Aaahhh

The New Yorker editor -- deep breath -- isn't really worried about what readers want and he isn't dumbing down his product to attract the young'uns. Please forward this to your editor.

"My principle in the magazine - and I am not being arrogant - is that I don't lose sleep trying to figure what the reader wants. I don't do surveys. I don't check the mood of the consumers. I do what I want, what interests me and a small group of editors that influences the way of the magazine.

"I know in my heart that an article like the one that will appear in the double issue next week - about the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan - may attract fewer readers than the humorous article by Nora Ephron in the same issue. But if I only run the humorous piece - we have lost our way."

And this:

Your writers are more apt to write in the first person.

"Absolutely. Why would I be against writing in the first person? But the big question is, have you earned the right to write in the first person? It's a huge issue. What I don't want is writing of self-centered writers of the sort of 'I heard that Hamas won the election and I cried, or I laughed, for a whole week.' That isn't interesting. There are a lot of forms of involved journalistic writing that are not narcissistic."

There are tiny lessons buried throughout the interview. (Thanks, Ramsey)