May 3, 2024, 3:20pm
If you haven’t read yesterday’s New York Magazine piece about the former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief and recently hired chief creative and content officer at The Daily Beast, I highly recommend it. It seems that the media industry, having tried pivoting to video, hedge funds, newsletters, and union busting, is back to rage-bait listicles. My favorite tidbit from the piece is that “according to another staffer, Coles proposed a list of ‘the five most obese members of Congress.’ The piece wasn’t assigned.” (A close second was the fact that Coles “assigned the politics team to reach out to gastroenterologists about whether the emissions were ‘stress farts or sleep farts.’”)
Given that I have a vested interest in the State of Media, I decided to come up with some my own pitches to save the literary internet.
• 99 author photo fails
• Is unionization the new adverbs?
• Why AI is good for books for books for books for books DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY
• 7,000 typos that somehow made it into the finished copy of your book
• 31 most unlikeable female memoirists
• Can you believe how much the advance for this shit book was? (regular column)
• A guide to the most conventionally beautiful, independently wealthy women in publishing
• Consider the Hedge Fund: Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love my very smart, very handsome new boss from Krang Capital who definitely can read
• 23 people from that reading last night who do, in fact, hate you