The New Yorker to have 3-month "free for all" leading up to unveiling of new, metered paywall

While it spends three months working on a new, metered paywall, The New Yorker is making all of its articles and any it has published since 2007 free, beginning July 21. 

According to a story in the New York Times, the new site will be based on the WordPress publishing system and is expected to be particularly navigable by mobile users, the fastest-growing segment of the magazine's readership. The new venture is based on a firm belief that online readers will continue to pay for long, deeply reported articles in which the magazine specializes. 

The New Yorker has always limited availability of its magazine articles online, but has been somewhat capricious until now in what it makes available free and what it restricts to subscribers. Editor David Remnick  described the existing system as "awkward" and said  

“It is a challenge but I don’t mean the word ‘challenge’ in the way that it’s used in the business world as a cliché for disaster. I mean it in the original sense of the word.”

Toronto's Luminato Festival partners with The New Yorker magazine

Luminato, the Toronto festival of arts and creativity, has announced that it is partnering with The New Yorker magazine, sponsored by RBC to present a series of lectures and panel discussions during the first weekend of the festival,June 12 & 13. The festival runs June 10 - 19.

It is the first time The New Yorker magazine has curated a program of events for a festival other than its own. The lectures and panels complement Luminato's focus for 2011 on art and artists from the Arabic world. They will feature New Yorker editor David Remnick, Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy, best-selling author (and Canadian expatriate) and New YorkerNew Yorker staff writer Rebecca Mead, and renowned New Yorker fiction writers Colm Tóibín, Chris Adrian, and Allegra Goodman. staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, Israeli journalist Amira Hass, Libyan fiction writer Hisham Matar,

"Through this New Yorker program, Luminato furthers its commitment to collaborating with extraordinary international partners to curate programs that enhance the overall Festival experience," said Janice Price, CEO, Luminato.

"We are delighted to partner with Luminato to bring The New Yorker to Toronto in celebration of the Festival's fifth anniversary," said The New Yorker's publisher Lisa Hughes. "We are most grateful to our partners, RBC and the Canadian Tourism Commission, for helping us bring this important programming to our readers in Canada."

Tina Brown gets her due

Interesting longish post on the blog Gawker making the case that much of the good at David Remnick's New Yorker magazine is due to the superlative hires made by his predecessors, most particularly Tina Brown. Fascinating as such a parsing of the comings and goings can be for magazine junkies, even more fascinating is the sheer volume of talent that has flushed in and out of this iconic title in the past 10 years. No matter how much it might be said that Brown trashed the venerable title, she also had an eye for good people, good writers and editors, many of whom make the magazine what it is today.