Another week, another article about some amazing new communications tool and how it's changing our lives, like, forever!

This time, we're meant to look at the deeper meaning of a new technology that's bringing people closer together, changing the face of advertising and marketing, and even helping make the world a better, safer place.

Per The New York Times:

Here is the beginning of a personal medium which will—in a generation—be as important as any mass medium is today: for back-fence gossiping; for word-of-mouth selling; for citizen participation in fighting crime without getting overly 'involved'; for remote parental control; for two-step opinion information.  read more »

In June, The Observer talked to a number of reporters who'd spent time covering the war in Iraq. While some of their anecdotes sketched out what it's like to be in a dangerous reporting environment—the mortar attacks, the sandstorms, the numbing repetitiveness of a seemingly endless conflict—nothing in that article could prepare readers for the unflinching account of the war offered by New York Times' reporter Dexter Filkins in his book, The Forever War, which The Times Magazine excerpted this week.

Here's how Mr. Filkins' describes reporting from Baghdad for The Times: "When I was in Iraq, I might as well have been circling the earth from a space capsule, circling in farthest orbit. Like Laika in Sputnik. A dog in space. Sending signals back to base, unmoored and weightless and no longer marking time."  read more »

Hopeful to prove to investors that The Times is doing something about the worst economic year ever for newspapers, The New York Times Magazine is letting advertisers do all sorts of new things to their magazines. Last week, Play had a single sponsor—in the magazine, and on the Web site—for the first time ever.

This week, an otherwise provocative (though somewhat familiar) cover—white letters against a black background asking, IS OBAMA THE END OF BLACK POLITICS?—is hidden under a partial wrap for an advertisement for U.S. Trust.

The placement is similar to the cover wrap that appears on the cover of the newsstand edition of The New Yorker with a few key differences: the wrap on The New York Times Magazine doesn't ride up the entire length of the book, so it's a little more cumbersome; The New Yorker's wrap actually tells you what's in the magazine (as opposed to its abstract covers) whereas The New York Times Magazine's wrap actually distracts you from the cover with an ad about philanthropy.  read more »

The New York Times has posted a preview of a story by Mattathias Schwartz from this week's Magazine about trolls, people (mostly young men, it seems), who enjoy wreaking havoc on the Internet by mocking the dead, hacking into MySpace accounts, harassing message boards, and in one case, allegedly trying to induce seizures in epileptics via flashing images.

Why do they do it? As Mr. Schwartz (who we hope has good security on his personal Web site), writes:

'Lulz' is how trolls keep score. A corruption of 'LOL' or 'laugh out loud,' 'lulz' means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. 'Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,' said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/media/magazine-what-we-fear-now-trolls#comments The New York Times Magazine Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:07:41 -0400 Matt Haber 72714 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/media/nielsen-company-single-sponsor-times-play-magazine-sunday

This Sunday's Play Magazine will be full of Olympics stuff, a profile of Michael Phelps and something else: one advertiser.

The Nielsen Company, formerly VNU, will be the sole sponsor for this Sunday's Play, the only time The Times has ever given one of its editorial enterprises an exclusive arrangement. This was actually announced very quietly by the paper many months ago, but who remembers?

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/media/nielsen-company-single-sponsor-times-play-magazine-sunday#comments Media Nielsen Ratings Service Play Magazine The New York Times The New York Times Magazine Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:05:56 -0400 John Koblin 72668 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/media/times-magazine-excerpts-media-writers-addiction-memoir

The New York Times website has just posted a preview of this week's Times Magazine featuring an excerpt from media columnist David Carr's forthcoming book, The Night of the Gun.

The story, like the book, tells of Mr. Carr's years of drug and alcohol abuse and his various scrapes with the law as he somehow managed to rise in journalism and raise his twin daughters. There's also a video in which Mr. Carr explains the book's title and how his attempt to remember "the night of the gun" set the tone for his investigative approach to his own experiences.

Not included in the extract? Tom Arnold, who plays a special role in Mr. Carr's book and in his life.

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/media/times-magazine-excerpts-media-writers-addiction-memoir#comments David Carr The New York Times Magazine Tom Arnold Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:00:38 -0400 Matt Haber 72034 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/media/times-magazine-goes-down-familiar-path-when-doubt-go-pets

There's an old philosophy in journalism that when you're in a jam, or you're at a loss for an idea, do a pets story! No matter what, it's almost always a hit with readers (just like it is on the web). So just over a month after the Emily Gould cover story in the Times Magazine, which came a week before a puffy profile on Tyra Banks, the Magazine has its pet story on the cover for this weekend.

And it works beautifully. The story is about our increasing—and maddening—tendency to medicate pets for things like anxiety and compulsiveness. James Vlahos, a science writer for National Geographic and Popular Science, is a first-time writer for the magazine, and we want to see more.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/media/times-magazine-goes-down-familiar-path-when-doubt-go-pets#comments Media James Vlahos pets The New York Times Magazine Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:05:51 -0400 John Koblin 71686 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/george-lois-mad-man

George Lois is nothing if not opinionated. The universally heralded adman and creator of Esquire's most canonical covers from the '60s, shares his take on AMC's Mad Men with The New York Times Magazine's Alex Witchel this week:

When I hear ‘Mad Men,’ it’s the most irritating thing in the world to me. When you think of the ’60s, you think about people like me who changed the advertising and design worlds. The creative revolution was the name of the game. This show gives you the impression it was all three-martini lunches. ...

We worked from 5:30 in the morning until 10 at night.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/george-lois-mad-man#comments George Lois Mad Men The New York Times Magazine Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:58:30 -0400 Matt Haber 71021 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/times-magazine-dapples-sunlight-it-s-memoirist

This past winter, Paul Tough, a story editor at The New York Times Magazine, brought Emily Gould, a recently retired editor of Gawker.com, to the sixth floor of the paper’s skyscraper on Eighth Avenue. Sometimes, writers meet with the magazine’s editor in chief, Gerry Marzorati, and this was one of those times.

Mr. Marzorati had never before heard of Ms. Gould, he told Off the Record.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/times-magazine-dapples-sunlight-it-s-memoirist#comments Media Emily Gould Gawker Gawker Media LLC The New York Times Magazine Tue, 27 May 2008 20:05:45 -0400 John Koblin 69792 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/new-york-times-magazine-blog-article-rips-media-blogosphere-asunder

Emily Gould's New York Times Magazine cover story hasn't even landed with a thud on front porches and newsstands yet, but it's already garnering a ton of criticism online.

Some of the critical outlets weren't surprising.

Like Gawker, for example, since Ms. Gould's article is in many ways a rebuke of the site.

Gawker's first post officially linked to Ms. Gould's Times Magazine story received 9,133 views and 170 comments.

A follow-up post clocked in at 8,814 views with 149 comments, while a post announcing comments had closed on NYTimes.com received only 4,150 views and 83 comments.

Sadly, another, about the article's photos, topped out at only 2,556 views and 55 comments.

Finally, it seemed, for Gawker, the horse had been kicked to death.

New York magazine's Daily Intel had a wonkishly incisive post in which its editors calculated how many dollars Ms. Gould was presumed to have been paid for the words "I" and "me" in the 7,937-word article. (Eight hundred and sixty dollars, by Daily Intel's math. One wonders how many I's and me's were in New York's equally controversial first person cover story this week.)  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/new-york-times-magazine-blog-article-rips-media-blogosphere-asunder#comments Emily Gould Gawker Huffington Post Mediabistro New York Magazine Rachel Sklar The New York Times Magazine Fri, 23 May 2008 16:04:24 -0400 Matt Haber 69629 at http://www.observer.com