How to Pitch: New York Magazine

Extremely proud of being a cultural authority and, you know, “a New York institution,” which informs a more accessible writing style than some of its glossy magazine competitors.

TONE

Cooler than New York Times Magazine, less cool than everything else. Extremely proud of being a cultural authority and, you know, “a New York institution,” which informs a more accessible writing style than some of its glossy magazine competitors. For whatever reason, also very proud of its political columnists who skate by on being infinitesimally more self-aware than David Brooks. Relegates pretty much all humor and voice to Vulture and The Cut, which are also where its best writers work. Extremely profile-heavy, probably drops one bombshell piece of feature reporting per quarter but otherwise chills in its zone.

STRUCTURE

Print and online.

Print version is published bi-weekly, website updates daily. Print content often appears online first, in sections broken down as follows:

• The Daily Intelligencer: Politics and news vertical that also publishes New York’s various neoliberal man columnists. Primarily staff writers. Freelance more common for longform reports and features, particularly big editorial packages like recent, “10 Years after the Financial Crisis.”
• Vulture: Entertainment and pop culture vertical, primarily known for TV and film coverage and criticism, though it also covers music, theater, and some books. Reviews are done by primarily staff writers, some freelance criticism, essays and Q+A’s.
• The Cut: Covers women’s interests in politics, science, health, beauty, sex, and relationships. Primarily shorter reports, essays, and interviews. Most features are profiles.
• Grub Street: Food and restaurant news, also publishes some longform and features.
• Select All: Tech blog with a very small staff, primarily uses freelance for special projects (like recent package of Smart Home stories).
• The Strategist: Shopping and service vertical: gift guides, deals, recommendations, etc. The money-maker, you know.

*New York itself also has guides to design, weddings, restaurants, bars, doctors, and tourist recommendations that are updated with unclear frequency. No idea where that content comes from. Their site is messy!

COLUMNS

Vulture
No columns per se, but common formats outside of typical reviews: Backstories, Oral Histories, In Conversation, recommendation round-ups, Priyanka Mattoo has an advice column (not sure why NYMag needs multiple advice columns), Old Hollywood. Lots of editorial packages, most recently How To Write a Song in 2018.

The Cut
Four sections: Style, Self, Culture, Power. Most column-heavy vertical. Easiest to pitch right now is It’s Complicated, the tongue-in-cheek, first-person sex and relationships essays. Also: I Think About This A Lot, Science of Us (more a pop-science section than a column, used to be its own NYMag vertical), How I Get It Done (work Q&As), Ask a Boss (work service), We Tried This (beauty service), Space of the Week (interior design) Most of these seem to be handled by staff writers at the moment. Also home to Ask Polly (Heather Havrilesky’s advice column) and Sex Diaries (anonymous, largely fake!). By far the most common format is profiles. Note: Sadly seems like they don’t do “I Like This Bitch’s Life” anymore. 🙁 

Grub Street
In addition to general news and reviews: Grub Guides (best restaurants in Chelsea, or what have you), Grub Street Diet (usually chefs but sometimes authors and… work-out bloggers!), Profiles, Taste Test (e.g. La Croix knock-offs, pickle ice cream). Big Tip is where they let minor New York celebrities recommend restaurants and bars in a specific area. Some essays and features, which seem to be the only place where freelancers really pop up. The best part of the site is Vanessa Price’s wine pairings column, thanks!

Select All
No recurring columns, some editorial packages (e.g. Smart Homes, last year they did that huge 365 days of memes calendar that won a bunch of awards.)

EDITORS

The Daily Intelligencer

Deputy Editor: Jebediah Reed
[email protected]

Point-person for online Intelligencer / NYMag stuff. Previously edited mostly investigative stuff at The Daily and The Week. Pitch him original reporting, probably not essays or criticism.

Politics Editor: Ezekiel Kweku
[email protected]

Politics!

Senior Editor: Margaret Hartmann
[email protected]

Primarily culture stuff, she moves between NYMag proper and Vulture.

Associate Editor: Eric Levitz
[email protected]

Politics, writes a lot about labor.

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Vulture

Culture Editor: Lane Brown
[email protected]

Also the culture editor for the magazine overall, so probably the best person to pitch for something big enough that it has a shot of being in print.

Deputy Editor: Gazelle Emami
[email protected]

Used to be the features editor at HuffPo, was hired at Vulture to edit the TV coverage but now seems to have a broader role. A good person to pitch more ambitious stuff to. E.g. this behind-the-scenes of The Leftovers finale.

Movies Editor: Rachel Handler
[email protected]

Very funny and weird, used to do deeply unhinged Game of Thrones recaps for MTV. You could probably pitch her something weird!

Music Editor: Sam Hockley-Smith
[email protected]

Used to be at Pitchfork, but seems to be moving towards a chiller and more friendly vibe at Vulture. He follows back like 19-year-old music bloggers on Twitter, and that’s what I know about him.

TV Editor: Chris Heller
[email protected]

TV pitches!

Books Editor: Boris Kachka
[email protected]

Book pitches!

Comedy Editor: Megh Wright
[email protected]

Comedy pitches! Particularly criticism of late-night and Netflix content.

Theater Critic: Sara Holdren
[email protected]

They don’t do a ton of theatre coverage but worth a shot. Particularly if there’s some kind of pop culture or timely tie-in. (E.g. Steve Jobs musical, Spongebob musical, a play about the Kardashians)

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The Cut

Features Editor: Molly Fischer
[email protected]

Mostly profiles, some really good ones from the last year: Rupi Kaur, Mormon mommy blogger, Keyshia Ka’oir, Kim Deal. Does seem like they don’t take a ton of freelancers for these, so you probably have to have a great angle and a pre-existing connect to the subject.

Science of Us: Melissa Dahl
[email protected]

Formerly New York’s general popular science blog, now mostly focused on women’s health and wellness. E.g. working too hard, postpartum depression, mail-order abortions, vaping. Has oddly gotten a little into XOJane horror story territory lately. Also still does more general science / psychology stuff.

Parenting Editor: Jen Gann
[email protected]

The parenting section mostly aggregates new research about motherhood / maternity, child-rearing, etc., in a popular science way, but also runs a lot of essays about super-specific parenting issues and questions.

Sex and Relationships Editor: Cari Romm
[email protected]

Edits “It’s Complicated,” also does some of the Science of Us stuff where it intersects with sex. “It’s Complicated” tends to favor stories that have a juicy social media-related element, like finding out someone’s cheating via Instagram Stories or whatever.

Fashion Market Editor: Diana Tsui
[email protected]

Edits most of the fashion and beauty content, particularly interested in intersection of fashion and beauty with race. The Cut’s fashion stuff trends towards service and shopping, but they also profile up-and-coming designers and beauty brand entrepreneur type figures.

Senior Writer: Gabriella Paiella
[email protected]

Mostly a news writer, but also edits “I Think About This A Lot.” There’s a lot of conversation about pitching that column in the list-serve, seems hard to figure out the magic recipe but it tends toward niche moments in widely known pop culture stuff (and people she already knows.)

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Grub Street

Editor: Alan Stysma
[email protected]

Came from Food Network, seems cool, commissions food and culture stuff mostly (e.g. food TV essays). Recently hired a 20-year-old blogger on contract who is profiling women line cooks and other underreported people in the food space. Seems open to the weird, given the “Foods That Squirt” series they just launched.

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Select All

Editor: Max Read
[email protected]

Gawker boy, notoriously extremely smart and extremely uninterested in his job, but you can try! You might be better off emailing associate editor Madison Malone-Kircher: [email protected]. Graham Starr is currently running special projects: [email protected]. Not sure why anyone would email Brian Feldman, it’ll take an hour to figure out if he’s joking. They don’t do a ton of features, but did have this great Maryellis Bunn piece.

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The Strategist

Editor: Alexis Swerdloff
[email protected]

Pitch if you love writing about products!

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PITCHES THAT WORKED

From Study Hall Listserv

THE CUT

Submitted by: Kate Morgan

Subject: Why people love dinosaurs

Column: The Science of Us

Pitched to: Cari Romm

I recently interviewed world-class paleontologist Ken Lacovara for the Undark podcast, and we spent time talking about something that didn’t make the final cut for the podcast angle, but that I thought might be great for Science of Us. He had some really interesting insight into the common childhood dinosaur obsession, (do you remember wanting to be a paleontologist? I do!) and the sense of maturity and superiority that a kid gets from being super knowledgeable about a particular subject. There are studies about this (here’s one, and here’s another) where researchers looked into the cause, intensity, and duration of what they call “intense interests.”

In the first half of this proposed piece, I’d delve into this phenomenon, reaching out to one of the study’s authors or a child psychologist for more insight. Lacovara released a book in September called “Why Dinosaurs Matter,” based on the TED Talk he gave last year. The book has a moral: dinosaurs matter because what happened to them could happen to us, with one crucial difference. We can see it coming. I’d bring the piece full circle with this sentiment. On average, these intense interests last six months to three years, but hanging onto them into adulthood might be the best thing the next generation can do for science and the future of the earth.

Published: A Psychological Explanation for Kids’ Love of Dinosaurs

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SELECT ALL

Submitted by: Andrew Zaleski

Subject: Smart Home Obsessives

Pitched to: Graham Starr

The typical smart home customer has fewer than 15 devices in their house. Then there are the atypical ones, the ones who are spending more than $700 a month on smart home devices and the concomitant services. Blame it on Jason — at least, that’s what a subset of smart home customers do. He’s known as “The Enabler,” his alias in the online forum of SmartThings, a Mountain View, California-based subsidiary of Samsung. “I’m not typical,” he said today. “I have 185 devices connected, today. I can’t say what that number will be tomorrow.” Other users with their own smart home “addictions” have their own stories, which all link back to Jason in some way. There’s Bobby, who says he has become Jason in that he “has a garage full of gadgets that I didn’t get a ‘chance’ to install.” There’s Jordon, who says he is easily spending $750/month on devices. “I am finding myself saying, ‘Do I need/will I use this? Eh maybe. Sold.’ I have to get control of myself. It just feels so good when I get that package in the mail.”

All these tales come from the SmartThings’ online forum in a running thread called “My Home Automation Addiction.” What this group of people are relating is the American consumers’ tendency to add smart home device after smart home device after they purchase the first one. Some 80 million homes in the U.S. today have at least one smart home device. But people like Jason are the weird, obscure extreme. (He’s up to his third Amazon Echo, for instance, and wants one in each room of his house.) I’ve been poking around that forum and have been making some connections with folks. I think there’s a funny, reported story here about how loading up one’s home with smart, connected devices can be a source of strife and passion. Some users talk about alienating their partners and pissing off their girlfriends and wives because of all the gadgetry they’re acquiring, while others — like SmartThings staff member Jody Albritton — say that outfitting a smart home has actually made them closer with their families. “If you get everyone on board, there will be a lot of conversations about who wants what,” he said. “I have found home automation to be a hobby/passion that encourages spending time with my family.”

How will I report this? Well, the main “get” right now is Jason on that forum, and I’m hoping to hear back from him today. I think a story could be built around him. Contacting someone like Jody, who works at SmartThings, will be easier. But mainly I’m currently building some rapport on the forum to get people comfortable telling me about their “addiction” stories. I’ve made contact with a few folks so far. Happy to talk more if you’re interested.

Published: Maximal Opus: Why Some People Invest So Much Into Their Smart Homes

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