Is it the Los Angeles weather? The laid-off staff of GOOD appears to be suspiciously well-adjusted about its magazine ceasing to exist. The group found out through the grapevine at Thursday’s issue launch party that they would be laid off because the company was pivoting to become a “Reddit for social good,” complete with the kind of buzzy concepts that make most editors’ flesh crawl (“gamified content,” etc.). Still, they have nothing bad to say about their bosses.
“Mostly, we’re disappointed that this editorial team won’t get to continue working together,” goes a group dispatch on Tumblr. “We think we were pretty good at it. And we know we didn’t get a chance to realize the full potential of our collaboration…So we’d like to make at least one more magazine together.”
They’re calling it Tomorrow and funding it on Kickstarter, like the little orphan Annie of the media world. In the mean time, throw these very magnanimous people some freelance gigs. [CJR, Poynter, Tomorrow, Ann Friedman]
Barbara Walters has apologized for trying to get Sheherazad Jaafari, former aide to Syrian president Bashar al Assad (she advised him to speak with Western media and taught him how to “manipulate the American psyche” [guess how she and Ms. Walters know each other]), an internship with Piers Morgan at CNN. Interns! They get more overqualified every year. [Telegraph]
An 18-year-old high school student tricked CNBC’s Darren Rovell into believing the NBA lockout was damaging his nonexistent escort service business. Lesson: don’t source on Twitter! [Deadspin]
A kitten slideshow in the Wall Street Journal. [WSJ]
Wall Street Journal and New York Times staffers are passive-aggressively sparring on Twitter about who scooped whom. Again. [Michael Barbaro/Michael Amon]
Rest in Peace, Ray Bradbury. Good timing, New Yorker. [NY Times]
Nicholas Thompson is expanding the New Yorker‘s website, has added Wired editor Jonah Lehrer. [Capital NY]
New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza meanwhile, will be a more regular fixture on CNN. [Politico]
Where’s the best place in NYC to smoke soon-to-be-decriminalized marijuana, according to the staff of the Village Voice? Everywhere. “i just got a one-hitter that looks like a cigarette. i walk down the street smoking weed pretty much every day.” [Village Voice]
