Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Short-Form: Could it have saved jobs at THE NEW REPUBLIC?

Like THE NEW YORKER,  THE NEW REPUBLIC persisted in long-form journalism.  But the latter wasn't so lucky.   Even after the McKinsey troops stormed [upon invitation] Conde Nast, THE NEW YORKER was virtually left untouched.  Recently, in fact, Jeffry Toobin had a 10,000-word article in it about some weighty legal matter.

Today, we find out that only the percentage of how many will be cut at TNR needs to be verified.  But major layoffs there will be.  A percentage number floating around is one-third.  However it is unclear if that one-third, if a correct number, means one-third of the newsroom or one-third of the staff.

With politics such a hot category, TNR could have been saved.  Look at the increasing influence and readership of Politico.com.  The formulas for the latter include a racing metabolism, not missing any developing news such as when Sarah Palin eats a halibut taco, and getting into and out of a story fast.

In the new world of communications, it's Change or Die. It's a puzzle why the Creative Class at TNR chose not to change.

Communicating New Optimism - Fresh Challenge for PR

This will be tough.  Everything is pointing to a better 2010.  For instance, in the current edition of BUSINESS WEEK, Rich Miller reports that 3Q corporate earnings are up 11% from 2Q.  And according to a Manpower survey, 7 out of 10 employers interviewed plan to hire on next year.  There is usually a lag following a stock market recovery. Now that lag seems to be ending.

All good.  The challenge is to help our clients communicate this optimism.  The tone can't be euphoric because any negative Black Swan-type development could sweep away the gains.  In addition, it has to carry the gravitas of lessons learned from the recent pain and the determination not to forget. 

There's also the content.  What will encourage investors to buy more of our clients's stock, customers to consume more of their products and services, and the work force to try out a bit of loyalty again?  The theme of innovation in itself doesn't sell.  We know how quickly a new development can bury today's.  Cost-control is currently a given.  And capitalism is already expected to take into consideration constitutencies other than shareholders.

There's more.  There's also prevailing ideology about the environment, creating jobs, and preventing wars. 

My recommendation: Use these challenges as a reason for clients to begin fresh with the messages and how they put them out there.  The larger the client the more they have to gain with a shift.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Changes: Does anyone care?

The time for the HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW has passed.   It had its heyday in the 1980s and the 1990s.  Its last celebrity head was Suzy, the current wife of Jack Welch. Before that there were Rosabeth Kanter and Ted Levitt. Many of its articles, such as on core competency, were game-changers.

Time went on.  Business ended being such a hot category.  Its place was replaced by politics.  Public relations pros rarely received requests from clients to "get into" the HBR.  When one did, and he contacted me as the ghostwriter, he and I were both, like, puzzled.   Amidst all this, HBR didn't change.

Now, it is changing.  The cover will have graphic content.  There will not only be long-form writing.  There might even be humor.

But, does any one care?  Clients don't.  They want to be amidst the fast-moving digital sites, in investment, business, and general.  When it comes to print, it's FAST COMPANY, which is one of the few print pubs making money.

Meanwhile, here we are in the era of the new high irony.   Here's a sample.  That's how Mrs. Fields started her cookie empire.  She gave out samples of chocolate chip in the mall, which used to be the place people shopped.

Everything I know as a writer I learned from Dunne, Hitchens

"Now, you're starting to write."

That's what a classmate from our freshman year in college told me in 2005.  I was 60 years old.  She was right.  Until then I was doing a poor imitation of Tom Wolfe.   I suspect many other Baby Boomers are still doing a poor imitation of Wolfe.  His strong voice suppressed ours. 

How did I find my own voice?  We gotta have an idiosyncratic voice if we're to be taken seriously as writers and not just someone whose day job is ghostwriting or public relations communications. 

Well, I began to analyze what Dominick Dunne and Christopher Hitchens did in their prose.  This time I had no intention of imitating.  Instead I was determined to learn from their strategies and tactics.

First, Dunne.  In covering courtrooms he focused not on the law but the personalities.  Those ranged from the judge to those in the peanut gallery.  I borrowed part of that when I live-blogged the Rhode Island lead paint trial, beginning in November 2005.  You can see that on this blog under "legal."  However, I honored my own intuition and also deconstructed legal matters, but as I interpreted them, not as a traditional legal journalist might have. 

Next, Hitchens.  His approach to writing about the world, I decided, was and probably still is contrarian.  That in itself set him apart.  Until I analyzed that I had no desire to be different.  Also, I didn't have the courage or confidence to deviate from conventional wisdom.  I was satisfied saying a bit better what everyone else was saying.  Then I stopped that.  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE NEW YORK TIMES haven't.  That might be why they are stuck in what seems to be an irreversible downward trajectory.

At age 64, I published my first novel.  Here are the first two chapters, which sound just like me Download FGFGchapters1,2.

Emergency declared at VANITY FAIR's Customer Service

A tip in from Gawker.  Within the last hour or so, VANITY FAIR's Customer Service responded to a question with the notice that it can't respond because of a emergency.  It did not provide more detail.

Could the emergency be that VANITY FAIR publisher Graydon Carter mandated that Customer Service have its Holiday Party at his restaurant the Monkey Bar?  Therefore, the gang had to high-tail it there to Manhattan.

EDITOR & PUBLISHER: Killed off by Nielsen

This is no nation for EDITOR & PUBLISHER.  Citizen journalism has taken over and self-publishing is the easier way to get a book in print versus the traditional agent-publisher route.  Here's an example of the latter that's doing better than just fine on Barnes & Noble.  So, it's no surprise that Nielsen has killed off that magazine.

THE NEW YORK TIMES - If it looks and smells like death

A few of the stars at THE NEW YORK TIMES may be thriving.  Think David Brooks.  But, if you got a decent eye for numbers and a nose for signs of decay, you can't help but write the whole enchilada off.

Today, Gawker's Hamilton Nolan reports that the company anticipates print ad revenues for 4Q to decrease by about 25%, online revenues to increase by about 10%.  Meanwhile severance costs will total about $50 million in 4Q.

It was high noon for elite vs. street.  The street has won.  Elite has to ride out town, probably with axed employees throwing horse dung at it.

Print Job Situation: WORSE than we thought

Any print pro who doesn't know it's over requires therapy and a career coach.  Yeah, the job situation in print is worse than we thought, even if we've been following yesterday's cuts at FORBES and the coming cuts at THE NEW YORK TIMES next week.

Gawker reports that in the past 12 months, print media lost 90,000 jobs.  In some of those lay offs, a network didn't protect the print pro.  Both husbands of Ana Marie Cox and Laurel Touby were let go from their positions at CQ and BUSINESS WEEK, respectively. 

Some of these might land other print jobs but can they hold onto them?  We might be looking at a situation analogous to gypsy scholars when the academic game collapsed in the early 1970s.  Those trying to remain in college teaching were reduced essentially to being migrant workers.  I took my lumps and started over.  It was brutal for about three years.

NYT - Another icon lays off

Yesterday FORBES, that iconic bible of capitalism, cut more than 40.  Those layoffs were both on the print and web sides.  Next week the iconic THE NEW YORK TIMES could put on the street about 60 journalists.  About 40 have taken the buyout package, reports Keith Kelly in the NYPOST.  But that leaves the goal of reducing newsroom positions by 100 short plenty of slots.  They will join the unemployment ranks of brandnames such as BUSINESS WEEK media commentator Jon Fine.

Obviously, a cold street it is.  Few will find - and be able to hold onto - comparable jobs.  As in the post-bubble and paradigm-shifting field of law, manpower needs have changed irreversibly.  Yes, it's very much analogous to being a respected blacksmith after Henry Ford I made the car mainstream and affordable.

Should Wally Lamb take a break?

Stephen King.  He stands alone as a compulsive writer who can put all that stuff out on the market and not hurt the quality of the work or his brandname with readers.   Before him, Charles Dickens could also pull that off. [There's a fascinating chapter in "Manic Depression and Creativity" by D. Jablow Hershman about Dickens's being delightfully bipolar.]

That said, I recommend that Wally Lamb should take a break from writing for a while.  His latest "Wishin' and Hopin'" and before that his "The Hour I First Believed" aren't bad.  But they aren't the genius books "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True" are. 

We all have a soft spot for Lamb.  He does plenty of wonderful work in the Correctional Center for women.  And the guy tries to make his own pain and what he sees of others's pain useful in terms of insight, lessons learned, and inspiration.

But talent is an unstable entity.  It has to be monitored and protected, particularly from the need to write.  Often we writers feel that compulsion to write when that's the last thing we ought to be doing to shake ourselves loose from our demons.