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November 20, 2006

| Equine Quartet >>

Kill Me Now

Michael Hirschorn leads his whither-newspapers story with EPIC. And this is, honestly, one of the best lines written about it, ever:

As a piece of pop futurism, EPIC 2014 is both brilliant and brilliantly self-subverting (at once inevitable and preposterous).

Oh yeah, by the way, IT’S IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Update: Jon Fine mentions Hirschorn’s story and points to some pretty interesting news: Two big-time WaPo reporters are striking out on their own to start a political news site.

Robin-sig.gif
Posted November 20, 2006 at 12:39 | Comments (4) | Permasnark
File under: Briefly Noted, Journalism, Media Galaxy

Comments

I had some success early in my career. I can't tell you how many people came up to me and said, "So, how does it feel to have already done the most significant thing in your life?"

It made me want to got back out and show 'em how little they really knew.

Let is be thus for you and young Thompson, Robin. Let it be thus.

It's nice exposure; in fact I don't think I've seen EPIC direct-quoted as often in any piece of commentary, either in print or on the web. Usually you get a cursory summary, followed by analysis -- here Hirschorn gives Sloan and Thompson's words, plus ebullient adjectives, appended to his own take on the situation.

(I'm sure it's the fact that I've been grading student papers all week, but so much quoting almost makes it seem like Hirschorn is padding his word count.)

A small criticism -- given how much space MH gives to EPIC, couldn't he mention the names of these two guys Sloan and Thompson who came up with the thing? I mean, it isn't like this piece just assembled itself. Like, uh, EPIC.

Perhaps Tim and I are just showing the standards of our industry, but the article as currently written does suggest that EPIC was more a product of the zeitgeist than of two living breathing human beings not employed by Google.

How hard is it to give even a tiny bit of attribution to the creators of our century's "Zapruder film?" (How will future centuries know to label their equivalents as the Sloan/Thompson films of the future?)

Is this the dark twin of virality -- creators no longer matter?

Ha hahaha. Well if Matt and I don't count as the ephemeral overmind of a generation, nay an era, I don't know who does!

;-)

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