Adweek.com | American Journalism Review
“We have made some editorial changes, including a small reduction in our full time staff and our contractors,” says Slate editor David Plotz. “Press Box” columnist Jack Shafer confirms in an email to Adweek’s Dylan Byers that he was laid off, but says he’ll continue as a contributor. Plotz tells Byers:
The industry we’re in changes very quickly. This was a decision that made sense both financially and editorially. It was a painful decision for us. But it was a decision that we think—coupled with some new editorial and technological investments that we’re going to make—will pay off in the long run.
In a just-posted American Journalism Review profile of Shafer, Erik Wemple calls the Slate veteran “utterly uncorrupted by friendship, money, power, anything. He is ruthless with people he doesn’t know, but what is impressive is how ruthless he can be with the people he knows.”
Times executive editor Bill Keller is a fan:
I admire Shafer for taking his subject seriously enough to do his homework and think things through. He’s working in a field that sometimes seems to have been overrun by the snarkoleptics, who blow raspberries for a living. He’s fun to read, but there’s usually an actual idea in his pieces, and some reporting, and some sense of history.
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