Some left-leaving magazines may be in turmoil, but the scrappy publication that broke the Mitt Romney 47% story is doing well with a formula that relies on investigative reporting, social media, and a strong donor base, Lucia Moses writes: "Under co-editors Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein, who took the helm in late 2006, Mother Jones has tripled its editorial staff to 45, raked in 12 National Magazine Award nominations (including three wins) and gone into the black."
Science writing news
Every school day, students at Carlsbad High tune in their classroom televisions to a news show produced by its award-winning broadcast journalism program. But no one expected the kind of attention that has lately muzzled one of its most acclaimed works — a short documentary produced by an extracurricular offshoot of the program. The movie, “Invisible Threat,” bills itself as a report on “the science of disease and the risks facing a society that is under-vaccinated.”
Starting August 30, at the request of his British publisher, David Quammen pulled information on the Ebola virus from his 2012 book, SPILLOVER, edited and rearranged it, and added a new introduction and epilogue to address 2014 events. The result is a concise Ebola information resource for citizens, media professionals, and public officials. “I hadn’t imagined, months earlier,” Quammen writes, “that it was physically possible to shape, print, and publish a book so quickly.”
When Rolling Stone ran a now-discredited story on campus rape and New York followed with one about a supposed teenage multimillionaire, Rona Kobell thought back to her own early experience with a source who spun a fanciful resume. What she learned: "People lie to reporters. They tell a lot of little lies, and sometimes they tell big lies. They claim degrees that they never earned and jobs they never held. They lie to their friends, and they lie to themselves."
Fast Company's Reyhan Harmanci thinks that editors who rely on freelancers are shortchanging themselves and their readers, because staff writers are more reliable and do better work: "As an editor, when I want to assign a breaking story, I look around to staff. It doesn’t seem fair to pay someone $200 for a post but then demand it be fast and good." Randy Dotinga, president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, begs to differ.
Chris Ip surveys the longform market and concludes that many of the new web-based markets for lengthy non-fiction storytelling are unlikely to survive for much longer: "As barriers to entry to participate in what was once the preserve of high profile career journalists have been obliterated, narratives several thousand words long hit the Web daily. The market is flooded with longform producers, even as the model for how to succeed is still yet to be cracked."
Scientific American announced this week that it is terminating many of its blogs and has new guidelines for those that remain. Tabitha M. Powledge considers what this means for blogs in general: "SciAm’s quite reasonable rationale is that it’s a news outlet and so its standards must differ. Does that mean we can expect that blogs (at least blogs associated with Serious Publications) will, inevitably, turn into columns?" Also, some lists of 2014's best science stories.
Sven Birkerts recounts the frightening moment when the muse abandoned him — and the relief he felt when it finally returned on an afternoon in Central Park: "The matter sounds so simple. All of a sudden, I found myself wanting to write sentences again and, when I did, it felt to me like the rains had finally come, stirring up life in the dry land. I don’t know if I even shifted in my place, but whatever it was has since brought something back that had gone missing."
NASW members are reminded that the IRS takes a dim view of freelance writers and other self-employed individuals who miss deadlines for filing federal tax returns or the due dates for making estimated tax payments. Miss just one, says the IRS, and it might exact a sizable, nondeductible penalty, which is based on the agency’s current interest rate for back taxes.