Bloggasm

UPDATED

You can’t come across an article on journalist Malcolm Gladwell that doesn’t mention the fact that he regularly gets booked for incredibly lucrative speaking gigs, being paid as much as $80,000 for a single speech. Given how pricey these gigs are, it goes without saying that many of his clients are high powered corporations that are hoping that he will instill some bit of profitable knowledge in their employees.

I haven’t been to any of his speeches in person, but I have seen several recordings of them. What I’ve consistently noticed is that he often mines his research that he conducted for his books and regurgitates — effectively, in my opinion — this information in his speech.

This is all perfectly fine, but it does make me skeptical when I read New Yorker articles by him that seem like they’re specifically tailored toward corporate clients. Take his most recent piece, “Most Likely to Succeed.” Or rather, check out the tag line: “How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job?”

Granted, most of the article focuses on the problems with hiring NFL quarterbacks and teachers, but Gladwell can’t help but weave these issues into the wider umbrella of company hiring in general. You know where I’m going with this; how long before we see Gladwell showing up in front of corporate clients, lecturing them on the science behind best hiring practices?

I can’t help but wonder if this question is always running through his head right before he considers embarking on a long journey of article/book research. What kind of return can I get on this? Would this appeal to audiences? More importantly, what came first: The chicken or the egg? The New Yorker article or the speaking gig?

UPDATE: I’m reminded in the comments that Gladwell has somewhat addressed this issue on his website

Two related pieces of bad news:

Dozens Laid Off At CondeNet

Conde Nast has laid off dozens of people today from CondeNet, the company’s internet division. We hear from one source that 60 people were let go this morning, most in tech, some in marketing. We also hear that an additional 20 staffers were fired from “Conde Connect,” the company’s internal intranet division. Conde itself hasn’t released specific numbers, but these are part of the 5% across-the-board cuts the company ordered two weeks ago.

And:

Digital dealmaker and a dozen others out at Wired:

A quarter of the 50-something employees in Wired.com’s San Francisco newsroom are gone, a source tells us — and with them, the bubbly delusion that Wired would not just report on the transformation of media by technology, but be a part of the revolution as well. The cuts hit Wired’s tech team heavily, though some writers and editors also got pink slips. (CNET reports that 3 out of 28 editorial staffers are gone, but a Wired insider says that the actual number of edit jobs cut is at least six.)

I’ve been pretty apathetic about most the announced cuts in the journalism industry, but it sucks when a company you admire has to go through it. Plus I guess many of us probably hoped that Wired was a publication that had “figured it out” and may lead the way to journalism’s salvation.

Empty Nast Syndrome: Condé Nast Cutting Five Percent of All Magazine Staffs

According to the article, The New Yorker will not be spared in this.

The New Yorker, easily one of the top five most important journalist institutions in the US.

I think it’s time to stop putting off renewing my subscription.

via gary

I was amazed by the beautiful, detailed photography work that went into this month’s The Atlantic. They ran a photo of John McCain and it’s just incredibly cool what they were able to do with his skin.

It turns out afterwards, however, the photographer who was hired to do that shoot then took those pictures, altered them, and then placed them on her website. This has resulted in the magazine’s editor having to issue an apology to the McCain campaign.

Now there’s no doubt that what this woman did was unprofessional. But it also makes me wonder about the relationship between a freelancer and a publisher; should The Atlantic have to apologize on her behalf?

Can we have an awards ceremony specifically for Best Craigslist Ads?

Sigh. I knew I should have stayed in advertising.

So really, I was assigned a story for a (non-smut) mag to watch and rate two people having sex. None of my friends will do it–and I don’t think I’d want to see that anyway–so here I am, trolling Craigslist’s casual encounters with the hopes of finding a normal, heterosexual couple who would be willing to get it on in front of me.

The couple will be completely anonymous in the story (unless they WANT to be ID’d/photographed), and I will not be participating nor doing this to get my rocks off. After all, I am a professional journalist…who isn’t paid nearly enough.

Ideally, you and your partner will be somewhat new to boffing each other and not total exhibitionists, although at this point, I’ll take what I can get. Also, I’m looking to set this up for Monday or Tuesday night, if possible. And I WILL expect to meet somewhere in public first, so I can rule out whether you’re the kind of people who might want to chain me up in your rape room and anally violate me with my tape recorder. (Please don’t be.)

So wanna screw in front of a reporter? Holler.

From an actual profile of actress Julianne Moore:

As Moore swirls a bit of her sunny-side-up yolks, the yellow combines with the richness of the light on her mass of auburn curls and reminds me of the colors so favored by artist Vincent van Gogh. As in his landscapes, there is an earthy yet ethereal quality to Moore.

Is there a magazine version of the Razzies?