The New Yorker (was: Re: Hef Rex?)

[Dan Stiffler]

On 5/10/03 2:21 PM, "Peggy Wilkins" <mozart@lib.uchicago.edu> wrote:

> Dan, could you give some details here?  I am unaware of the history of
> the New Yorker.  It sounds like you consider their story a success.
> What details make it a success to you, and could you also say how you
> see this applying to PLAYBOY's case?  Are there any other magazines
> that might have a similarly interesting history in this regard?

I make no claim to being a New Yorker historian.  To be honest, back in the
seventies, I decided to subscribe to New York instead, because I though it
was grittier and I like David Denby's movie reviews (he now writes for the
New Yorker).  It wasn't until the mid-nineties that I became a regular
subscriber and reader, although I had picked up the occasional issue before
then.  It is now one subscription that I would drop only if I were on the
edge of bankruptcy (or if they decided to radically change its direction).
The magazine has intelligent writing, comprehensive reviews, great cartoons,
and consistently engaging covers.  Gee, if you were to put a centerfold in
there it might be just like another magazine I used to love....

Okay, here is what I know with little research (I have not done my
fact-checking!).

Harold Ross was a co-founder (along with Katherine White, wife of E. B.
White) and first editor of The New Yorker in 1925.  About the magazine, he
famously said, "The New Yorker will be the magazine which is not edited for
the old lady in Dubuque."  Sounds a little like Hefner's first proclamation,
doesnšt it?  Ross was a personality, organizing the literary roundtables
that used to gather at the Algonquin hotel, in mid-town New York, across the
street from The New Yorker's office.  Dorothy Parker and E. B. White were
among the regulars, and for Americans these gatherings were the equivalent
of Gertrude Stein's salons in Paris a generation earlier.  Among some of the
great works published by Ross are J. D. Salinger's short stories and John
Hersey's Hiroshima.

Around 1952, William Shawn became the magazine's second editor.  (He is the
father of Wallace Shawn, playwright and sometime actor--see My Dinner with
Andre and Princess Bride.)  William Shawn was in many ways the opposite from
Ross.  Distaining celebrity, he worked manically and eccentrically on the
magazine and produced what some long-time fans and scholars would say were
the magazine epochal years.  That these years, the late fifties and the
sixties (The New Yorker would publish Truman Capote's In Cold Blood,
serially), coincide with the advent of PLAYBOY may be only a coincidence.
What we can say for sure is that PLAYBOY was at one time proud to be
compared with The New Yorker (a comparison that would be weightless today)
and that Hefner worked just as hard on his magazine as did Shawn.
Interestingly, Hefner became in some ways a combination of Ross and Shawn: a
driven editor who also enjoyed the benefits of celebrity.

In the mid-eighties, S. I. Newhouse took control of the magazine (it is now
under control of Condč Nast, a division of Advance Publications) and it
wasn't long before they forced the eccentric Shawn from his post as editor.
Robert Gottlieb held that position for five years and then Tina Brown,
former editor of Vanity Fair, took over in 1992.

Tina Brown's editorship created considerable controversy among long-time
readers of The New Yorker (I can remember the talk at my campus, almost none
of it good).  I think there are interesting parallels with the current
situation at PLAYBOY.  The New Yorker had been failing financially, so the
corporate owners decided to bring in a celebrity editor.  Brown had become
infamous in the publishing world for running a photo of a very pregnant Demi
Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair.  For her audacity she was rewarded with
what many consider the top editing job in the magazine business.

Just this last month, at an American Culture Conference I attended in New
Orleans, one of the presenters had done a study of a The New Yorker
signature feature, its profile (the latest issue has a profile of Karl
Rove).  Profiles are lengthy examinations of individuals from all walks of
life and were installed early in the magazine's history as a cross-view of
New Yorkers.  (Since those early days, the subjects have come from beyond
the boroughs.)  The exception to that variety came during the Brown years,
when celebrity profiles outnumbered profiles of non-celebrities--which was
to be expected from the Brown tenure.  She didn't throw the balance
completely off, but a little over 60% of the profiles were celebrities
during the Brown years (btw, we are talking A-list celebrities here, not
reality show rejects).

Brown also introduced more photography into the magazine and hired Richard
Avedon to a reported million dollar a year contract to provide 50
photographs.  Two interesting connections to PLAYBOY here:  briefly in the
early sixties, Avedon was added to the PLAYBOY masthead; Mr. Kaminsky has
apparently eschewed graphic art in favor of the photograph (guys connect
better to photos Kaminsky claims).  Happily, Brown did not mess with The New
Yorker cover, although the cover art during her tenure was decidedly edgy.

Brown left the magazine in 1998 and was replaced by David Remnick, the
magazine's fifth and current editor.  Remnick had been writing for The New
Yorker since the early 90s and had published the Pulitzer Prize winning
Lenin's Tomb, based on his experiences as a Washington Post correspondent in
Moscow.  Shortly after being named editor, Remnick was interviewed by the
Columbia School of Journalism Review, where he said: "I'm aware that some
people wonder about whether there is still a need for The New Yorker.  I
believe the need is in fact more powerful than ever. Americans are
surrounded by a blizzard of information. If you were inclined to lose your
mind you could stay on the Internet all day. In the middle of this blizzard
The New Yorker should stand as a place of clarity, coverage, intelligence,
reliability -- and hilarity. We don't want to forget hilarity."

(Harold Ross had originally intended the magazine to be a humor magazine and
today the Shouts & Murmurs sections regularly carries comedy by the likes of
Steven Martin and Woody Allen.)

Since Remnick's ascension, The New Yorker has won many National Magazine
Awards.  In 2001 alone, the magazine won five National Magazine Awards for
general excellence, special interests, profiles, essays, and reviews and
criticism. In addition, Remnick was named Advertising Age's Editor of the
Year in 2000.

Even so, there is much hang-wringing about the magazine from the ranks of
the faithful.  Most of this began during the Tina Brown years, when her
approach was to emphasize the topical rather than the timeless (say, a
temporary celebrity over a PMOY).  Brown's sense of urgency led to many
errors by the famously careful fact-checkers at The New Yorker (for a
fictional take on this culture read Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big
City).  Btw, Brown left The New Yorker when she was wooed away by Disney to
start a celebrity-based magazine called Talk, which failed after a very
brief run.

Paul Brodeur, a New Yorker staff writer during the Shawn and Gottlieb years,
had a debate in 1999 with Remnick about fact-checking regarding an article
about carcinogenic dumping by corporations (cf. A Civil Action).  Broduer
lamented, "The magazine that published Rachel Carson's seminal Silent Spring
has lost its way. It is not too late, however, for you to bring it back."

It was the following year, that The New Yorker began to win the magazine
awards again.  This is not to say that the magazine has recovered completely
its bearings: I doubt if The New Yorker of Ross (who oversaw the
publication, in four issues, of Hiroshima) would have published Jeffrey
Goldberg's outrageously flimsy piece on the connections between Saddam and
Osama, something that gave the Bush administration renewed vigor, when that
link was declared dead in the water by most sentient beings.  But then
everyone can also find something to complain about, I guess.

I, for one, am not complaining about the new short story by E. L. Doctorow
in the current issue.  Or Seymour Hersh's examination on Pentagon
intelligence versus the CIA.  Or Roger Angell's lyrical piece on Pac Bell
Park in San Francisco.  Or Anthony Lane's three-column review of X2.  Or
even the Avedon photo from the stage show Gypsy (not exactly the paradigm of
pin-up or glamour!).  No complaints from me--because this is a magazine for
the "sophisticated and urbane" reader (some complain that it is too
bourgeois).  

Now, if only The New Yorker had a playmate...

I expect to know even more about The New Yorker in the coming months.  I
have recently ordered Ben Yagoda's About Town, a history of how the magazine
began to build its readership.  Yagoda's strategy, focusing mainly on the
magazine itself rather than on the personalities that hover over it,
interests me and may be of some use with my own work on PLAYBOY.  I do see a
number of interesting parallels regarding the two magazines...and some of
them are, I think, cautionary.

regards,

Dan Stiffler