red herring ends "blogging experiment"

well, i just got off the plane from iLaw and found that william mitchell  (update: according to liz gannes, this is the actual name of the blogger: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang) has been sacked as red herring's blogging "experiment" --- and, since mitch ratcliffe left a little bit ago -- blogging is dead at red herring.  below is the title of mitchell's last entry in the red herring "blog."

so long and thanks for all the fish

"I'm surprised the experiment has been allowed to run as long as it has.... But all editors and publishers are trying to figure out how blogging can fit into a more traditional structure borrowed from the print world. No one has it quite right yet, and Red Herring can't be faulted for wanting to experiment with something else."

my own last day working at red herring  was march 5 and one of the reasons this blog is called heresmybyline is because i -- nor any other reporter -- never had a byline at red herring.

the reasoning that alex vieux, the publisher, gave is that he wanted to recreate red herring as a  sober publication based on the model of the economist. vieux also claimed he did not want to create a  "star system" -- where the reporters grew big egos as they  landed stories on the cover of the magazine. hmm. interesting. at most places, this is called INCENTIVE.

i have a classmate from columbia jschool who is british and who works at the economist and  says things like "old chap" to HIS classmates from oxford and i assure you, working at the economist is about as far away from working at red herring as gifelte fish is from sushi. and, boy, do they have a star system. it's pretty much a galaxy.

neither mitchell nor i were surprised to see the "blog" go - the blog and the PERSONALITY of the blogger are synonymous -- you cannot have a nameless blog, hidden behind the anonymity of some kind of somber wanna-be economist-style magazine. i dont think blogging and the new sober red herring go together. thank goodness it was only a "blogging experiment."

Comments

[LL]

not that anyone cares, but his name was actually Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.

damn that blogosphere and its fact-checking.

[irina slutsky]

oh no! thanks LL