Six month wait for New Yorker subs. Memo Amelia Lester, the incoming 26-year old managing editor of the New Yorker from Sydney’s lower north shore: fix your mag’s subscription service. This writer was all set to pad out his weekend reading via a kindly gift sub, but grew nervous when the esteemed title had yet to arrive more than two months later. A polite enquiry was dispatched via email. Did the gifter include the wrong address? Was the postie a skint Sasha Frere-Jones fan eager to get his hands on the music critic’s latest paean to Brooklyn hipsterdom?
The explanation was somewhat more prosaic:
“Your subscription will begin with the January 2010 issue. All gift orders received after a certain date, will start with the January 2010 issues. We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.”
It seems that in the frenzied world of Lester’s weekly deadlines, a six month, 26 issue delay for gift subscriptions is somehow palatable. For now, we’ll have to make do with the salient selections of that other undergraduate editor — Ben Naparstek at home-grown rival The Monthly. — Andrew Crook
Unfortunate image next to heading of the day. Ah, the good ol’ Geelong Advertiser. Who’s the creep at the school deb? The Western Bulldogs’ Shaun Higgins? Geelong’s Cameron Mooney? We think they mean Kevin Rudd…
Health-cover the Obama way. President Obama is taking his argument for a health care plan to a new place: Rodale magazines, where he or his wife appear on coming covers of Prevention, Men’s Health, Women’s Health and the new publication Children’s Health. — The New York Times
Huff won’t run out of puff. Clearly, the co-founder of Huffington Post doesn’t overlook even the slightest detail. It’s one of the reasons her four-year-old media operation is now mentioned in the same breath with storied daily newspapers and magazines. — Market Watch
That’s what (Facebook) friends are for. A US woman was tricked into wiring about $US4000 ($4840) to someone in England after receiving faked messages from a friend on Facebook asking for help, police said on Wednesday. — The Age
Homeless intern Brianna grateful for luck with a capital Elle. It is an appealing notion, that hoity (and indeed, toity) fashion mag Elle is looking for a pat on the back for doling out crumbs. Perhaps the angst is helped along by the AP’s characterisation of the story as a “21st century fairy tale.” — Mediaite.com
Sri Lankan journo’s conviction a first under new terrorism law. A Sri Lankan court on Monday sentenced an ethnic Tamil journalist to 20 years in prison under the island’s harsh anti-terrorism law for publishing articles critical of the government’s war on the Tamil Tiger rebels. — China Daily
WWF admonishes agency’s 9/11 ad campaign. There are plenty of clever, big-hearted, decent people in the ad industry. But how stupid can ad guys get? Really, really, really stupid. With an extra helping of stupid sauce on the side. — FastCompany.com
Peace deal returns music vids to web. Thousands of music videos pulled from YouTube in a royalties dispute will go back online after peace broke out today between the website and the music industry. — The Guardian
Re New Yorker subscription delays. You can be so lucky. I have been attempting to renew a subs. to Sports Illustrated, a highly credentialled US magazine. After twenty years of subscribing I have been advised variously over a period of 20 months that they cannot send magazines to Australia “for technical reasons”, as they “do not send to countries unless there is a good chance the copies will be delivered”, that they cannot accept subs. from Oz due to restrictions of International Banking Legislation and finally that they “can no longer ship the US domestic edition.. into certain countries inc. Australia”. It seems that they are “currently exploring avenues to be in compliance with existing consumer protection and privacy laws in certain countries inc. Australia”.
The above responses have been obtained after many contacts with the publisher, a disgusting number of which remained unanswered.
I have been unable to have the publisher advise me of the actual legislation that they consider restrains them. Additionally, the US Dept. of Commerce has advised me that they are not aware of any such constraints. So much for the Free Trade Agreement. Any ideas as to what I can do. Michael Leaker