I am at this moment self-employed as the President/CEO of the newsletter you are reading (subscribe now for only $5/month or $50/year), but in the recent past I was employed as an editor, a job I identified closely with and still sometimes miss.
LOL, I see the tone of "furious editor pretending that the unworkable draft has merit and personally captured their interest" is a shared cross-cultural language
I teach American Dirt in conjunction with the Groff, Gurba, and Sehgal reviews. It's fascinating to see how college students, nearly all of them studying outside the humanities, have a firmer grasp of the text and its surrounding controversy than the former editor of the New York Times Book Review.
Funny that she almost-but-never-quite lands on what we’ve really learned about the phenomenon of “cancellation”: when it happens, it is primarily institutional and/or clique-based (you might not be welcome at public functions for a PR-approved amount of time; you might have to have an uncomfy meeting with earnestly aggrieved employees; audiences do not, however, evaporate), and it’s also a result of New York arts/media people obsessing way out of proportion over what’s happening on Twitter.
“Cancel culture is real” and “no one is ever really canceled” are both true statements, though one’s telephoto and the other’s wide angle. She’s probably too ideologically invested in the former, and too ensconced in the business, to zoom out, but even the most stridently-SJW Gen Y and Zs I know are able to toggle between the two.
As you said, it’d be great to read such a central figure genuinely wrestling with that distinction — hope these edits land on *someone’s* desk :)
Yeah, a blunter editor than I might have said that she's allowing her ongoing obsession with "cultural appropriation" to blind her to any or all of the many interesting things that this specific case would allow us to say about "cancel culture."
On the other hand I think, as you say, that one reason she's allowing herself to be blinded is that in her capacity as the editor of the NYTBR at the time she's implicated in all of the unfortunate things you might observe about elite social cohesion, gatekeeping, dullness, etc. when looking back at this story.
Plus I think it really gets to her that her inadequacy inattentiveness as an editor and reader was revealed by some "small press" Chicana memoirist -- as Molly Fischer's profile revealed Paul is extremely driven by anxiety about exactly this kind of revelation.
I found it very interesting that she noted the book had received rave reviews in traditional media before the controversy was kicked off by a little-known writer on a “minor blog.” The implication seemed to be that this delegitimized the criticism. Personally, I’m delighted by the idea that anyone with access to a blog can theoretically shape literary discourse. Wasn’t this supposed to be the big promise of the internet?
Pamela Paul should appreciate that and be a champion of such leveling, rather than showing she (like other formerly exclusive gatekeepers) feels threatened.
A blunter editor might be what certain columnists need, but a politely catty one is a lot more fun (for the newsletter reader/commenter who’s not getting edited….!)
I don’t know much about Paul (other than absorbing somewhere that she’d been married to Bret Stephens?), and have skimmed past her dully-headlined pieces since they started appearing last year, so I appreciate the context! The kind of inside baseball we used to look for on a certain website………
Oscar nominations came out this week; Crash (2004) and Green Book (2018) won Best Picture despite similar "liberal pieties" hype and corresponding lines of criticism.
Frank Bruni might not appreciate the straying onto his turf, though.
Tactfully editing a piece of crap is an almost impossible job. Kudos for showing how it is done! But then again, I wasn't an "editor" dealing with "writers;" I was a "senior lawyer" with juniors. If time was short, I always had the option of re-doing it myself.
I have a weird soft spot for Helen Mirren in the American 'State of Play,' which is not a great movie and not a particularly realistic depiction of newsrooms on a surface level, but is a lot better than a lot of movies at getting the institutional life of a publication -- the way publication decisions are products of internal contradictions and competing institutional (and political/personal) incentives and desires, rather than some Noble Pursuit of Truth or whatever. Mirren is the right mix of noble/venal/funny/intelligent/annoying/mean.
Well, it's not really very good, except in this one aspect, which is not even a very captivating thing to be good in or about, so I can't, strictly speaking, recommend. I sort of remember the original BBC series on which it's based being better, but not well enough to say for sure.
Besides my comment below about how fantastic this is (and I've been in the biz for a LONG time) a possible typo-related nit to pick: I don't mean to be that person but I don't know how to message you privately with this. I'm doing it because I can see that you care about getting things right.Did you mean to write "Cummins" in this sentence: "Maybe I’m misunderstanding some of the anger about it, but I don’t think WOODSON was writing a “conservative” book, or even a, for lack of a better phrase, politically ambiguous one." You're referring to "American Dirt here, right?" My apologies if I'm misreading.
I love that you haven't thoroughly edited this piece, thus giving us the opportunity to be editors ourselves! This newsletter truly is the whole package.
Well, it's a first pass, traditionally what happens next is the writer ignores me, files a second draft late, I take a more aggressive second pass, and then I just rewrite most of it just before it closes
This piece is terrific, but I do have one editing question, since it's been a while since I had to edit editorial copy: Did AP Style update its guidelines re "presently," as in your opening sentence? Last I remember, it was OK to use "presently" to mean "soon" but not "currently." Did that change?
Seriously, though, has the NYT op-ed page ever edited for facts, logic, consistency, and unsupported assertions, as you did here? I get the sense they just run everything through spellcheck and call it a day.
Such savvy suggestions for adding timely relevance and, especially, "behind-the-scenes editorial decision-making."
I'd have been "absolutely fascinated to hear more about [her] feelings about the book, those reviews, and your memories of how people in publishing were reacting."
I read the op-ed when posted a day before it appeared in print, and definitely would've appreciated your approach more than the version "simply recounting the events passively/neutrally." A missed opportunity , certainly.
Oh, I adore this as an analysis tool in general. Would love to see editors notes on every article / op-ed / etc I read, if they’re anything like this! It’s fascinating on a few different levels. very cool! I’m broke but still subscribed haha
After reading Paul’s piece, I spent a week feeling grumpy and angry until I found yours. You are my hero. So very Jane Austen-like. Thank you for taking the time to perfectly deconstruct the idiocy and give Paul a lesson she’ll never forget. You know she’s read this!
Between this, and Molly White's annotation/evisceration of Sam Bankman-Fried's recent FTX blog [https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/sbf-ftx-pre-mortem-overview], it feels like we're entering a real golden public-editors-taking-an-unrequested-red-pencil-to-bad-writing era.
LOL, I see the tone of "furious editor pretending that the unworkable draft has merit and personally captured their interest" is a shared cross-cultural language
I wonder if this is more "furious editor pretending that wholly untalented hack has any business writing for the NYT."
I teach American Dirt in conjunction with the Groff, Gurba, and Sehgal reviews. It's fascinating to see how college students, nearly all of them studying outside the humanities, have a firmer grasp of the text and its surrounding controversy than the former editor of the New York Times Book Review.
now this is blogging, baby!
Funny that she almost-but-never-quite lands on what we’ve really learned about the phenomenon of “cancellation”: when it happens, it is primarily institutional and/or clique-based (you might not be welcome at public functions for a PR-approved amount of time; you might have to have an uncomfy meeting with earnestly aggrieved employees; audiences do not, however, evaporate), and it’s also a result of New York arts/media people obsessing way out of proportion over what’s happening on Twitter.
“Cancel culture is real” and “no one is ever really canceled” are both true statements, though one’s telephoto and the other’s wide angle. She’s probably too ideologically invested in the former, and too ensconced in the business, to zoom out, but even the most stridently-SJW Gen Y and Zs I know are able to toggle between the two.
As you said, it’d be great to read such a central figure genuinely wrestling with that distinction — hope these edits land on *someone’s* desk :)
Yeah, a blunter editor than I might have said that she's allowing her ongoing obsession with "cultural appropriation" to blind her to any or all of the many interesting things that this specific case would allow us to say about "cancel culture."
On the other hand I think, as you say, that one reason she's allowing herself to be blinded is that in her capacity as the editor of the NYTBR at the time she's implicated in all of the unfortunate things you might observe about elite social cohesion, gatekeeping, dullness, etc. when looking back at this story.
Plus I think it really gets to her that her inadequacy inattentiveness as an editor and reader was revealed by some "small press" Chicana memoirist -- as Molly Fischer's profile revealed Paul is extremely driven by anxiety about exactly this kind of revelation.
I found it very interesting that she noted the book had received rave reviews in traditional media before the controversy was kicked off by a little-known writer on a “minor blog.” The implication seemed to be that this delegitimized the criticism. Personally, I’m delighted by the idea that anyone with access to a blog can theoretically shape literary discourse. Wasn’t this supposed to be the big promise of the internet?
B - I - N - G - O ! Yes, exactly.
Pamela Paul should appreciate that and be a champion of such leveling, rather than showing she (like other formerly exclusive gatekeepers) feels threatened.
A blunter editor might be what certain columnists need, but a politely catty one is a lot more fun (for the newsletter reader/commenter who’s not getting edited….!)
I don’t know much about Paul (other than absorbing somewhere that she’d been married to Bret Stephens?), and have skimmed past her dully-headlined pieces since they started appearing last year, so I appreciate the context! The kind of inside baseball we used to look for on a certain website………
Free idea for a timely peg:
Oscar nominations came out this week; Crash (2004) and Green Book (2018) won Best Picture despite similar "liberal pieties" hype and corresponding lines of criticism.
Frank Bruni might not appreciate the straying onto his turf, though.
See, we don't even need an intern, we've got commenter sam!
Tactfully editing a piece of crap is an almost impossible job. Kudos for showing how it is done! But then again, I wasn't an "editor" dealing with "writers;" I was a "senior lawyer" with juniors. If time was short, I always had the option of re-doing it myself.
Who is your favorite editor as depicted in fiction?
Also, please know that no premise is too stupid for us, your inexplicably loyal readership.
I have a weird soft spot for Helen Mirren in the American 'State of Play,' which is not a great movie and not a particularly realistic depiction of newsrooms on a surface level, but is a lot better than a lot of movies at getting the institutional life of a publication -- the way publication decisions are products of internal contradictions and competing institutional (and political/personal) incentives and desires, rather than some Noble Pursuit of Truth or whatever. Mirren is the right mix of noble/venal/funny/intelligent/annoying/mean.
I've fallen asleep during that movie at least 3x. Maybe I'll give it another try!
Well, it's not really very good, except in this one aspect, which is not even a very captivating thing to be good in or about, so I can't, strictly speaking, recommend. I sort of remember the original BBC series on which it's based being better, but not well enough to say for sure.
Besides my comment below about how fantastic this is (and I've been in the biz for a LONG time) a possible typo-related nit to pick: I don't mean to be that person but I don't know how to message you privately with this. I'm doing it because I can see that you care about getting things right.Did you mean to write "Cummins" in this sentence: "Maybe I’m misunderstanding some of the anger about it, but I don’t think WOODSON was writing a “conservative” book, or even a, for lack of a better phrase, politically ambiguous one." You're referring to "American Dirt here, right?" My apologies if I'm misreading.
I did mean Cummins!! Thank you for pointing that out; where would we be without editors?
You're welcome!
This should get at least two Pulitzers
I love that you haven't thoroughly edited this piece, thus giving us the opportunity to be editors ourselves! This newsletter truly is the whole package.
Well, it's a first pass, traditionally what happens next is the writer ignores me, files a second draft late, I take a more aggressive second pass, and then I just rewrite most of it just before it closes
yes this piece desperately needed an editor. couldn't tell if the author was too self aware of that fact or completely unaware
This piece is terrific, but I do have one editing question, since it's been a while since I had to edit editorial copy: Did AP Style update its guidelines re "presently," as in your opening sentence? Last I remember, it was OK to use "presently" to mean "soon" but not "currently." Did that change?
Haha, I don't know; we follow our own unique style guide here at Read Max.
Fair enough.
Seriously, though, has the NYT op-ed page ever edited for facts, logic, consistency, and unsupported assertions, as you did here? I get the sense they just run everything through spellcheck and call it a day.
Such savvy suggestions for adding timely relevance and, especially, "behind-the-scenes editorial decision-making."
I'd have been "absolutely fascinated to hear more about [her] feelings about the book, those reviews, and your memories of how people in publishing were reacting."
I read the op-ed when posted a day before it appeared in print, and definitely would've appreciated your approach more than the version "simply recounting the events passively/neutrally." A missed opportunity , certainly.
Brutal! Wonderful and brutal!
Oh, I adore this as an analysis tool in general. Would love to see editors notes on every article / op-ed / etc I read, if they’re anything like this! It’s fascinating on a few different levels. very cool! I’m broke but still subscribed haha
After reading Paul’s piece, I spent a week feeling grumpy and angry until I found yours. You are my hero. So very Jane Austen-like. Thank you for taking the time to perfectly deconstruct the idiocy and give Paul a lesson she’ll never forget. You know she’s read this!
Between this, and Molly White's annotation/evisceration of Sam Bankman-Fried's recent FTX blog [https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/sbf-ftx-pre-mortem-overview], it feels like we're entering a real golden public-editors-taking-an-unrequested-red-pencil-to-bad-writing era.