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.

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 »

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 http://www.observer.com/2008/new-york-times-magazine-exposes-readers-blogger

A "Make Ready" of this week's New York Times Magazine just arrived, featuring the much buzzed about cover story by former Gawker editor Emily Gould. The story is headlined Exposed and features three photos of Ms. Gould excluding the cover. (One photo shows just her hands at a laptop, an Instant Message window and a web page on the screen.)

The article is heavily diaristic; for a magazine that exists to explain "The Way We Live Now" every week, it's light in sociology or cultural grasping, focusing instead on the writer's relationships and her job.

Samples after the jump:  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/new-york-times-magazine-exposes-readers-blogger#comments Emily Gould Julia Allison New York Magazine The New York Times Magazine Wed, 21 May 2008 16:57:32 -0400 Matt Haber 69543 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/new-york-times-magazine-where-writer-comes-first

"Every generation thinks it's special—my grandparents because they remember horses and buggies, my parents because of the Depression. The over-30's are special because they knew the Red Scare of Korea, Chuck Berry and beatniks. My older sister is special because she belonged to the first generation of teen-agers (before that, people in their teens were "adolescents"), when being a teen-ager was still fun.... My generation is special because of what we missed rather than what we got, because in a certain sense we are the first and the last. The first to take technology for granted."–Joyce Maynard, An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life, The New York Times Magazine, April 23, 1972.

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/new-york-times-magazine-where-writer-comes-first#comments Emily Gould Joyce Maynard The New York Times Magazine Tue, 20 May 2008 15:36:49 -0400 Matt Haber 69474 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/52877 July 4, 20061:37, 1:39 a.m.

4 pounds, 10 ounces; 4 pounds, 14 ounces  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/node/52877#comments Alan Burdick Mel Brooks New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center The New York Times Magazine Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500 Daisy Carrington 52877 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/36193 July 4, 2006 1:37, 1:39 a.m. 4 pounds, 10 ounces; 4 pounds, 14 ounces  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/36193#comments Mel Brooks Susan Dominus The New York Times Magazine Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500 Daisy Carrington 36193 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/32920 The Village Voice announced that David Blum is the latest choice for its hard-to-fill editor-in-chief post. The memo making the announcement is after the jump.  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/32920#comments Media David Blum Michael Lacey The New York Times Magazine Village Voice Media Inc. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:06:27 -0400 Observer Staff 32920 at http://www.observer.com