You don't seem to have a general mailbox so I don't know where else to put this but please, please please use one of your platforms to give us your thoughts (even brief) on Julie Powell.
I'm particularly interested in her fascinating career trajectory:
-Initially obscure early 2000's blogger
-major publisher book contract
-debut book hits best seller list
-movie adaptation starring Meryl Streep
-a second book (I presume with a huge advance) that represents a dramatic stylistic departure from her debut book/blogs and subsequently "underperforms"
Thanks for the suggestion. I was shocked to see that she'd died, but I actually don't know much about her career other than the Nora Ephron movie. But maybe that's exactly your point.
Your last sentence is absolutely correct. I only knew about Powell because the obituary showed up in my Google news feed. (I vaguely recall hearing about the movie but had no clue it was based on real-life memoirs). The story resonated with me primarily because it reminded me so much of your recent musings on the life of the professional freelance writer.
What I'm looking for from you is some more general insight about the modern publishing industry:
are one-hit wonders like Powell very common?
are people still getting contracts based solely on their popular online publications?
does the industry chew people up and spit them out?
how different is the industry than when you started in the 1990's?
Any insight you have is greatly appreciated.
I know you said the retreat was off the record but I would love to see a general summary that omits any personally identifying information.
Nice discussion under tough circumstances (trying to interview three highly-opinionated people at one time - it reminded me a bit of the 5th Column).
I'm grateful that before the show you issued a disclaimer that you did not have time to push back on some of their comments. Otherwise I would have been enraged that you didn't challenge Virginia Heffernan to define ideas that are "anti-democratic" and "fascist." (around the 54 minute mark).
She reminded me of the leftists who want to moderate social media content that allegedly advocates "disinformation". (Like that eccentric woman with the children's songs who was supposed to lead that Orwellian Ministry of Truth in the Department of Homeland Security).
I knew that would drive you guys crazy. But honestly that kind of thing would have derailed the whole conversation, and we only had an hour. I'm sure they'll argue with each other plenty, so I hope you'll check out their pod.
Cool interview and awesome that they started a podcast where free and open speech and disagreement can flourish!
I do have to fervently disagree with Virginia on her claim that the NYT mostly gets it right. The Central Park Karen incident, for example, turned out to be bullshit. (Listen to Kmele Foster demolish this one on Bari Weiss’s Commonsense.) Also what about the black dude who killed 6 people in that parade in Milwaukee? NYT reported on it very briefly and then poof; it was gone. (Cuts against the hard left narrative.) What about all the Woke op-eds? What about how the 2020 BLM protests were covered? I mean cmon: are you really going to claim that the NYT didn’t try incredibly obviously to shape public opinion? You really thought they were fair, honest, balanced? To the credit of NYT, very few other major outlets were balanced either. And NYT did take on John McWhorter later, etc.
About a week before the election, Nate Silver tweeted that Trump had about as much chance of winning as the Cub had of coming back from 3-1 to win the World Series -- something that had literally *just happened* -- so it's not like the data folks at the NYT were totally oblivious. Here's a Vox post about it from right before the election: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/3/13147678/nate-silver-fivethirtyeight-trump-forecast
A few weeks before the election the Denver NPR affiliate did a series of interviews with likely voters. One of them was a Republican and she said that she got most of here news from Russia Today, which she described as presenting "what's really going on" that the media doesn't report.
Left/Right/Center is a three handed political point of view broadcast (not podcast, of course) that pre-dated Not Even Mad!
Good show yours!
I know! I was thinking about LR&C the whole time but didn't want to public radio-splain.
Meghan,
You don't seem to have a general mailbox so I don't know where else to put this but please, please please use one of your platforms to give us your thoughts (even brief) on Julie Powell.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/entertainment/julie-powell-obit/index.html
I'm particularly interested in her fascinating career trajectory:
-Initially obscure early 2000's blogger
-major publisher book contract
-debut book hits best seller list
-movie adaptation starring Meryl Streep
-a second book (I presume with a huge advance) that represents a dramatic stylistic departure from her debut book/blogs and subsequently "underperforms"
-no more books for the last 12+ years of her life
-somewhat obscure Twitter poster
Thanks for the suggestion. I was shocked to see that she'd died, but I actually don't know much about her career other than the Nora Ephron movie. But maybe that's exactly your point.
Your last sentence is absolutely correct. I only knew about Powell because the obituary showed up in my Google news feed. (I vaguely recall hearing about the movie but had no clue it was based on real-life memoirs). The story resonated with me primarily because it reminded me so much of your recent musings on the life of the professional freelance writer.
What I'm looking for from you is some more general insight about the modern publishing industry:
are one-hit wonders like Powell very common?
are people still getting contracts based solely on their popular online publications?
does the industry chew people up and spit them out?
how different is the industry than when you started in the 1990's?
Any insight you have is greatly appreciated.
I know you said the retreat was off the record but I would love to see a general summary that omits any personally identifying information.
Posted without comment. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/business/media/molly-jong-fast-politics-twitter.html?smid=tw-share
Nice discussion under tough circumstances (trying to interview three highly-opinionated people at one time - it reminded me a bit of the 5th Column).
I'm grateful that before the show you issued a disclaimer that you did not have time to push back on some of their comments. Otherwise I would have been enraged that you didn't challenge Virginia Heffernan to define ideas that are "anti-democratic" and "fascist." (around the 54 minute mark).
She reminded me of the leftists who want to moderate social media content that allegedly advocates "disinformation". (Like that eccentric woman with the children's songs who was supposed to lead that Orwellian Ministry of Truth in the Department of Homeland Security).
I knew that would drive you guys crazy. But honestly that kind of thing would have derailed the whole conversation, and we only had an hour. I'm sure they'll argue with each other plenty, so I hope you'll check out their pod.
Cool interview and awesome that they started a podcast where free and open speech and disagreement can flourish!
I do have to fervently disagree with Virginia on her claim that the NYT mostly gets it right. The Central Park Karen incident, for example, turned out to be bullshit. (Listen to Kmele Foster demolish this one on Bari Weiss’s Commonsense.) Also what about the black dude who killed 6 people in that parade in Milwaukee? NYT reported on it very briefly and then poof; it was gone. (Cuts against the hard left narrative.) What about all the Woke op-eds? What about how the 2020 BLM protests were covered? I mean cmon: are you really going to claim that the NYT didn’t try incredibly obviously to shape public opinion? You really thought they were fair, honest, balanced? To the credit of NYT, very few other major outlets were balanced either. And NYT did take on John McWhorter later, etc.
I appreciated the podcast. The conversation around the use of queer was most helpful. Thank you once again.
Two quick thoughts about the 2016 election
About a week before the election, Nate Silver tweeted that Trump had about as much chance of winning as the Cub had of coming back from 3-1 to win the World Series -- something that had literally *just happened* -- so it's not like the data folks at the NYT were totally oblivious. Here's a Vox post about it from right before the election: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/3/13147678/nate-silver-fivethirtyeight-trump-forecast
A few weeks before the election the Denver NPR affiliate did a series of interviews with likely voters. One of them was a Republican and she said that she got most of here news from Russia Today, which she described as presenting "what's really going on" that the media doesn't report.