Editor and Publisher, around since 1884, is closing:
Yes, it’s true, my magazine, E&P, axed today, out of job. At office until end of year–and here, of course.
You would think that would be a brand that one of the new media sites would want to snap up ala Froomkin.
Meanwhile, the Politico is still on the Pulitzer board.
JGabriel
Some days, like this one, I really begin to believe there’s no justice in this world.
.
Kryptik
@JGabriel:
Amen, brother.
robertdsc
@JGabriel:
No doubt.
SGEW
This is a travesty. Just terrible.
It’s very hard to have an optimistic view of this nation’s media’s future. I think I’m going full-on cynic.
Zifnab
To be fair, the Politico got started Jan 23rd, 2007. They likely aren’t turning a profit yet – certainly not with their whooping 33,000 person circulation count.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politico
This is another iteration of the Washington Times. If it lives to be 20, then you can shake your fist at God.
Although, it does raise some eyebrows that a barely 2 year old publication is getting to pick Pulitzer winners. But given that The Daily Show and Colbert Report were picking up the majority of nods in the last few years, maybe this is just an attempt to move back towards Serious Journalism(tm). :-p
dr. bloor
The Stupidest Fucking Country on the Planet gets the media and government it deserves, I guess.
I’m off to lunch, where I’m going to knock down a couple shots of Wild Turkey to go with my tuna sammich.
SiubhanDuinne
Wow. This is awful. Greg Mitchell is really one of the good guys. He’ll land on his feet, I have no doubt, but I’m a lot less sanguine about what this move says about the world of news, media, criticism and publishing in general. Very depressing.
Leelee for Obama
Perhaps it’s time for an I. F. Stone type of internet news source. Real news, opinion, history you know, real stuff. Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
It would need a Greg Mitchell and a Dan Froomkin and maybe an aimai? To say nothing of some of the other posters here. How much would a subscription have to be? How many of us would need to join?
BTW-thanks, John for the heads-up on the ACLU. I have to send them some ducats. I am not financially stable, but this kind of thing is too important to worry about that. If only a million of us send 20 bucks, they’re back at parity. That can’t be that hard.
Kryptik
@SiubhanDuinne:
It means that Fox News and Drudgico are the wave of the future of journalism.
Objectivity is a passe, archaic ideal, don’t you know.
Morbo
Editors are so passé; they’re for companies that can’t get their personalities on TV.
Punchy
@dr. bloor: I’ve long longed for the oppy to knock back 3 fingers of Beam with my chicken fingers at lunch. Always afraid that the boss may be doing the bartender, and hence a clear chain of blackmail is born.
El Tiburon
This truly does suck.
Face
Clearly, any magazine/website/blog that after 125 years still cant figure out whether it should be an Editor or maybe a Publisher should be out of buisness.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Fixited.
SGEW
Can anyone help me put together a list of major English language news sources that one can trust? E&P was one of the few. I can think of McClatchy, th’ Beeb, the CSMonitor (of all things!), the NYT (well, at least they’re trying harder, nowadays), the Guardian (mostly), and The Economist (with caveats, as always). Any other trustworthy (i.e., credible) ones that I’ve missed?
dr. bloor
@Face:
Is Face channeling Colbert, Cokie Roberts or Celeste Headlee? You make the call.
Pangloss
Meanwhile, Extra!, Entertainment Tonight, E! and Access Hollywood are going gangbusters, and reality TV wannabes are crashing the White House.
Notorious P.A.T.
I thought that line about “If you believe conservatives, there were 2 million people at the 9/12 rally. . . ” would be written on the gravestone of American journalism, but I think this quote would be even better.
Xanthippas
I know this isn’t going to be very charitable, but stuff like this makes me wonder what the people who say old media should hurry up and die are thinking.
danimal
It’s the end of the world as we know it… (and I feel fine)
The good people of E&P will land on their feet and new forms of quality, serious newsgathering and analysis will emerge to compete with the Drudgery out there.
El Cid
This really sucks. E&P did great work during the darkest Bush Jr. years. Guess we’ll have to settle for the Washington Post making sure we can always hear from whatever lunatic lying right winger wants to say about every single subject, whether in the news section or the editorial section, but, of course, not, because those are two completely separate departments and there’s an awesome wall between the two.
freelancer
“ih uhh arruh ur is aaszzee”
(This gun barrel sure is tasty.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
Kirkus got dumped too.
Notorious P.A.T.
@freelancer:
Lol )
kommrade reproductive vigor
The Borg now seems to hate links. Check out the companies that were purchased and … No, put the gun down. Blowing a window in a corporate whore never solved anything.
Chris
@Zifnab:
Unfortunately, they are turning a profit and it’s because of the lobbying ads in the print edition. Sigh.
I keep up on this stuff because my neighbor is Ben Smith. One would think that he makes enough to paint his damn house and mow his lawn.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Link: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=174719
FY4FUGBJWP, also
booger
And Kirkus Reviews as well? Oddly, that makes me sad…what an odd little operation in this day and age.
We’re so hosed.
@Freelancer: How many bullets ya got?
ellaesther
Well, fuck.
Tom Levenson
Kirkus too? Speaking as an author whose recent book can be seen as (a highly imperfect) assay for the state of literary journalism these days, that sucks huge rocks too. E & P is a real loss, more significant, I guess to what remains of an old media watchdog on the old media — but the book as a form needs a culture of the book to survive, and with Kirkus gone that world shrinks even more. I feel like a polar bear with a CO2 monitor for a necklace/noose.
Legalize
Scott Templeton: It’s all in my notes!
Alma Gutierrez: There’s nothing in your notes.
Pulitzer!
Will
Just horrible.
fraught
And after the day you had yesterday, this is turning out to be the wed/thurs from Hell. However your rep has grown here and this is where your future is. Watch how Josh Marshall did it. You are the sane alternative to Kos, Aravosis, Hamsher from whom people are flocking. (it’s how I got here.) Let the zietgiest whirl you away to the place you’re
supposed to be. (apologies for the kumbaya tone but really)
Meanwhile, Lily has an opening at 2:00 for therapy. Listen to what she’s saying. (Oops, kumbaya again)
CalD
There’s just not much of market for voices of reason anymore, I guess.
geg6
E & P and Kirkus?
Seriously?
I hate this country. Seriously, I hate it.
Rushin' Roulette
I blame the decline and fall of all media on a few things.
I once read on a blog somewhere a lament that political commentary was never as nasty, venal, biased and full of blatant untruths as it has become over the last thirty years or so. Although politics has always been like a limbo dance – “How low can you go?” I tend to agree it’s gotten nasty. Perhaps some contributing factors were these: Ascendancy of Reagan era Republicans, Knock offs of Rush Limbaugh style commentary (his first all-talk no music radio program was sometime around 1984)
In 1981 Newscorp bought fifty percent of 20th Century Fox and the remaining fifty percent in 1984.
In 1986 Fox Broadcasting was launched. The network made a name for itself by appealing to the lowest common dominator (aside from the Simpsons). Christine Applegate’s bod was the network banner to attract pubescent and pre-pubescent boys for crying out loud. Shirtless drunken and stoned rednecks on COPS?!?!? COP chases?!?!?? Paradise Island!?!?? Joe Millionaire?????? The Littlest Groom?????? Well I’ll close out this rant with a quote from Marge Simpson: “Fox turned into a hardcore porn channel so gradually I didn’t even notice.”
freelancer
@geg6:
In the vein of the US only being capable of sustaining mediocre bullshit, David Cross, Spike Jonze, and Will Arnett have a new comedy show. But it’s only airing in the UK.
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=29887
U.S. Media Decline & Fall
Keith Rupert Murdoch, (US: /ˈruːpərt ˈmɝːdɑːk/; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American media mogul. He is the founder, a major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation (News Corp).
What?
tavella
E&P? Sigh. They were about the only oldline media that called bullshit on the media whores during Bush. And a lot of libraries (and authors) will miss Kirkus.
JK
Terrible body blow to be losing both Editor and Publisher and Kirkus Reviews. Kirkus Reviews is especially depressing, given the fact that newspapers are dropping book reviews left and right. Professional book reviews are becoming an endangered species. The country is dumbing itself down more and more every day.
Dave
My experience is that anyone online who goes by the handle “Face” is a complete dick.
Just sayin’.