The beloved weekly magazine, New Yorker, is celebrating her 100th birthday. I have been a magazine staff writer since 2008 and Bruce Dions has been in New Yorker. It’s not from the beginning since then. “1978,” he said. “I was in the cradle. They left me at the door and I came.”
Asked his title, Dions replied, “I really don’t have it. I’ll help and bet with all the crimes that have happened here. I’m the guy around me all the time.”
“An expert on both people and magazines?”
“That’s right.”
“You can tell me what was published in 1979, but can you tell me who’s angry with who?”
“Yeah, I can tell you why they’re mad at them and why it didn’t work out in ’79!” he laughed.
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New Yorkers are known for their reporting and their idiosyncraticity. Each question also includes comics, short stories and some poems. The front cover has a picture rather than a photo.
One of the many responsibilities of Dion’s is to organize the archives of the magazine. “We have all the magazines from the first magazine. There are scrapbooks, paper, all sorts of strange little ephemera in the People’s Work. It’s kind of fun and interesting.”
New Yorker may be the leading American literary magazine, but its story begins with artist Rhea Irvin. “All the artwork from New Yorker is based on his work,” Dions said.
Irvin examined the butterfly of a flashy young man in a top hat on the cover of the first issue, which was released on February 21, 1925. His name was Eustace Tilly, and he became a magazine mascot for better or worse.
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“Finally, I’m going to tell you that Eustace Tilly is vague,” said editor David Remnick. “Because some people see it and think it’s a symbol of Snoburley, or pride. When it started, it was meant to be a joke about Snoburley.”
Remnick was a 39-year-old reporter. He was appointed the fifth editor of the New Yorker in 1998. His job is to keep the writer happy, and he is productive, as he reminds me from time to time. His job is also to understand how and how modernize a 100-year-old magazine that once specialised in easy-to-understand articles on Manhattan society.
In the first issue of the magazine, founding editor Harold Ross wrote that “it has not been edited for the old lady of Debuque.”
“What did he have against Iowa?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” laughed Remnick. “For him, Dubuque is Queens, Los Angeles…”
The magazine’s reach is now well beyond Manhattan. “We have more readers than in California than in New York, including the old lady from Debuque,” Remnick said. “It’s a magazine with deep, deep reports and pride in accuracy and fact-checking.”
Fergus McIntosh leads the magazine’s Fact Checker Battalion.
So, what is a fact checker? “The person who shoots a story submitted by someone like you and makes sure it’s accurate, balanced, fair and as complete as possible before publishing it,” MacIntosh said. said.
“Fair? That seems difficult to understand,” I said.
“I know it’s difficult for you. It’s not difficult for us,” McIntosh laughed.
And everything is checked not only for articles, but also for poetry, short stories, and even comics. The department’s associate director, Teresa Matthew, had to fact-check the cartoon about the penguins who once met his girlfriend’s parents. “He says, ‘We prefer the term Arctic American,'” she recalled. “And this is effectively wrong, because penguins live in Antarctica.”
“But Antarctic Americans wouldn’t have been that interesting,” I said.
“It’s not enough, no,” Matthew said. “All my emails to the editor of a great cartoon about potential issues I’ve found almost always get the answer “Thank you, Teresa. We won’t make that change.” ”
Somewhere along the way, New Yorker became a serious magazine, publishing authors ranging from J.D. Salinger to James Baldwin, and film critic Pauline Kale to investigative journalist Ronan Farrow.
The New York Public Library will celebrate the magazine’s anniversary at an exhibition later this month.
So, what is the New Yorker in 2025? “It’s not just one thing. Sports illustration is one thing, and it’s easy for advertisers and readers to understand. (New Yorkers) is even more complicated.”
“Is New Yorkers themselves more political than before?”
“I think it’s certainly more political than it was when it first started, that’s certainly true,” Remnick said.
“Is it wrong to describe New Yorkers as a liberal magazine?”
“No, I don’t think I’m wrong. I think there’s a wide range. I don’t think that’s arguably an ideological publication. I think reporting is more than a finger shaking.”
These are times of uncertainty for the media industry, and New Yorkers are unimmunized. The magazine had a layoff in 2023, but New Yorkers have a stable base of around 1.2 million subscribers, many of whom read it on their mobile phones. Remnick said, “How do you write shorter, faster, and more, and write other things? Besides that, it’s not. We have fairly robust audio operations – 4 1, 5 podcasts. We do videos. I’m thinking about how in American life there are New Yorkers that could ask people that are unusual.
For Bruce Dions, the New Yorker’s 100th birthday is a good excuse to revisit ancient history. He showed me the box left behind by a former employee named Fred Keefe.
One letter was a request to visit the magazine’s office. Keefe replied: “Thank you for the letter. I’m worried that we won’t see much in our office. All editors and writers are closed with little cubicles and when people jump into them, they’re very upset. It’s there.”
In fact, those old editors, writers, artists, cartoonists are still in these boxes, spiritually and in them. The party has been ongoing for 100 years, and new people are still invited to join.
I said, “Maybe in another 100 years, someone will come and turn around whatever the latest version of that archive is?”
“Yes, and I’m there now,” Dions laughed. “And you’re in it, too. It’s kind of a thrill. Well, this is always going on and we’re all part of it.”
For more information:
New Yorker “New Yorker 1925-2025 Century of Fiction”, edited by Deborah Traisman (KNOPF), hardcover, e-books, audio formats, February 25th, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org “New Yorker 1925-2025 poem, “Kevin Young (Knopf) edits in hardcover, e-books and audio formats, February 25th, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.orgexhibition: “Neconture of the New Yorker” February 25th, at the New York Public Library, New York City
A story created by Mary Rafari. Editor: George Pozderec.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story misnamed Teresa Matthew, Associate Director of Fact Checks at New Yorkers. I regret the error.
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