New York Times Mag redesign
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 2:34 pm
I have not been able to find a group of on-line rants by people who say "what's up", just articles in other mags that range from respectful to fawning.
OK, I thought something was up a few months ago when they axed features. One axed feature "who made this" was originally in a Boston publication & originally was written by the character in Boston who wrote it there. (Their current bartender column, which they've retained, also originated in a Boston publication & is usually written, as it in in the relaunch, by the Boston barrie who originated it.)
The "One Page Mag" got axed; it was an exercise in snark, & I don't like snark, but somehow I'll miss it nonetheless.
The interview page has been moved to the back page of mag. And its now a respectful interview, instead of the exercise in snark it also used to be. This is an improvement.
They've also done away with a toward-the-back page of opinion, which I miss.
And they've gutted "The Ethicist". I remember the 1st ethicist as actually trying to be an ethicist, though a lot of their personal philosophy got through. Most recent ethicist majored in snark, which I don't like (as I keep saying). But the current "panel of ethicists" has no teeth whatsoever, at least not from the premier column. They're all trying to get to a place of agreement. Maybe how institutional ethics boards really should & do work, but not particularly exciting reading.
I had hopes some day of writing a piece for the "Life" or whatever they called it page at the back of mag. This is in the realm of fantasy thinking, but now its no more, because they've turned this into an "as told to" feature (& moved it to mid-mag). Nope, wanna write my own thingie.
They managed to sell so much advertising for this relaunch that its hard to find your "continued on page whatever" article while wading through the advert sections. Which are of course pictures of your new home in the Bahamas, etc, providing you can afford one. Its like wading through the fashion adverts in Vogue or whatever. Or their own Style mag. Presumably that glut of advertising won't last, much as they'd like it to.
Just a few years ago they restructured to make the mag smaller in size, both content-wise & dimensionally. Which I didn't like either. This restructure is a slap in the face to the people, no longer with the paper, who oversaw that restructure. Paper ain't going to be any lighter for their distributers to distribute now!
While I love the heavier stock paper in theory, I keep fingering it to make sure I'm not holding two pages at once while I do the looking for "continued on page whatever". I guess I will get over that.
One article in the expanded version, by Gary Shteyngart, who locked himself in a fancy hotel for a week while he channeled Russian TV, all of which is awful, of course, is a complete waste. He's a native speaker, so he can translate this & communicate it to us. Big deal.
Otherwise, I welcome that there will be more articles in general.
OK, I thought something was up a few months ago when they axed features. One axed feature "who made this" was originally in a Boston publication & originally was written by the character in Boston who wrote it there. (Their current bartender column, which they've retained, also originated in a Boston publication & is usually written, as it in in the relaunch, by the Boston barrie who originated it.)
The "One Page Mag" got axed; it was an exercise in snark, & I don't like snark, but somehow I'll miss it nonetheless.
The interview page has been moved to the back page of mag. And its now a respectful interview, instead of the exercise in snark it also used to be. This is an improvement.
They've also done away with a toward-the-back page of opinion, which I miss.
And they've gutted "The Ethicist". I remember the 1st ethicist as actually trying to be an ethicist, though a lot of their personal philosophy got through. Most recent ethicist majored in snark, which I don't like (as I keep saying). But the current "panel of ethicists" has no teeth whatsoever, at least not from the premier column. They're all trying to get to a place of agreement. Maybe how institutional ethics boards really should & do work, but not particularly exciting reading.
I had hopes some day of writing a piece for the "Life" or whatever they called it page at the back of mag. This is in the realm of fantasy thinking, but now its no more, because they've turned this into an "as told to" feature (& moved it to mid-mag). Nope, wanna write my own thingie.
They managed to sell so much advertising for this relaunch that its hard to find your "continued on page whatever" article while wading through the advert sections. Which are of course pictures of your new home in the Bahamas, etc, providing you can afford one. Its like wading through the fashion adverts in Vogue or whatever. Or their own Style mag. Presumably that glut of advertising won't last, much as they'd like it to.
Just a few years ago they restructured to make the mag smaller in size, both content-wise & dimensionally. Which I didn't like either. This restructure is a slap in the face to the people, no longer with the paper, who oversaw that restructure. Paper ain't going to be any lighter for their distributers to distribute now!
While I love the heavier stock paper in theory, I keep fingering it to make sure I'm not holding two pages at once while I do the looking for "continued on page whatever". I guess I will get over that.
One article in the expanded version, by Gary Shteyngart, who locked himself in a fancy hotel for a week while he channeled Russian TV, all of which is awful, of course, is a complete waste. He's a native speaker, so he can translate this & communicate it to us. Big deal.
Otherwise, I welcome that there will be more articles in general.