One thing that gets short shrift in these conversations about the future of journalism is just how, content aside, on the level of craft, a piece at the NYTM, or the New Yorker or Harper’s or Liberties, is made with such a high level of meticulous editing and fact-checking.
Writing a good essay or reported piece requires an extraordinary amount of back and forth with multiple people who try their best to reveal the thing that is trying to be said in its very best form. It requires lots of skeptical pushback, encouragement, polishing, rephrasing...
It’s what makes edited writing so superior to Twitter or what used to be blogging.
It just makes me uneasy when so many people, talented writers, are starting to feel compelled to strike out on their own.
It just makes me uneasy when so many people, talented writers, are starting to feel compelled to strike out on their own.
Going back and forth on edits and copy-edits and fact-checking and refining and refining a piece and seeing how the art department lays it out, that whole publishing process the seams of which are hidden for the typical reader is what I love most about the work.
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