Heath Ledger couldn’t have timed it worst. Not only did he have a young child and a promising career, but he died on a Tuesday. A Tuesday! Did he even consider the editorial calendars of tabloids when he took all that Ambien? Probably not.
Along with People, Entertainment Weekly’s Tuesday close put them in the unique position to be able to literally cover Ledger’s death. Their next issue (a collector's item!) will be a “Special Tribute” to his career.
Meanwhile, Slate asks the tough questions, like was Ledger dreaming before he died? Despite all that funding from the Washington Post Co., Slate was not in fact able to get into his subconscious: “Someone who overdoses on sleeping pills probably won't have a dream before he dies, but it's not out of the question.”
Man, it’s going to be a long ten days until that new toxicology report comes out.
It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which means the online magazines, in addition to everyone else, are in an all-out war to out-black each other. Except here, the result – a healthy discussion about race in America, not a discussion about lynching – might actually be worth your time.
On Slate.com, we've got the first of three excerpts from Richard Thompson Ford's The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, where Ford "sets the stage with the 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, in an effort to determine whether and in which ways his detractors were truly racists."
And over on Salon.com? Wise words from N-Word author Randall Kennedy on … Clarence Thomas.
Stay tuned for February, when Black History Month offers a full 28 days of this.
You're probably better off if you didn't know that Tabitha Soren, the SuChin Pak of the 90s, is married to Michael Lewis. But they are married, have three kids and live in California.
We find this all unbelievably intriguing since we grew up with MTV news and Lewis's book, Liar's Poker is the only thing we can talk about with bankers.
And lucky for us, Lewis likes to write about their personal life for Slate. At Tab's request, he recently got a vasectomy:
My wife wanted me to be here, and it seemed too transparently selfish to refuse. She'd endured three pregnancies, suffered the pain and indignity of three childbirths, changed most of the diapers, gotten up most of the mornings, and, on top of it all, given me the leisure to write many articles complaining about the inconveniences of fatherhood. The time had come for daddy to take one for the team.
Lesson: Michael Lewis is the ultimate team player, though he admits to some trepidation about having a stranger shave his balls. Weird. More importantly, what did Tabitha make Kurt Loder do back in their Week-In-Rock days?
Famous blogger and personal friend, Chris Beam, appeared on The Colbert Report last night. The best part is when they Photoshop Chris's beard onto John Edwards. You can't hire and compensate writers fairly for comedy like that.
So Chris Beam, a friend from college, is going to be on the Colbert Report tonight. Awesome for Chris!
He's really charming, and he even writes this neat blog for Slate on the campaign called TrailHead. But, after watching the above clip from a writerless Colbert Report last night, we think his appearance may have something to do with the strike. Just putting that out there.
GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM A freelance journalist from New Hampshire got his five-month baby photographed with every presidential candidate except Mike Gravel, who was deemed “too creepy.” That sentiment isn’t too dissimilar to our feelings about this project. [Slate]
Hey, guess what’s starting to seem a lot like high school? The New York Times’s fight with the World Health Organization.
For those who haven’t been following (for shame), the New York Times published a 60-word summary of a WHO report on measles. But in so doing, accidentally broke the WHO’s embargo on the study.
So the WHO bitch-slapped the Times with a two-week suspension from their media list. It was sort of like when the unpopular girl your only friends with because you’ve known her forever tells you she’s not inviting you to her party because you didn’t talk to her in gym, and in your head, you’re like, “sweet, that party was going to sa-uck.”
CONTINUED »
Yesterday, Franklin Foer kept it real with himself and New Republic readers and admitted that the Baghdad Diarist was on the Stephen Glass side of truth.
And it wouldn’t be a real media controversy without Jack Shafer weighing in. His opinion? The New Republic took a chance on a young, embedded reporter, BFD:
The take-home lesson of Beauchamp isn't that young or novice writers should never be given a chance. … Experienced writers whose lengthy résumés include awards and credentials can swindle their editors every bit as fast as a kid.
Just goes to shows that Jack Shafer is unafraid of taking risks or using bold. That’s just the kind of editor he is.
Is email the new telegraph? With the pre-pubescent set using twitter, IM and Facebook instead of email, the tech folks at Slate think the electronic letter is dying.
Of course, Slate’s deck head for technology articles is “The Future And What To Do About It,” which seems excessively foreboding.
The point is that teenagers, who mind you, are the future, don’t have the patience for e-mail.
CONTINUED »
Don't pity the poor pitiful striking screenwriters—let the major daily newspapers do it for you.Perhaps not since the air traffic controllers' strike of 1981 has the big press lavished such intense and generally sympathetic coverage on a labor dispute. Both the Washington Post ("it hasn't been easy for movie writers") and the New York Times ("my greed is fair and reasonable") have run op-eds by screenwriters demanding that the entertainment industry compensate Writers Guild of America members for digital use of their work on the Web, iPods, cell phones, etc., the sticking point of this strike.
Given the number of stories it has run on the clash, the Los Angeles Times must think the Writers Guild strike is to it as Hurricane Katrina was to the Times-Picayune.
–Jack Shafer can't help but notice that the purportedly objective mainstream media is unequivocally siding with the writers. [Slate]
Think Jann Wenner's got a bum rep? Think again. This "highlight" (taken from an interview with Norman Pearlstine) reminds us why the narcissistic publishing maven was our favorite Halloween costume of 2007.
Speaking about the pool of young talent: [Wenner] didn't see an "Internet brain drain" because young people apparently face the choice between working for either "Salon or Slate, or for a magazine with a major and meaningful audience."
Either that or they just get pigeonholed into working for Rolling Stone.
From hiring Dan Patrick to its investigative pieces to its covers to its Web site, Sports Illustrated is not such a great magazine these days. Competing with ESPN and the rest of the Internet has led Sports Illustrated to abandon its original mission of curious, informed sports reporting on a range of subjects. Also, they passed over Roger Federer for Sportsman of the Year. The indignity! [Slate]
Freelancers, rejoice: Slate is set to launch a new business site as early as next summer.
Following in the steps of Portfolio and Fox Business News, Slate sees an opening in the crowded business news market. The project is still waiting final authorization, but Slate already offered the head job to Elizabeth Spiers. She turned down the position; maybe she is also tired of seeing her name attached to big web launches.
CONTINUED »
Hey ABC and Slate, welcome to the party! Both news outlets are reporting today that Stephen Colbert’s relationship with Comedy Central breaks FEC laws. That story was interesting somewhere around last week.
So in review, again: The Colbert Report counts as a very large campaign contribution from Viacom to the Colbert campaign in the form of screen time. This breaks FEC law that prohibits corporations from making "any contribution or expenditure in connection with a federal election."
But even if Colbert has made the 2008 election more fun, campaign finance laws are still boring. Nice try, though.
Think you nerdy writer types can be as (cough) funny as the intrepid comedy writers over at SNL? Well, Slate V. is giving you a chance to prove it.
A good friend once described the New Yorker’s approach to news as such: “News isn’t reported in the New Yorker; the news is that it’s in the New Yorker.”
The same could be said for Slate. As one of the oldest online-only news sources that puts a premium on good writing, Slate has never claimed to be a “get it first” source. The main feature usually updates just once a day, which is a glacial pace online.
So along with “bucking conventional wisdom,” Slate writers often just write about whatever interests them, no news peg required.
CONTINUED »
Have you ever wanted to write for Slate? Well, getting published is simple. All you need to do is follow these simple steps:
1. Take conventional wisdom.
2. Prove why it’s wrong.
3. Add a dash of pop culture references for good measure.
Take Kent Sepkowitz’s piece on E. coli today. Conventional wisdom would say that shit in food is what makes Americans sick. But what if shit not in our food is what makes us sick?
Although we can’t seem to shake the nasty habit of writing in the royal we, occasionally one of our editors decides to shake off the cloak of anonymity to write a short, pithy statement long, rambling diatribe about a topic of their choice. Today, Debbie Newman is that editor.
Earlier, we told you how Jack Shafer ranted and raved about Fark founder Drew Curtis' new book ("It's Not News, It's Fark") praising Curtis for raising critical awareness while carefully making sure to use the word "Fark" as often as humanly possible. And while the sometimes-verbose Slate editor had a fair amount to say, we believe the following excerpt accurately sums up Shafer's opinion of the book's most provocative contribution.
Instead of urging journalists to raise their standards—the typical tack taken by the press-guardian-industrial complex—Curtis puts the onus on readers, insisting that they become better news consumers.
'Interesting!' we thought. 'Now, suddenly, it's the readers' responsibility to separate fact from fiction and make sense of their agenda-fueled morning newspapers, all without spilling piping hot coffee all over themselves* on their morning subway commute!'
1.) Sure.
2.) Because old people are gross.
3.) Nah.
4.) Are you really asking that?
We didn't think it was possible, but these questions have made us long for the rhetorical gems of Carrie Bradshaw. Thankfully, we hear they're up to something about that now.
Chris Beam, part of the duo that put out IvyGate, is now running Slate's new campaign blog, Trailhead.
The Columbia ’06 wunderkind co-wrote an infograph for the New York Times Book Review (PDF) last week with his dad, a columnist at the Boston Globe.
Who would have guessed that an Ivy League education and family connections would pay off?
