A good friend once described the New Yorker???s approach to news as such: ???News isn???t reported in the New Yorker; the news is that it???s in the New Yorker.???
The same could be said for Slate. As one of the oldest online-only news sources that puts a premium on good writing, Slate has never claimed to be a ???get it first??? source. The main feature usually updates just once a day, which is a glacial pace online.
So along with ???bucking conventional wisdom,??? Slate writers often just write about whatever interests them, no news peg required.
Take today???s piece on 49 Up, the British documentary that was released stateside last year. Why is Slate writing about it today? Because ???[it] was shown on PBS this week.??? Believe us, if a Hills marathon on MTV were a legitimate news angle, we???d be on it. Unfortunately, something being in reruns is actually the opposite of news.
Also online today is Michael Agger getting nervous about Google. The only discernable impetus for the piece is that a friend of his quit Gmail. The rest is typical google alarmism. Look, if they say ???don???t do evil,??? then clearly they???re not up to evil. Or that???s what we tell ourselves since we completely rely on Google.
With a convincing argument that your pet project has some news value, you too can write for Slate.
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