The Art of Making Magazines On Being an Editor and Other Views from the Industry Edited by Victor S. Navasky and Evan Corneg

The Art of Making Magazines On Being an Editor

and Other Views from the Industry Edited by Victor S. Navasky and Evan Corneg is a new book by Columbia University Press that, to my point of view, every journalist interested in printed words should read. 

These short essays, very readable also for common readers are like gems and they arrive from people who made the history of American Journalism. 

Written for students of Journalism, these advices reach the heart of everyone.

I start with a consideration made by Felix Dennis. An editorial person should "Put themselves in the shoes of the reader and provide what the reader wants, wheter or not the reader knew what they wanted before they opened the magazine."

Because, continues Dennis "It  comes from emphaty with your readers." Another suggestion is this one: "If the company you work for will not recognize that and prefers a quiet corporate life without annoying interruptions from uppity editorial juniors, my advice is simple: leave 'em. You won't learn anything worthwhile there, no matter what they pay you."

John Gregory Dunne focuses on the importance of the journalist and written words.

The singer, explains Dunne, becomes more important than the song; every journalist reports in an unicity that it is a mixture of his existence and sensibility. A recognizable, unique "DNA".

Ruth Reichl maybe was the one I found more nice because she became a food journalist for case for the New West magazine, California. She was electrified! of course. The magazine  paid her a dinner to the restaurant she needed to review. She decided to write down a hylarious and absolutely wonderful, different piece from the one read in other magazines.

It was a big success and for several time she loved to entertained the readers of the New West, when the Los Angeles Times knocked to her door. 

What to do? She tells that she didn't like L.A. at all, but ...You know it was the L.A.Times. 

So, she started a completely different work, and, she admits candidly, she didn't know anything of real journalism. She wrote for the New West sometimes surreal stories warmly appreciated but...This one was a newsmagazine, the style and offer to these readers needed to be a different. A beautiful story!

Roberta Myers will explain how to become a successful editor-in-chief of a Women's Magazine. Roberta worked for Rolling Stone, changing for Interview; then the work with Hachette group, the creation of a new magazine for teenagers; again she discovered racial frictions when she proposed, and later was approved the cover with Will Smith on it. Roberta wanted to change air and asked to a friend of her of hiring her at the New York Times. This friend has never taken in consideration the offer, but convinced Roberta that what she was doing was right and women magazine are important if written intelligently.

Myers worked so for InStyle, later joining Elle. Although Elle is french, tells Myers, Elle Usa is the most influential one. 

Roberta's advices once you get the job: "Read. Watch. Listen.Be the person who knows the most about whatever it is that you are interested in....Be enthusiastic, be humble."

Peter Canby, the New Yorker and fast-checking. Canby told the importance of fast-checking for presenting high accuracy to the readers of the magazine. Their work can be monotonous. but it is indispensible for avoid errors in the printed and digital edition.

Substantially a fast-checker has in the hands every section of the magazine. 

Nonfiction pieces are sorted out with the help of the writer; names and dates must be right. Sometimes magazines forget to publish pieces. It happens. Once the New Yorker waited 20 years before to publish a piece sent by a young journalist. In the while this girl married a man, she has had a daughter, the daughter married someone, divorcing later.

Another wonderful advice: "..When the interview is done you put your notebook in your pocket, you put your pen away...and then the person stops you and says the most important thing of all....You spin the conversation as long as you can get. ...and you write down after the fact...This is the way reporting happens."

Barbara Walraff is a copy-editor. They are extremely important and their work is immensely important. Some reporters are not good at their job. Writers good at their work don't have the time to polish their work. It's a story of punctuation, style, spelling and grammar. 

These 12 essays are great for new journalists but also to all the rest of reporters. 

A beautiful, fresh book for everyone!

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori