Last week I went to see guests from The New Yorker speak at a Melbourne Writers Festival event. Editorial director Henry Finder, staff writer David Grann and music critic Sasha Frere Jones discussed the publishing process at the magazine, from brainstorming and pitching stories to the arduous editing procedure employed. What came as a revelation to me was that every piece that makes it to print is drafted on average 17 times, with a team of fact checkers employed to verify every sentence that presents even a hint of proposition. In the age of blogging, Twitter journalism and the imminent death of the news room, the privileging of such meticulous attention to detail is like a mythical unicorn—the stuff of fairytales that no one is quite sure was ever real.
The push to constantly produce material for The Daily Ritual over the last month has been challenging (can you tell?) and a hoot, but now I’m taking a sabbatical in search of long reads and 17 drafts—or at least more than zero. Thanks for the memories. This isn’t have a nice life, more like an amicable farewell and a see you soon sign.
Here is a list of what I will be doing while I’m not contributing to my blob (my friend’s delightful synonym for blog) daily…
Also get better hand writing.
The Daily Ritual 