one of such breadth, is flawless. But on a topic as delicate as this, I believe special, focused attention should be paid by all sides. The piece will doubtlessly spark a huge response, in comments online and in every other forum available, and this is merely one angle of analysis.

First, the story seems a bit… gawky — intended, of course, to surprise, but also likely to unintentionally garner at least some readers for the “absurdity” of it all. In addition, the writer, who himself is homosexual and spent time working at a gay magazine almost a decade ago, does occasionally slip into the Times‘ favorite vantage point: nostalgia mode, in a “Look how far we’ve come and how crazy kids are today!”-sense. But all of that is ultimately easy to overlook when compared to the gravitas of the whole. Interestingly, the journalist and his magazine are so confident in the progress the piece represents and captures that no names are changed, and the article includes photos along with exact ages and school names.

>>>NEXT: The Times takes on bisexuality!

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/print/new-york-times-magazine-celebrates-gay-teens-but-does-it-exploit-them-too/feed/ 3 http://www.mediaite.com/online/is-time-com-hurting-its-internet-traffic-on-purpose/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/is-time-com-hurting-its-internet-traffic-on-purpose/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:33:12 +0000 Joe Coscarelli http://www.mediaite.com/?p=16559 Josh Tyrangiel, Time.com's Managing Editor, was adamant that long form journalism does not work online. "It's just too long," he said bluntly. As a result, 95% of Time.com stories are original to the web, according to the editor. Tyrangiel knows shorter stories work better because he has the data to prove it. But is Time.com just trying to sell more magazines?]]> In a recent interview with Beet.TV, Josh Tyrangiel, Time.com’s Managing Editor, was adamant that long-form journalism does not work online. “It’s just too long,” he said bluntly. As a result, 95% of Time.com stories are original to the web, according to the editor. For online writers, the challenge is being both “smart and stylish” and getting to the point, he said. Tyrangiel knows shorter stories work better because he has the data to prove it. But what if Time.com’s assuredness not only leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, but is a convoluted attempt at selling more magazines?

If long-form stories are rarely read at Time.com, a publication that built its brand on investigative work, then the business implications are clear: the magazine must employ one staff of writers and editors, while the website employs another. And readers must check out both. Selling a hard copy of the rag — full of well researched, in-depth pieces — and scoring web traffic built on quick bursts and breaking news are disparate missions at Time, but keeping them exclusive might help the bottom line.

When it comes to long-form success online, the New York Times begs to differ. Editor of the New York Times Magazine Gerald Marzorati (formerly of long form giants The New Yorker and Harper’s) contends that “contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s our longest pieces that attract the most online traffic.” So, Time.com, maybe it’s just you? And from a business standpoint, it seems like you like it that way.

If New York Times Magazine is enjoying online success with pieces frequently over 10,000 words (and ten online pages), and readers’ attention spans don’t seem to be the problem, it could be the quality of the work. But more likely, condescending attitudes at Time.com about their audience’s willingness and ability to read — and the subsequent handling of lengthy online content — have resulted in the disappointing traffic metrics cited.

If a well reported long-form piece is good enough for publication in the magazine (whose ad revenue and pages over the first half of the year are both down around 20% from last year) then why wouldn’t online readers turn out, as they have for the New York Times? Perhaps a premature verdict is to blame, with Time deciding that a long story will doubtlessly fail online, therefore giving the piece less prominent placement on its website, paying less attention to spreading the story virally and providing a shorter internet shelf life. The Magazine, meanwhile, often gives Sunday’s cover story top-billing a few days early to catalyze online buzz.

The fastest way to making sure your readers don’t explore longer stories is to not give them the option. Blame readers’ attention-deficient habits all you want, but for struggling Time, not focusing on hard-fought magazine stories online seems like a last ditch attempt to sell paper copies of the magazine. All we are saying, Time.com, is give your readers a chance.

Check out the full interview with Tyrangiel below.