Feral Beast: The editor who used his book pitch as a cover story in the name of Mandela

Thursday, July 24, 2008

The editor who used his book pitch as a cover story in the name of Mandela

Time magazine's top editor, Rick Stengel, wrote a big cover story the other week, in honor of Nelson Mandela and his leadership style. Fair enough, the Nobel peace prize laureate was just feted in London with an AIDS benefit concert for his 90th birthday, and Stengel had helped collaborate on the great man's autobiography (in the mid-90s, ie last century.) He was on all the talk shows peddling the Mandela name and the special issue. He left out the little bit of news he was sitting on.
It turns out that Rick has more to say. The cover story was also his book proposal, and a day after the issue was out on the stands, Crown publishers gave the editor a huge advance and a contract to produce a new Mandela tome. Slick. But kinda exploitative.
It's said that some of the proceeds will go towards charity. We'll see. Something about this guy screams ethically challenged. Prove us wrong, Rick.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Why isn't there a mutiny? Or is it corporate cowardice now that the axes are chopping. (They should chop from the top!); July 26, 2008 at 6:30 AM

Feral Beast? Try Lemming

If the press were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? I’ve got my answer. A legion of lemmings, furry and well-intentioned, but ultimately condemned by their nature to follow each other mindlessly off a tall cliff, over the Paris Hilton peak or into the Invade Iraq crevasse. The words “feral beast” certainly wouldn’t come to mind. It’s not particularly accurate or particularly evocative. But that is how the departing British prime minister, Tony Blair, sees journalists: as malicious tormentors who have tried to tear him limb from limb.

--Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review

“Journalism is a form of cartography,” write Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach of Pew. “It creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.”

"Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems." Adapted from David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Retrospective : five decades of journalism as reported by CJR

Fake AP Stylebook reminds us: Unless you're doing a story on the Muppets, you are not a gonzo journalist.

"The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk." Poynter Institute, advocating a broader definition of who is a journalist.