Medianatomy:
Goings On About the Web

The New Yorker finally has a Web site. But the articles and illustrations aren't its most interesting feature.

by Andrew Hearst

February 19, 2001

To mark the launch last week of The New Yorker's first real Web site, here's a story:

In 1993, a couple of years after graduating from college, I finagled my way into a job interview at The New Yorker, the dream workplace of aspiring young Joseph Mitchells and Pauline Kaels everywhere. The job opening was in the word processing department, so a basic requirement for the position was the ability to type at least fifty or sixty words per minute. Despite my inability back then to type more than about thirty words per minute, I was undaunted; right after the human-resources director called to tell me I had the interview, I went out and bought a software program called "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing," and I spent the intervening week frantically honing my touch-typing skills on my PowerBook. I went into the interview believing I had a decent chance of passing the typing test, if not of convincing Tina Brown's deputies that I was the next John McPhee or John Updike.

After a brief conversation about my background, my interests, and my knowledge of literature, including Shakespeare, the department head walked me into the word processing room, which was filled with smart-looking young people typing silently on Macs and talking among themselves. But instead of testing me on one of the computers, the woman escorted me to a small desk, upon which rested a machine that even then was already halfway into the trash heap of outdated technology: an IBM Selectric II. For those of you too young to remember, typing on the huge, bloated, tank-like Selectric II was like trying to do a U-turn in a car that has no power steering.

I was sunk, and I knew it. I realized immediately that I shouldn't have wasted the magazine's time by going in for an interview; even a week's worth of obsessive practicing probably hadn't increased my speed past thirty-five or forty words per minute. Nevertheless, I showed up that day thinking I had nothing to lose, because if I botched the test, my tester would be the only person who would know.

I was wrong. The Selectric II was not only a big, cumbersome beast; it was also extremely noisy. As I began to take the test, my false starts, constant backspacing, and clanging errors ricocheted off the walls of the room, increasing my self-consciousness with every stroke. I started to hear people chuckling. Were they chuckling at me? Probably not, but I wasn't sure. Had I been typing on a computer keyboard, my embarrassment would have been limited to having wasted the poor department head's time. Instead, my haplessness became entertainment for a roomful of superior typists. (Or at least that's what I feared had happened.)

I typed a few words correctly during that test, but once my errors were factored in, I probably scored about five or ten words per minute. I was not surprised when a few weeks went by without a phone call begging me to take the job.

Eight years later, I'm still half convinced I was subjected to some sort of perverse, sadistic hazing ritual that day. In my less paranoid moments, I realize my experience may instead have resulted from something about The New Yorker itself, from some sort of institutional mistrust of technology: Even though all the magazine's word processing took place on computers, the department insisted on testing all job candidates on typewriters, because that was the only way to tell who could really type. After all, hadn't the magazine used typewriters for six decades before all those newfangled Macs showed up?

So it's no surprise that The New Yorker has unveiled its Web site now, in 2001, five or six years after most major publications first went online (or "on-line," as the always quaint New Yorker style sheet would have it). The site contains much, but not all, of the print magazine's contents, as well as a few Web-only essays and interviews. (The prime raison d'etre of a New Yorker Web site--a big archive of classic New Yorker stories--doesn't exist yet, but perhaps it will soon.) The site isn't particularly attractive, but it's not particularly unattractive, either. In fact, it's exactly what you'd expect it to be: Lots and lots of words and pictures. Most of these words and pictures originally appeared on paper, but now they appear on your computer screen. So nothing much to see here, folks--keep moving, keep moving.

Yes, it's true: Reading the stodgy old New Yorker on a computer screen feels a little weird. In the early days of the Web, well-known print magazines jumped online at a furious rate, and we all got used to encountering, say, The New Republic or Entertainment Weekly on the Web for the first time and experiencing mild cognitive dissonance. It's been a while since I've had that feeling. And since The New Yorker is one of the last major magazines to hit the Web, this may be the last time we'll all experience that odd sensation.

But the most interesting aspect of the site is not the editorial content or the design, but the page called Contact Us, which contains more straight facts about the inner workings of The New Yorker than have ever appeared in the print magazine. The page contains the magazine's submission guidelines ("We are happy to consider new contributors, particularly those who are familiar with the magazine"), its writing guidelines ("Do not send your only copy of the work"), and its visuals guidelines ("The Covers, Illustration, and Photography Departments also accept portfolio drop-offs in person, at 4 Times Square, on the following schedule: Covers, addressed to the Covers Editor: Drop off Wednesdays, between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm. Pick up Fridays, between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm"). The page also includes a phone number and an e-mail address for David Kahn, the magazine's publisher, as well as for many other members of the magazine's advertising staff.

For many other magazines, the publication of such information, especially on the Web, would be routine. But for The New Yorker--a magazine that has never published a masthead, and until a few years ago didn't even publish a letters page--the Contact Us page represents a major development indeed. The page is oddly encouraging to outsiders, who may get the mistaken impression that they have more than a minuscule chance of ever having their work plucked from the slush pile and published in the magazine. Though things changed a bit once Tina Brown took over in 1992, the magazine still cloaks its editors behind a veil of anonymity, the better to discourage the general public from contacting them.

Of course, the Web site (and the magazine) still doesn't feature an editorial masthead, so The New Yorker hasn't quite reached the point of encouraging readers to, you know, call or e-mail David Remnick to ask him out to lunch. But you're welcome to try.

__________

Andrew Hearst is a writer and editor who lives in New York. He has written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Newsday, Columbia Journalism Review, and other publications. His typing speed is now at least sixty words per minute.