My Review of Adam Nagourney’s ‘Biography’ Of The Modern New York Times, ‘The Times’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to read more, and, as such, I just finished reading Adam Nagourney’s “biography” of the modern New York Times. I’m not getting paid to write this, so you get what you pay for.

Adam Nagourney

In general, this is a great, great book. Very well written. I highly recommend it if you’re a media nerd like me. I suppose I don’t have the proper context in my head to be able to point out any problems on that front, but, in general, it SEEMS to do a pretty good job of laying out the ups and downs of The New York Times the last 20-odd years.

One thing is clear — when it comes to internal politics, especially succession issues, The New York Times is a messy bitch. Repeatedly in the book, Nagourney recounts how internal politics got in the way of a simple succession from one Executive Editor to the next.

It probably comes from how much power and prestige is involved with the job. So it’s a regular Game of Thrones easing anyone out of the spot to put new blood in. That’s probably the most entertaining part of the book. Another fun part of the book is how flat footed The Old Gray Lady was with the rise of the Internet.

I will note, in passing, that an entire book should be written — and maybe has already been — that would directly address in tick-tock form EXACTLY what happened at the paper on 9/11. That would be really interesting and compelling. I felt that specific topic, while addressed, was not fleshed out enough in The Times book — but that was probably simply size constraints.

Anyway. Buy the book. It’s really good.

I’m Too Old For Mischief

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If I was younger, I would pick a random celebrity and write a lot about them on this blog, just to see if any of their “people” noticed. But, you know, I’m just too old.

While, on paper, it would be a fun experiment, it also would be too easy for said “people” to take one look at this blog and think I’m some insane stalker. So, meh. I have better things to do with my time.

We Need A Gawker-Like Podcast Network

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is kind of moot now, but I suppose that there is still a little bit of a window of opportunity for someone to create a Gawker Media-like podcasting network. Instead of a blog, you would have a lot of podcasts — two a day, five days a week.

You would have morning and afternoon / evening podcasts that ran about an hour that would discuss pop culture events. If you really wanted to be a bit edgy, you might stream them live so they could react to events in real-time.

But, like I said, I don’t know if such a thing is even possible now. We’re kind of just on the cusp of moving into a new media environment where everything gets pulled into the maw of AI and XR (VR / AR) and, well, that’s a whole new frontier.

So, I dunno. It is curious that no one did such a thing while there was still time. I think some of it is that the media landscape isn’t one-to-one to the early days of blogs, so there never really was an opportunity for a new Gawker-like media outlet to be birthed in the age of podcasts.

NYT GPT

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that OpenAI’s GPT store could be used on newspapers. My only fear is that it will take newspapers way too long to figure out how to embrace GPTs and still make money.

GPTs are a transitional phase in our trek towards the Web collapsing into a singularity and everything — including the news — being presented to us via some combination of AI and XR technology. As such, you might wear a very fashionable successor to the Apple Vision Pro that would be hooked up to some successor to ChatGPT.

I just don’t see the Web as we currently interact with it lasting much longer, given how fast AI is advancing, and especially with the advent of the GPT store. Maybe it won’t be GPTs, but I do think every major Website will be replaced with something akin to a GPT that will talk to your digital agent and, as such, the Web will collapse into a Singularity.

The details of all of this are still very fuzzy. But that seems to be the general trend.

Angst For The Memories: Why Won’t Manuscript Consultants Take Me Seriously?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel like just a man with a dream. (Flips chair around.) You know who else was just a man and a dream…Donald Trump.

Before you get too excited, I say that in jest, but with a little bit of bitterness. Back when I had money, I would offer to pay manuscript consultants money and they would either ghost me or, pretty much, just laugh in my face. Which, of course, makes me wonder — why?

You would think that manuscript consultants — who are supposed to help creative people take things to the next level — would be tolerant of kooky drunk cranks like me.

Well, guess what, you guess wrong!

Apparently, they don’t want my cooties near them in any way. They are just snobs who won’t give a brother a chance. This is very, very grating to my nerves. All I need them to do is be a sounding board for my vision for the various novels I have rolling around in my head.

And I can’t even get some of them to help me do that. My hope is, of course, that I can bootstrap myself with a novel, some novel that gets sold and then use THAT as a calling card to make my second novel a lot better.

Of course, I’ll be old as fuck by the time all that sorts itself out.

Angst For The Memories — Write Write Write Edition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m officially in the second act of the third draft of my first novel, I have come to the conclusion that I have to re-imagine on a structural basis, pretty much everything. And that is going to slow me down.

The key thing I have to game out is cause and effect. The second draft of the novel, upon reflection, doesn’t really have a lot of cause and effect. Things just…happen. There’s no this then happens, but, therefore, this thing happens.

As such, I have to brood.

I have to reimagine the story — which is going to stay the same in a general way — so that there is a very clear set of events that cause each other to happen one right after the other. This is causing me to stare out into space and contemplate not just my plans for this novel, but reality in general.

Anyway. I hope to not only re-imagine this novel, but to read other people’s work, watch more TV and movies AND begin to game out not only back up ideas, but some of the sequels to this first novel.

Nobody, but nobody takes me seriously.

I hate to admit it, but I feel a little bit like a literary version of Donald Trump, given how manuscript consultants tend to shit on my dreams.

It Was A Long Time Ago & Nobody Cares Anymore…Virginia Press Edition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Somewhere in the multiverse, there is a version of me that is an assistant editor at The Richmond Times-Dispatch. I doubt this person would be “me” as I am in this universe, but they would probably have my name and a little of my personality and general drive.

I would have a half-finished novel in a desk drawer at home. I would daydream a lot. I would semi-loveless marriage and three kids. But I would, if nothing else, be a “success” relative to the traditional metrics that we all have to abide by.

But, here I am, in Earth Prime, just a drunk crank working on the third draft of my novel.

Given everything that has happened since I tried — to no success whatsoever, to work at The Richmond Times-Dispatch many moons ago, I have to say it all does give me something of a chuckle. Reading this book about The New York Times, I am again reminded about how naïve I was all those years ago when I wanted to work at the TD.

Jesus Christ. I was a ding-dong.

I just had no frame of reference for what I was getting myself into. I worked at the Virginia Press Association at the time at the TD was the center of our universe, so of course I wanted to work there. But, it just didn’t work out and it’s for the best.

But I did learn a lot about the newspaper business working at the VPA. And, if nothing else, my time trying to work at the TD did provide me with something of an…Easter egg…for the novel I’m working on. I’ve thought really hard about the nature of that Easter egg and I just don’t see why anyone would object. It’s just a silly wink and a nod to someone who was really important in my life a long, long, long time ago.

Yet I do think about that particular issue a lot.

Only time will tell.

Brooding

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As a compromise to myself, I’m going to continue to mull a total restructuring of the rest of the third draft of the novel and, yet, at the same time start to game out other stories.

And read. And watch.

What I can’t do is just stare out in the space and pretend that I’m not going older every day. I have GOT to treasure this moment in time. I have go to accept that this moment in my life isn’t going to last for ever. It’s going to end eventually and then Something New will replace it.

What that Something New is, I dunno. But it will happen. All good things must come to an end and I have to throw myself into being as creative as possible. I keep saying that then, lulz, what do I do — nothing of note. Or, whatever I do, I continue to do it by drifting towards my goal, rather than buckling down and getting something done as soon as possible.

But I feel pretty confident that I could still meet my deadline for this novel. I just have to be a lot more self-conscious of my deadline. I can’t just keep doing what I’ve been doing and expect to wrap this novel up ASAP, especially since I keep throwing everything up in the air on a structural basis.

Being A Good Journalist Is Not Hard

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The central mistake of my life is probably that someone did not sit me down, at about 15, and tell me I would never be a journalist. Had someone — preferably a male figure in my life — done that, then, maybe, I wouldn’t have wasted my 20s thinking I could be a daily newspaper reporter.

Me (background) during my crazier days in Seoul.

It has taken me decades to realize that being a good journalist isn’t really that hard, it’s just difficult for me. I am thinking about this because of the review of the Jayson Blair imbroglio I’m reading in the book “The Times” about the modern history of The New York Times.

The way Blair is described at times hits a little bit too close to home, but for the fact that I’ve never done cocaine and I’m honest to a fault — I would never just make shit up in a newspaper article, especially one I knew would be in The New York Times.

Other than that, yikes. I feel seen.

Anyway, there has to be a statute of limitations on alternative universes. I’ve had the life that I’ve had and hopefully — hopefully — I will somehow manage to write a breakout hit novel.

Now, To Take A Deep Breath

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I may, in fact, finally, finally, FINALLY be in the second act of the third draft of my first novel, I have to take a very deep breath. I’ve decided that I’m going to game out the character arc of the secondary characters in the novel.

That seems to be the only way I’m going get anything done. I also have to be prepared to throw a lot of the existing specifics of the story up in the air and just see what happens.

But, as I keep saying, I have something of a time limit. I still am shooting for some time in April for the Third Draft of this novel to be finished and ready to go. I fear if I don’t give myself a really tight deadline, that things will slip another year and, what do I know, we could have a civil war/ revolution by that point.

(Not that I really think that is going to happen.)