Of all the magazines I have explored, the one I will never again read is The New Yorker. It had so little substance that even Marie Claire magazine would be more profound.

For instance,  in the September issue,  there was a long article on the subversive collective Anonymous that has spread to many countries of the world (including Russia where the Russian Anonymouses have done some really cool stuff). One would think this is a subject even a very bad journalist can’t spoil. The New Yorker magazine,  however,  reduced the whole global movement to the boring story of some aging gentleman who is not even known to the movement’s activists worldwide. In fact, the global dimension of Anonymous hardly receives any attention in the article.

I did derive some value from the article on slavery in Mauritania that appeared in the same issue of The New Yorker but it has the same problem as the rest of the pieces: every phenomenon under discussion is reduced to the tear-jerking life story of an individual. There are never any conclusions. It’s all “here is a person with a story. Make what you will of it.”

Bye bye, New Yorker.

8 responses to “Magazine Digest: The New Yorker”

  1. musteryou Avatar

    I feel that we collectively may be pulling out of the fluffiness of inoffensive writing and idiocy. I sense something new in the air. I think we had a period of time of pulling down the old authoritative matrix and then there was fluffiness, but now it is time for something new.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      I think you are right. Out of all the magazines I’ve explored, this is the only one else that stood out for its fluffiness. I tried this same experiment 10-12 years ago and there was nothing but fluff in any of them.

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      1. musteryou Avatar

        Well I get the impression that people may be able to break from the old paradigms a bit and think in terms of some of the newer ideas I have been discussing. I know the old guard were very much against my very serious ideas that combat the narrowing of the character structure through authoritarian training, but now some people are starting to express an interest.

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      2. Jones Avatar
        Jones

        As you like it …

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/monitoring/services

        The Beeb will for a considerable fee customise the news you receive.

        It’s almost like having politicians in little boxes — it’s very handy.

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    2. aglaonika Avatar
      aglaonika

      Why? The New Yorker is an excellent tabloid that makes a really good PR to its readers. In fact the only tabloid I dare admit I read without risking my intellectual image. It’s great that most people think it’s about something sensible.

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      1. musteryou Avatar

        My favorite tabloid is the Daily Sun

        http://dailysun.mobi/news

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      2. bg Avatar
        bg

        musteryou

        ;-D

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  2. Jones Avatar
    Jones

    I’m surprised you could Douthat.

    Haw haw haw. 🙂

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