Lansing Lamont, Journalist and Historian of Atomic Bomb, Dies at 82

Lansing Lamont, a journalist who was credited with writing the first popular account of the building and testing of the atomic bombs used in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, died on Sept. 3 in Manhattan. He was 82. The cause was cancer, his wife, Ada Jung Lamont, said.

Lansing Lamont

Mr. Lamont, the author or editor of several books, was a Washington correspondent for Time magazine when he conducted the interviews and gathered the information he used in his book “Day of Trinity,” published in 1965, 20 years after the bombings, in August 1945, that brought about the end of World War II.

It described the personalities and sometimes conflicting emotions of the scientists involved in the American program to build the bomb, known as the Manhattan Project; the rudiments of the mineralogy, physics and chemistry required in engineering the device; and the first atomic bomb test at Alamogordo, N.M., conducted on July 16, 1945, three weeks before Hiroshima.

“A pinprick of brilliant light punctured the darkness, spurted upward in a flaming jet, then spilled into a dazzling cloche of fire that bleached the desert to a ghastly white,” Mr. Lamont wrote. “For a fraction of a second the light in that bell-shaped fire mass was greater than any ever before produced on earth. Its intensity was such that it could have been seen on another planet. The temperature at its center was four times that at the center of the sun, and more than 10,000 times that at the sun’s surface. The pressure, caving in the ground beneath, was over 100 billion atmospheres.”

An international best seller, the book included the first publicly available illustration of the interior of an atomic bomb.

Writing in The New York Times Book Review, William Laurence, a former Times science editor, praised Mr. Lamont for preserving the recollections of the aging “principal protagonists” of the Manhattan Project.

“In a few years these facts would no longer have been available as firsthand material,” he wrote. “The contemporary world, as well as the historian of the future, are, and will be, deeply indebted to Mr. Lamont.”

Most government documents relating to the project were not declassified until a decade after Mr. Lamont’s book was published.

Mr. Lamont wrote or edited seven other books, including works on national affairs and Canadian-American relations as well as a memoir, “You Must Remember This: A Reporter’s Odyssey From Camelot to Glasnost,” published in 2008.

After his stint in Washington, during which he covered the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Mr. Lamont was Time’s deputy bureau chief in London, its chief correspondent in Canada and its United Nations bureau chief.

Lance Lamont, as he was known, was born in Manhattan on March 13, 1931, to Thomas and Elinor Miner Lamont. His father was a banker.

After graduating from Milton Academy in Massachusetts, Harvard College and the Columbia School of Journalism, Mr. Lamont served in the Army from 1954 to 1957. He worked for The Washington Star and was the Congressional correspondent for The Worcester Gazette in Massachusetts before joining Time in 1960.

Besides his wife, he is survived by two sons, Douglas and Thomas; two daughters, Elisabeth Wolcott and Virginia Cazedessus; a brother, Edward; a sister, Elinor Hallowell; and 12 grandchildren.

A version of this article appears in print on September 16, 2013, on page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: Lansing Lamont, 82, Journalist And Historian of Atomic Bomb.

Politico Plans for New York Are Drawing Some Doubt

Until last week, Capital New York was an obscure Web publication that covered New York City culture and politics with a handful of staff members. It produced long, thoughtful pieces on topics like the Metropolitan Opera and the finances of the New York Mets and had some media and political scoops, but it also struggled to pay freelancers on time and to get the credit the editors thought they deserved.

Politico is keeping Capital New York’s two co-editors and founders, Josh Benson, left, and Tom McGeveran.

Then, last Sunday night, Capital announced that it had been purchased by Allbritton Communications, the cash-rich media company that owns Politico, which obsessively covers every twitch and shiver of Washington. Overnight, Capital became a curiosity â€" with resources â€" and a potentially formidable competitor in the heated coverage of New York media and politics.

Allbritton did not disclose the purchase price, but the company has promised to pump millions into the New York operation to remodel Capital New York after Politico, turning it from a placid general interest site to one that zealously covers narrow slices of the New York world.

“From our end, we will be imposing the business structure,” said Jim VandeHei, Politico’s executive editor, who is responsible for bringing Capital into the fold. “Our track record is pretty darn impressive. We know how to go in heavy and put more reporters on a beat than anyone else and break news.”

He added, “In the areas we are going into there are opportunities almost overnight to build very distinctive products that people will pay for.”

Politico is privately held, but it says it successfully earns money from advertising and paid subscriptions for a printed edition of its Web product, and from subscriptions to PoliticoPro, a specialized service that delivers in-depth news, not available on the regular site, on the politics behind topics like health care and energy.

Capital New York will adopt a similar strategy when it introduces its revamped product in November. Later, it will offer subscriptions for something like $99 a month, promising in-depth coverage of state and local politics and media. Eventually it may add products on real estate and culture.

Already the site is gearing up. Politico has given it the green light to increase the staff from seven to roughly 30; new hires will include about six reporters each to cover state and city government and media executives. Capital is also making use of Politico’s reporters; within days of the purchase Politico’s media reporter, Dylan Byars, was posting news to the Capital site.

Many in the New York media market are skeptical. New York, after all, is not a one-industry town like Washington and it is already saturated with media.

Kurt Andersen, who founded Inside.com, which tried to charge for inside information about the media and entertainment industry from 1999 to 2001, knows better than most the perils of the market. “Between the multiple verticals in this city and The New York Times and New York Magazine and The Observer, it is a different game,” he said. “It will be tough.”

Perhaps no one is more amused by Capital’s sudden change in status than the site’s co-founders and primary editors, Josh Benson and Tom McGeveran. They met at The New York Observer, where Mr. McGeveran, 41, started as a copy editor and Mr. Benson, 40, as an unpaid fact checker. Both rose quickly.

Mr. McGeveran, lightly freckled with red hair and a sardonic sense of humor, is single and lives with his sister in Astoria, Queens. His focus is culture, but he ended up as acting interim editor of the entire publication. Mr. Benson, married with three children and also living in Astoria, vibrates at a more intense frequency and became political editor. They have kept that basic division of labor ever since.

At The Observer, they built a close cadre of fiercely devoted writers and editors like Choire Sicha, founder of The Awl.com and J. Gabriel Boylan, now with BBC America. They also built an easygoing leadership partnership that their friends call the Tom and Jerry show.

How Syria Media Advisers Decided Who Would Speak to President Assad

Last Monday, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos got the call that virtually every journalist wanted to get this week. Come to Syria, he was told, and President Bashar al-Assad will talk to you about the country’s civil war and the West’s threats to attack.

A reporter from the Russian State TV channel Rossiya 24, left, interviewed President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday in Damascus. 

The Syrian government wanted an American morning show to televise an interview with Mr. Assad on Wednesday, as a rebuttal of sorts to President Obama’s Tuesday-night address to the nation, according to ABC staff members. Mr. Assad’s previous interview, with Charlie Rose of CBS and PBS, had received international attention on Monday. So Mr. Stephanopoulos secretly flew to Beirut, Lebanon, just as Mr. Rose had before the CBS crew drove across the border to Damascus.

But Mr. Assad must have had a change of heart, because once Mr. Stephanopoulos was in Beirut, the interview was called off. Mr. Stephanopoulos returned to the United States empty-handed. (On the bright side, he quickly scored another big interview, this time for real: he sat down with Mr. Obama in Washington on Friday.)

Mr. Stephanopoulos’s 11,000-mile journey demonstrated the Syrian government’s sometimes-effective, sometimes-confounding strategy toward communicating with the West through major news media outlets. Mr. Assad’s circle of media advisers is said to include two women, Bouthaina Shaaban, a Western-educated interpreter and author who has occasionally appeared on television to defend the government, and Luna Chebel, a former Al Jazeera anchor who arranged Charlie Rose’s interview earlier last week.

David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, said Mr. Assad’s media team is small, loyal and often effective. “It’s not like they’ve hired Howard Rubenstein,” he said with a laugh, invoking the name of the famed public relations man. (The American registry of companies doing business with foreign governments shows no public relations or lobbying firms with current ties to Syria.)

Ms. Shaaban has been mostly unreachable by Western reporters since the Syrian uprising in early 2011 â€" “no contact” is how Jon Snow, a veteran anchor for Britain’s Channel 4 News, put it, much to his chagrin. But that changed shortly after reports of a massacre of civilians outside Damascus on Aug. 21. She surprised Mr. Snow by granting him a live television interview on Sept. 4.

Richard Roth, a former staff correspondent for CBS News, said of Ms. Shaaban, “I don’t know that she ever made a convincing case for Assad’s policies in any broadcast of mine, but she was swell TV: articulate, indomitable, official and â€" crucially â€" English-speaking.”

Ms. Shaaban, who has a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Warwick in Britain, is often described as a Syrian government spokeswoman and has presented herself to reporters as, in Mr. Roth’s words, “someone who could pull strings in Syria.”

She had been a liaison for Mr. Rose’s interviews of Mr. Assad in 2006 and 2010. But when Mr. Rose returned to Damascus for the interview last weekend, Ms. Shaaban was not present, according to Jeff Fager, the chairman of CBS News, who accompanied Mr. Rose on the trip. This time it was Ms. Chebel who arranged the face time with Mr. Assad.

In the last few weeks, Mr. Assad has also spoken with reporters from newspapers in France and Russia, allowing him to influence public opinion in those two countries. But it was the interview with Mr. Rose, televised by CBS and PBS last Monday, that was the most widely picked up by the international media. The Syrian government calculated correctly that a sit-down with an interviewer like Mr. Rose would be perceived as credible and would receive universal attention.

Mr. Fager said he came away with the impression that Ms. Chebel was “a serious player” who speaks with Mr. Assad several times a day. Mr. Rose had never met her before this month’s interview.

It was important to Ms. Chebel and Mr. Assad’s other advisers that the interview be televised in its entirety somewhere, sometime. And it was â€" by PBS â€" after excerpts had been shown on “CBS This Morning,” the weekday newscast that Mr. Rose co-hosts.

Ms. Shaaban and Ms. Chebel did not respond last week to repeated interview requests.

Mr. Rose may also have had an advantage over other interviewers because his PBS program, “Charlie Rose,” is seen all over the Middle East and elsewhere through a distribution arrangement with the Bloomberg cable channel.

“It helps to be able to do unedited interviews and to have a reputation for being tough, fair, curious and informed,” Mr. Rose said.

Campaign Spotlight: If You Like Music, or Online Video, There May Be a Ford in Your Future

If You Like Music, or Online Video, There May Be a Ford in Your Future

As viewers get ready for another new television season, they are also being asked to look beyond the traditional sources for new series and watch shows online.

A case in point is “The Rider Challenge,” a reality competition show being sponsored by the Ford division of the Ford Motor Company to help sell the 2014 Fiesta subcompact. Plans call for 18 episodes of “The Rider Challenge” to begin on Sept. 30 and run into November. The episodes, each five minutes long, will be available on a section of a Web site belonging to the producer of the show, Live Nation Entertainment.

A teaser video to promote “The Rider Challenge” is going live this week. The clip sets up the premise of the show: Six teams, each composed of two people, will compete against each other in a race to find must-have items that five musical acts specify in their contract riders, also known as backstage riders or tour riders â€" the requests (or demands) that performers make as conditions for their concerts at an arena, theater or stadium.

“Would you have what it takes?” the teaser asks, presenting snippets of scenes from the webisodes in which contestants rush around and make remarks like “I’m scared that they’re going to be there before we are,” “We’re already far behind” and “Wide open, buddy.”

The teams will drive new Ford Fiestas as they seek the rider items, with the color of each car matching the T-shirts worn by the members of each team.

Perhaps the most famous â€" or notorious â€" rider of them all was that of the rock band Van Halen in the 1980s, which insisted that the bowls of M&M’s provided backstage for them be picked clean of brown ones. The bands taking part in “The Rider Challenge” represent a variety of contemporary musical acts: Fall Out Boy, Fitz and the Tantrums, Kid Cudi, the Lumineers and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

“The Rider Challenge” represents the entry of Live Nation Entertainment into the realm of content marketing, also known as branded content and branded entertainment. The goal of content marketing is to keep consumers around for the advertisers’ pitches by incorporating them into what is being watched, read or listened to rather than following the traditional model of interrupting the content with commercials or ads.

Content marketing is a modern-day version of what advertisers did from the 1920s through the 1960s on radio and television, when they wove product peddling into the plots of shows. Ford Motor took part through programs like “The Ford Television Theater” and “The Lively Ones.”

Ford Motor has also been supporting more recent efforts at content marketing, like “American Idol,” which features Ford cars in episodes along with the products of two other sponsors, AT&T and Coca-Cola. The budget for “The Rider Challenge"is estimated at $5 million.

It is no coincidence that “The Rider Challenge,” like “American Idol,” is focused on music. “Our Fiesta target really loves music,” said Crystal Worthem, brand content and alliances manager at the Ford division of Ford Motor in Dearborn, Mich., referring to first-time car buyers, predominantly millennials, consumers in their teens through around age 30.

Previous partnerships between Ford and Live Nation involved “sponsoring a concert tour, sponsoring a venue,” Ms. Worthem said. “There was more infrastructure, trucks on the road with cars.”

The Web series answers the challenge of “how do you take that type of engagement to millions of people instead of thousands,” she added. “It takes that relationship into our sweet spot right now, branded content.”

“It was important for us to have a mix of different types of artists and different genres,” Ms. Worthem said, because the millennial generation, also called Generation Y, likes a broad range of musical styles.

Also, many millennials prefer to listen to up-and-coming bands along with â€" or even instead of -- “top talent,” she added.

There is a discovery element to the choice of musicians, Ms. Worthem says, in that Ford and Live Nation hope viewers of the Web series “may discover an artist they may not have in their rotation” of favorite performers.

“The Rider Challenge” is under the aegis of a division at Live Nation Entertainment known as Live Nation Media and Sponsorship. “We launched in January, as we relaunched livenation.com, which had been an e-commerce site,” said Russell Wallach, president of the division.

The Web site was made over, Mr. Wallach said, because content was “the No. 1 thing a lot of our bands were looking for.”

“We wanted to create this robust place for music fans to come to not only buy tickets but also to see videos, photo galleries and custom content with artist interviews and performances,” he added.

The new division is intended to build upon the “branded events” that Live Nation has created for years for marketers like Bud Light, Pop Tarts and Samsung, Mr. Wallach said.

In discussions that began in December, “we originally had this idea for a music version of the M.L.B. Fan Cave,” he said, referring to an initiative by Major League Baseball that offers fans experiences in person, online and in social media. The centerpiece is a building in Lower Manhattan, called the Fan Cave, where fans selected by the league watch every game played during each baseball season.

That idea was discarded, Mr. Wallach said, because “nobody would want to sit in a room and watch live concerts,” adding, “Concerts are all about the experience of going to a show.”

After that, the concept morphed into one that would be focused on “bands on the road,” Mr. Wallach said. Then “we got together with Ford, and Ford suggested it would be more interesting if we created it more in the vein of a reality competition,” he added.

“Fans who go every year to see live concerts, for the most part, never get to see what’s going on behind the scenes,” Mr. Wallach said. “This is about giving them a bit of an insight.”

Mr. Wallach’s division then “refined the idea, fine-tuned it,” he added, “figuring out who the artists would be and how to market the show, using all the collective assets” of Ford and Live Nation, in realms that include paid, earned and owned media channels.

Mr. Wallach said he is pleased enough with how “The Rider Challenge” is turning out that “we’re already looking at the next version of this,” which may not be on livenation.com.

The division has “two or three other shows we’re working on,” he added, that are also in the vein of taking “portions of the incredible content and experience happening at a live event and sharing that with millions and millions of people who aren’t there.”

The grand prize for the winning team in “The Rider Challenge” is a Ford Fiesta and what is called a Live Nation Ultimate Access Pass, offering all-access entrance to all the concerts that Live Nation stages for a year.

The Ford division is incorporating into the Web series another marketing campaign for the Fiesta, known as the Fiesta Movement, which recruits 100 young drivers -- “agents,” in the campaign’s parlance â€" to help introduce the car through blogs and other social media.

Several agents will be part of the Web series in cameo roles, Ms. Worthem said, “serving as a ‘lifeline'” to the teams trying to “finish fulfilling their missions.”

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A Befuddling Game Show Slides, Despite ‘Synergies’

Before NBC introduced the game show “The Million Second Quiz,” there were so many corporate cross-promotions â€" part of a Comcast strategy it calls “symphony” â€" that the NBC executive Paul Telegdy said “the symphony has graduated into a philharmonic.”

But it turns out that something was out of tune. When the “Quiz” had its premiere last Monday, NBC scored a 1.7 Nielsen rating with viewers between the ages of 18 to 49, the demographic valued most by the network’s advertisers. Instead of growing from episode to episode, as NBC encouraged the show to do by scheduling it for 10 nearly consecutive nights, the show caved in; a 1.5 rating on Tuesday shrank to a 1.3 on Wednesday, a 1.1 on Thursday, a 0.8 on Friday, and a 0.7 on Saturday.

Total viewership fell to 3 million on Saturday from 6.5 million for Monday’s debut. NBC wanted a national event; what it got instead was a national shrug.

Were the ratings a repudiation of Comcast’s much-promoted “symphony” approach to creating new entertainment franchises? Untold numbers of people throughout the broadcaster’s parent company, NBCUniversal, which is wholly owned by Comcast, had spread the word about the game show through special segments on “Today” and other newscasts, elaborate graphics on the bottom of the screen of other shows, Twitter messages and other tactics. NBC and other media companies have been trying these sorts of synergies for decades, but since Stephen B. Burke became the chief executive of NBCUniversal in 2011, he has made it a special priority, calling it “Project Symphony.”

Questions about what went wrong with “Quiz” simmered as the prime-time show took a previously scheduled one-day break for football on Sunday, but the view among some observers was that the game play, not the promotional efforts that accompanied it, had missed the mark.

“It all comes down to content,” said Brad Adgate, who studies ratings patterns for Horizon Media.

Similarly, when asked if NBC’s synergies had failed, John Tinker, who tracks Comcast and other media conglomerates for the Maxim Group, said he’d suggest “a more traditional problem: it’s not a great show.”

“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” this was not, despite NBC’s dreams that it would be. The show took a beating from television critics as soon as it started, mainly for having an overly complex format. Entertainment Weekly called the premise “a little horrifying.” The Hollywood Reporter called it “confusing and boring.”

In short, contestants were supposed to answer questions correctly so they could keep answering questions, beat other contestants and win more money â€" but asterisks and exceptions abounded, testing even the most patient viewers. Several people called it “the most confusing game show ever” in exasperated Twitter messages to Ryan Seacrest, the show’s host. Some critics pounced on Mr. Seacrest, whose omnipresence can easily be exploited for jokes. From NBC’s point of view, though, Mr. Seacrest was one of the show’s saviors.

For his part, Mr. Telegdy, the network’s president of alternative and late-night programming, said on Sunday, “We would absolutely do it all over again, in terms of the scale, ambition and the risk it represented.”

While he displayed disappointment about the ratings slump, he noted that “Quiz” had lifted NBC above its normal ratings levels for early September, which can only be a good thing for a beleaguered network that is about to introduce several new dramas and comedies for the fall.

The three million viewers on Saturday, on what is usually a dormant night for network television, represented NBC’s best performance in the time slot since a rerun of “It’s a Wonderful Life” last December. Still, given the high expectations, the New York magazine ratings buff Joe Adalian was moved in a Twitter post to rename the show “Million Dollar Mistake” after several consecutive days of declines.

NBC would not say just how costly “Quiz” really is, but consider this: More than 500 people have been employed by the production in New York City. Barring a stunning turnaround â€" the show will resume in prime time on Monday and wrap up on Thursday  â€" the network is unlikely to start citing it as a successful application of synergy. But it’s unlikely to back away from the “symphony” idea either.

“When we get all parts of the company working together, we’ve been astounded by how successful we can be,” Mr. Burke said at a Merrill Lynch conference. He didn’t mention the “Quiz,” but he said the NBC singing competition “The Voice” and the company’s wide-reaching coverage of the Summer Olympics had both benefited from cross-promotional efforts.

“Million Second Quiz” received a boost, too, if NBC’s research into awareness about the show is any indication. Awareness levels were abnormally high beforehand but, like an anticipated Hollywood blockbuster that goes bust, most of the people who heard about the show did not actually tune in. Many who did were not compelled to stay. And the show suffered an irritating setback on Night 1: so many viewers followed Mr. Seacrest’s instructions to play the game online that NBC’s servers were overwhelmed.

“By the end of the week, we had found our footing,” said one of several executives who, when granted anonymity to speak self-critically, suggested that “Quiz” might have benefited from a test episode ahead of time (something known in the TV industry as a pilot). If there is a silver lining for NBC, it might be on viewers’ smartphones: the network says 1.3 million people have installed and played a total of 23 million rounds on its “Quiz” app.

Mr. Adgate of Horizon Media said he would be watching again this week, though he doubted that the low ratings were a setback for NBC as a whole. “Not everything Comcast puts on symphony is going to work,” he said. “There are going to be misses along the way, and one week in, this appears to be one of them.”

The Media Equation: Storytelling Ads May Be Journalism’s New Peril

Storytelling Ads May Be Journalism’s New Peril

When the guy who ruined the Internet with banner ads tells you that a new kind of advertising might destroy journalism, it tends to get your attention.

Joe McCambley, who helped design the first banner ad, sees a risk to press credibility in the adoption of “native advertising.”

That’s not entirely fair. Joe McCambley, founder of The Wonderfactory, a digital design firm, helped build the first banner ad back in 1994. It was a much-maligned innovation that grew like kudzu until it had all but overwhelmed the consumer Web, defining its look and economics for years to come.

Now the new rage is “native advertising,” which is to say advertising wearing the uniform of journalism, mimicking the storytelling aesthetic of the host site. Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Atlantic and, more recently, The New Yorker, have all developed a version of native advertising, also known as sponsored content; if you are on Buzzfeed, World of Warcraft might have a sponsored post on, say, 10 reasons your virtual friends are better than your real ones.

It is usually labeled advertising (sometimes clearly, sometimes not), but if the content is appealing, marketers can gain attention and engagement beyond what they might get for say, oh, a banner ad.

Mr. McCambley is wary. He says he thinks native advertising can provide value to both reader and advertiser when properly executed, but he worries that much of the current crop of these ads is doing damage to the contract between consumer and media organizations.

“I completely understand the value of native advertising,” Mr. McCambley said, “but there are a number of publishers who are allowing P.R. firms and advertising agencies direct access to their content management systems and allowing them to publish directly to the site. I think that is a huge mistake.

“It is a very slippery slope and could kill journalism if publishers aren’t careful,” he said.

He’s right. Publishers might build a revenue ledge through innovation of the advertising format, but the confusion that makes it work often diminishes the host publication’s credibility.

Of course, some publishers have already gone flying off the edge, most notoriously The Atlantic, which in January allowed Scientology to create a post that was of a piece with the rest of the editorial content on its site, even if it was differently labeled. They got clobbered, in part because handing the keys to the car to a controversial religion with a reputation for going after journalists was dumb.

“You are gambling with the contract you have with your readers,” Mr. McCambley said. “How do I know who made the content I am looking at and what the value of the information is?”

Given his somewhat oracular status, it comes as little surprise that when you go to visit this particular ad wizard in Manhattan, you take an elevator up to an empty entranceway with a single cord dangling from the ceiling. I eventually pulled the cord and a door opened to The Wonderfactory.

Once inside, you find out that Mr. McCambley is not some crabby editorial type putting the old gimlet eye on the necessary, but distasteful evil of advertising. All he ever wanted to do was make good content, and the banner ad is not Mr. McCambley’s only credential: The Wonderfactory has designed Web sites for National Geographic, Martha Stewart, Coca-Cola and The Huffington Post.

Part of his current skepticism is driven by his experience with those banner ads. Twenty years ago, most people got access to the Web through Internet service providers like Prodigy and CompuServe, which had a version of advertising but not the banners we have come to know and hate. In October 1994, HotWired, the digital version of Wired magazine, decided to create ads for the issue and AT&T opted in. The ad invited people to click through â€" and they did, at the astounding rate of 44 percent versus the 0.1 percent rate that is now common. Users were then transported to a list of museums around the world to show that the Web could take you places.

At the time it was unique, but as time went on the approach became ubiquitous and cheesy.

“We were proud of that ad,” said Mr. McCambley. “But everything starts out good until we end up making it bad.”

Now he is both a fan and a critic of Forbes.com, which has been at the vanguard of the native ad movement.

“What I love about Forbes is that they have the guts to take risks, to experiment, but I think some of it is dangerous,” he said. “When you go to Forbes, you expect sound business advice and news, information that has been fact-checked and vetted. But what you get instead is a mix of staff content, contributor content and sponsored content. It’s hard to know where you are.”

Lewis Dvorkin is the chief product officer of Forbes and a veteran of both traditional and digital media publications, having worked at The New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and AOL.

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;

Twitter: @carr2n

Movie Industry Wants to Get a Handle on the Digital Box Office

Warner Brothers Pictures

As of Aug. 27 Rentrak’s public listing showed “The Great Gatsby” to be the top performing on-demand film as reported by its participating services, but it offered no stats.

LOS ANGELES â€" The movie industry is whooshing toward its digital future, but some players are worried about getting stuck in an informational void along the way.

The business has long used box-office numbers, which are publicly sliced and diced ad infinitum. Similarly, disc sales and rentals for years have been monitored by the Rentrak data company and others.

But as consumers shift to new channels like Netflix and Amazon, there are no generally available industrywide data on the digital performance of individual movies.

While the studios get some information, it isn’t widely shared with filmmakers, agencies or the public â€" and those who hold the data have a distinct advantage when it comes to making deals or deciding which movies to back, or what to spend on them.

By and large, public reports of digital performance are currently limited to a handful of films, or they simply report rankings without numbers. As of Aug. 27, for instance, Rentrak’s public listing showed “The Great Gatsby” to be the top performing on-demand film as reported by its participating services, but it offered no stats.

In an address at the Toronto International Film Festival last Tuesday, Liesl Copland, a digital media expert from the William Morris Endeavor Entertainment agency, told a small group of documentary filmmakers about this large, if barely visible, problem.

Movies tumble into “analytic black holes” when they are viewed on subscription services like Netflix, on-demand providers like the cable companies and iTunes, or an advertising-driven distributor like SnagFilms, she said.

“Reporting hasn’t evolved with the rapidly increasing viewership patterns,” Ms. Copland noted. “There is still no uniform reporting system that aggregates all data on, say, a film or documentary across all of its platforms.”

This wasn’t some data lover’s plea for more, more, more. A former Netflix executive who now helps to package and sell films for one of Hollywood’s largest agencies, Ms. Copland comes to her topic with an insider’s sense of both the problems and the possibilities in movie data-sharing. In her current role, she desperately wants to know more about the digital audience, whose behavior is now crucial to structuring deals and advising clients as to whether a particular project will fly.

“Richer content and more engaged audiences” she posited, might result from access to shared data â€" and, of course, more deal-making leverage for agents.

Digital distributors, she pointed out, may know infinitely more about their customers than studios could glean from their box-office analytics, even when bolstered by focus groups, exit polls, prerelease tracking interviews and close monitoring of social media.

It is no trick for a subscription or on-demand movie service to figure out what you like, when you like to watch it, how much you’re willing to pay and even whether you are â€" i.e., sneaking a peak at a film or show, though you’ve promised to watch with a mate.

In making decisions about whether to back series like “House of Cards,” Ms. Copland reminded her listeners, Netflix relied heavily on its enormous bank of largely private information.

In truth, on-demand distributors share a great deal of data with the studios from which they’ve purchased films. For the last several years, moreover, the studios, large and small, have been sharing title-by-title information about digital downloads with each other via an arrangement with Rentrak, which collects the data and circulates it among roughly 170 entertainment company clients.

The studios also receive reports with some information on the streaming of individual titles from the NPD Group, another data company. But detailed streaming data are not routinely shared with filmmakers, agencies or news organizations.

Bruce Goerlich, Rentrak’s chief research officer, noted that the wall around digital performance information was simply an extension of confidentiality strictures that have long surrounded video performance numbers.

“Measurement can equal monetization can equal a fight,” he said of the entertainment industry’s tendency to conceal data.

Mr. Goerlich, who spoke by telephone last week, seconded what Ronald J. Sanders, the president of worldwide home entertainment distribution at Warner Brothers, had to say about the public availability of box-office numbers (which are also compiled under an industry arrangement with Rentrak, then distributed to the press and others), compared with the digital numbers.

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A Digital Deal for Cumulus and Rdio

As radio broadcasters go digital and online music services try to stand out in a crowded market, both are finding ways to scratch each other’s backs.

On Monday, Cumulus Media, which operates 525 radio stations, will announce a deal with Rdio, a subscription music service from the founders of Skype, that will give Cumulus an online outlet and help Rdio compete against more established players like Spotify.

In exchange for what it calls a significant equity stake in Rdio’s parent company, Pulser Media, Cumulus will give Rdio broad access to its programming and promote Rdio on its stations.

“This is our digital play,” Lewis W. Dickey Jr., the chief executive of Cumulus, said in a joint interview on Friday with Rdio’s chief, Drew Larner.

Crucially for Rdio, which was introduced in 2010 and has struggled to gain a foothold in the market, Cumulus will also sell advertising for a free version of the service in the United States. Rdio, which costs $5 to $10 a month and is available in 31 markets around the world, lets its subscribers listen to millions of songs, build playlists and interact with other users.

“The biggest challenge we face is really awareness,” Mr. Larner said. “We live in this bubble in which everybody is talking about this stuff constantly, but to the wider world, streaming is still relatively nascent.”

The deal between Rdio and Cumulus is a trade, with no cash changing hands. Further terms were not disclosed, but the value of Cumulus’s content and services is estimated at over $100 million.

Cumulus operates stations like Nash FM (WNSH, 94.7 FM), the only country outlet in New York, and the rock station KFOG-FM in San Francisco. Last month, it announced a $260 million deal to buy Dial Global, which syndicates programming like NBC News and sports from the National Football League and the N.C.A.A. to thousands of stations; that deal is still subject to regulatory approval.

Cumulus will draw on its stations and syndicated shows to create playlists and other programs for Rdio users, stripping out localized details like traffic and weather.

That kind of content could give Rdio an edge against other services. But even more important is its ability to offer a free, ad-supported version to compete directly against Spotify. Cumulus will use its 1,500 sales agents around the country to sell commercials for Rdio’s free version, which is expected by the end of the year, and the companies will share ad revenue.

Rdio has never revealed its subscriber numbers, but they are believed to be far lower than those of Spotify, which has more than 24 million users, 6 million of whom pay. Yet recent studies of Rdio’s popularity in Google searches suggest it is faring well against other competitors like Rhapsody, Slacker and Mog.

Cumulus already supplies streams of its stations to Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio app, a deal that should continue through at least next year. But Mr. Dickey called that arrangement “a marriage of convenience” and said that the Rdio deal allowed it to do much more.

“We’re trying to be much more active in the audio ecosystem than just passively handing our streams over,” Mr. Dickey said. “That has severe limitations in terms of our ability to monetize.”

By moving to the so-called freemium model, Rdio is hoping to attract new customers who can be enticed into paying for premium service. That model has allowed Spotify to grow more quickly than its competitors, but it is still a subject of debate in the industry over how many people will ultimately pay for service when so much digital music is available free.

“It’s not that people don’t like streaming music,” said Mark Mulligan, a music technology analyst. “It’s that people are unwilling or unable to pay $9.99 for the privilege.”

Webdenda: Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

Bentley Motors, Crewe, England, selected Solve, Minneapolis, as agency of record for North, Central and South America. Billings were not disclosed. Bentley had previously used work created in other countries for its marketing efforts in the Americas. Solve will work with another Minneapolis agency, Akquracy, which specializes in customer relationship management and database marketing. The assignment will include existing models as well as a sport utility vehicle that Bentley plans to introduce in 2016.

BlueKai, Cupertino, Calif., opened an office in London, to be led by Zuzanna Gierlinska as managing director for Britain.

Dale S. Bornstein joined M Booth, New York, part of Next Fifteen Communications, as chief executive. She succeeds Margaret Booth, who becomes chairwoman. Ms. Bornstein had most recently been senior partner and director for global practices at Ketchum, New York, part of the Omnicom Group.

Denis Budniewski joined Campbell Mithun, Minneapolis, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, in a new post, director for account leadership and growth. He assumes some duties that had previously been handled by Rachael Marret, president and director for integrated client services, who left to join the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group as senior vice president for customer engagement. Mr. Budniewski had most recently been general manager at Fallon, Minneapolis, part of the Publicis Groupe.

Bill Chamness and Will Hall joined the New York office of Rain in senior posts. Mr. Chamness becomes vice president for strategy, a new post; he had been director for client services at Sarkissian Mason, New York. Mr. Hall becomes executive creative director, succeeding Adam Kahn, who left to join McGarryBowen, New York, part of the Dentsu Network division of Dentsu, as group creative director for digital. Mr. Hall had been creative lead on the Jägermeister account at MRY, New York, part of the DigitasLBi unit of the Publicis Groupe.

Colle & McVoy, Minneapolis, part of MDC Partners, hired five employees for its creative department. They are Dustin Black, who becomes a group creative director; Kate Hartman, a digital production artist; Daniel Linnihan, an art director; Jaimi Novak, an associate creative director; and Curtis Peterschmidt, a junior copywriter.

Matt Creamer joined Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, New York, part of MDC Partners, in a new post, associate creative director and executive editor. He had been editor at large at Advertising Age, New York, part of Crain Communications. Mr. Creamer will help in an expansion of the agency’s content operation, Content Labs, working with Jonah Bloom, chief strategy officer, and Tom Buontempo, chief business development officer.

DKC Public Relations, Marketing and Government Affairs, New York, and JCIR, New York, an investor relations firms, have made formal a joint venture under which the two agencies collaborated for almost 13 years. They will continue to operate independently as Jeffrey Klein, managing director at DKC, and Richard Land, senior managing director at JCIR, oversee their integrated offering of services.

Karina Dobarro, an account director at MEC, part of the GroupM unit of WPP, joined another division of GroupM, Mindshare, as managing director for multicultural marketing at Mindshare North America, New York. She succeeds Ingrid Reyes, who left, the agency said.

Draftfcb, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, made several senior appointments last week after Carter Murray, who was named global chief executive in March, formally joined the agency. Jonathan Harries, who had planned to leave Draftfcb at the end of the year, will resume his duties as global chief creative officer. Vita Harris, who had been global chief strategy officer, becomes executive vice president for strategic planning; she is being succeeded by Nigel Jones, who is joining Draftfcb from the British operations of Publicis Worldwide, part of the Publicis Groupe, where he had been chairman and chief executive. And Elyssa Phillips, executive vice president and worldwide creative manager, was promoted to chief of staff, succeeding Peter Drakoulias, who left in June after the departure of the global chief executive for whom he worked, Laurence Boschetto.

Advertising: Lands’ End Ads Salute White-Collar Workers

Lands’ End Ads Salute White-Collar Workers

ADVERTISING for work clothes often features tradesmen, like recent marketing videos by Dickies showing workers outfitted in its clothing while forging knives and building hot rods, to highlight durability and fire-resistance. Now Lands’ End, a 50-year-old brand, is taking the unusual approach of promoting men’s dress shirts as work wear for jobs where the work is white-collar.

In television commercials and online videos, men describe their professions and laud the shirts.

In television commercials and online videos, men describe their professions and laud the shirts. Among the workers featured is Joe Branch, a sports marketer and executive director of Uwantgame, a nonprofit organization for mentoring student athletes.

Sitting in an office surrounded by sports memorabilia, Mr. Branch wears a white button-down collar shirt, navy blue necktie and gray dress slacks.

“If I’m at work, and I need to get it done that day, I’m really going to roll up my sleeves â€" like in every aspect of the word,” Mr. Branch says. “I really love the Lands’ End dress shirt because of the fit. They’re classic.”

At the end of the spot, Mr. Branch says, “My name is Joe Branch, and I was made to work.” It closes with the text, “Made to Work,” the slogan for the campaign, and the Lands’ End logo, a lighthouse.

Other commercials feature Reed Woodson, the founder of the interior design firm Beejar, and Justin Talt, a filmmaker and actor. Like Mr. Branch, the men are altruistic. Mr. Woodson designs eco-friendly spaces and Mr. Talt runs a company that helps independent filmmakers bring projects to life.

The commercials, which will be introduced Monday, are part of campaign that is the first for Lands’ End by AR New York, a unit of the Publicis Worldwide division of the Publicis Groupe.

The men in the commercials also are featured in print ads, which were shot by the fashion photographer Norman Jean Roy. Mr. Woodson wears chinos, and a blue dress shirt without a tie. Mr. Talt is more casual still, pairing an untucked blue striped shirt with jeans. The ads promote Lands’ End’s no-iron dress shirts, highlighting their starting retail price of $49, the implication being that they rival more expensive shirts.

“The quality and value of our dress shirts is one of the best-kept secrets,” said Edgar Huber, chief executive of Lands’ End, which is owned by Sears Holdings Corporation. “I don’t think many people recognize what great quality and what a great fit you can get at this price, and we wanted to shout it out and say, ‘This is what you can get for $50.’ ”

Lands’ End spent $12.9 million on advertising in 2011 and $5.1 million in 2012, according to Kantar Media, a unit of WPP.

About 39 percent of men describe what they most often wear to work as “business casual,” followed by 29 percent who describe it as casual (typified by jeans), according a survey by Mintel, a market research firm. Another 20 percent wear a uniform. Only 6 percent usually wear a suit. Men’s clothing is typically advertised in magazines with fashion coverage, like Esquire, GQ and Details. But for the Made to Work campaign, Lands’ End is placing ads primarily in The Wall Street Journal and the Business Day section of The New York Times.

David Israel, executive creative director at AR New York, said the campaign was meant to appeal primarily to men in their 30s and 40s who “wear a dress shirt to work and don’t get as celebrated as they should” for being successful and principled, like the men in the ads.

The ads are being placed beside business coverage rather than fashion because “we were really looking at how do we reach this guy in terms of media? What type of outlets does he go to, and what is he reading?” Mr. Israel said.

Unlike, say, the “It’s Miller Time” campaign introduced by Miller High Life in the 1970s, which celebrated men working at physically taxing jobs like repairing high-voltage lines, advertising has been less inclined to glorify work performed in swivel chairs. But the Lands’ End ads show dress shirts as akin to a uniform whose wearers perform admirable work, Mr. Israel said.

“For a certain guy, there is an idea that you wear a dress shirt when you’re going out into the day to accomplish something,” Mr. Israel said. “This is almost a uniform in a way for that guy, because serious work gets done in it, and there’s something really iconic about a dress shirt in that way.”

David Vinjamuri, the author of “Accidental Branding” and an adjunct professor of marketing at New York University, said that in advertising “the concept of honest labor has always been connected to blue-collar work, and Lands’ End is trying to translate it to white-collar work” in the new campaign.

As far back as the 1940s and 1950s, shirt makers like Van Heusen and Arrow depicted men in the professional class, but they tended to come off more as “company men,” Mr. Vinjamuri said. But the Lands’ End men in the new ads are more entrepreneurial, which will appeal to men in the work force today, especially younger ones, he continued.

“The thing that’s creative here is they’re showing the millennial or Gen X guy’s aspiration here, which is to be your own boss, and they’re romanticizing that,” Mr. Vinjamuri said of Lands’ End. “It’s emotional advertising, there’s no doubt about it, and it’s a very solid campaign for the brand.”

News From the Advertising Industry

Accounts

â–  Pizza Hut, Plano, Tex., part of Yum Brands, named the Chicago office of McGarryBowen, New York, part of the Dentsu Network division of Dentsu, as its creative agency. Spending was estimated at $240 million. The assignment had been handled since 2009 by the Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

â–  Chobani, New Berlin, N.Y., hired Droga5, New York, as its lead creative agency and Weber Shandwick, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to handle tasks like public relations. Billings were not disclosed. Boathouse, Boston, had most recently created campaigns for Chobani, which is known for frequently changing creative agencies. FleishmanHillard, part of the Omnicom Group, had been the public relations agency for Chobani yogurt. Chobani is grappling with product problems centered on consumer complaints about mold and containers bloating and swelling; the company voluntarily recalled some yogurt made at its plant in Twin Falls, Idaho.

■ Lowe Campbell Ewald, Warren, Mich., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, was awarded two creative accounts, from Atkins Nutritionals, Denver, owned by the Roark Capital Group, and the Detroit Lions football team. Atkins had previously worked with Goodness Mfg., Los Angeles, part of Trailer Park; the company has spent about $20 million a year on advertising but could increase its budget. Spending was not disclosed for the assignment from the Lions, which hired the agency for the 2013-14 season. The team has not previously worked with an agency for the tasks that Lowe Campbell Ewald will handle, which include brand strategy and enhancing the experience that fans have at the team’s stadium, Ford Field.

■ Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, known as BNY Mellon, chose TBWA Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group, to handle its worldwide creative account. Spending was estimated at $30 million. The assignment had previously been handled by another Omnicom agency, Doremus, New York. The account will be run from the TBWA New York office and also use resources from the agency’s London office.

People

â–  Katie Butler joined Eric Mower & Associates as director for EMA Insight, which specializes in search, strategy, planning and analytics. Ms. Butler, who is based in the Mower office in Charlotte, N.C., succeeds Eric Bulger, who left, the agency said, to start a marketing company. Ms. Butler had most recently been executive vice president for creative strategy and planning at JWT/OgilvyAction North America.

Miscellany

■ KSL Media, New York, a media services agency founded in 1981 that had been one of the largest independents in its field, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 11 with the United States bankruptcy court for the central district in California; the agency also has an office in Los Angeles. The petition listed the agency’s liabilities as more than $50 million and its assets as between $10 million and $50 million. Creditors listed in the petition with the most money owed them included the cable channels Comedy Central, ESPN and FX. KSL, which also operated subsidiaries that included TV10’s, specializing in 10-second commercials, worked for marketers like PetSmart; its largest client, Bacardi, which spent more than $130 million a year, left KSL in May for Mindshare, part of the GroupM unit of WPP.

AgencySpy, part of MediaBistro, reported that KSL’s chief executive, Hank Cohen, and president, David Sklaver, had unexpectedly left the agency last month. A reporter who called KSL in New York on Friday reached a recording that said the number “has been disconnected or is no longer in service”; pressing the prompt on the voice mail at the Los Angeles office to reach an operator generated repetitions of the general recording for the office.

■ Carton Donofrio Partners, Baltimore, which was founded in 1964 as Richardson, Myers & Donofrio, said it was making plans to close, affecting 24 employees. In a statement, Ellen R. Moore, chief executive, said that the majority owners of the agency, the Donofrio family, cited changes in the advertising industry as a reason for the decision, along with family health matters; Ms. Moore became chief executive in 2010 when Chuck Donofrio stepped down after given a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

â–  Chinn Creative, Laurel, Md., was acquired and absorbed by the Jacob Tyler Creative Group, San Diego. Financial terms were not disclosed. Chinn Creative becomes a Tyler office and Michael Chinn of Chinn Creative becomes managing director. Tyler said it planned to move the office to Washington in 2014.

News From the Advertising Industry

Accounts

â–  Pizza Hut, Plano, Tex., part of Yum Brands, named the Chicago office of McGarryBowen, New York, part of the Dentsu Network division of Dentsu, as its creative agency. Spending was estimated at $240 million. The assignment had been handled since 2009 by the Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

â–  Chobani, New Berlin, N.Y., hired Droga5, New York, as its lead creative agency and Weber Shandwick, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to handle tasks like public relations. Billings were not disclosed. Boathouse, Boston, had most recently created campaigns for Chobani, which is known for frequently changing creative agencies. FleishmanHillard, part of the Omnicom Group, had been the public relations agency for Chobani yogurt. Chobani is grappling with product problems centered on consumer complaints about mold and containers bloating and swelling; the company voluntarily recalled some yogurt made at its plant in Twin Falls, Idaho.

■ Lowe Campbell Ewald, Warren, Mich., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, was awarded two creative accounts, from Atkins Nutritionals, Denver, owned by the Roark Capital Group, and the Detroit Lions football team. Atkins had previously worked with Goodness Mfg., Los Angeles, part of Trailer Park; the company has spent about $20 million a year on advertising but could increase its budget. Spending was not disclosed for the assignment from the Lions, which hired the agency for the 2013-14 season. The team has not previously worked with an agency for the tasks that Lowe Campbell Ewald will handle, which include brand strategy and enhancing the experience that fans have at the team’s stadium, Ford Field.

■ Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, known as BNY Mellon, chose TBWA Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group, to handle its worldwide creative account. Spending was estimated at $30 million. The assignment had previously been handled by another Omnicom agency, Doremus, New York. The account will be run from the TBWA New York office and also use resources from the agency’s London office.

People

â–  Katie Butler joined Eric Mower & Associates as director for EMA Insight, which specializes in search, strategy, planning and analytics. Ms. Butler, who is based in the Mower office in Charlotte, N.C., succeeds Eric Bulger, who left, the agency said, to start a marketing company. Ms. Butler had most recently been executive vice president for creative strategy and planning at JWT/OgilvyAction North America.

Miscellany

■ KSL Media, New York, a media services agency founded in 1981 that had been one of the largest independents in its field, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 11 with the United States bankruptcy court for the central district in California; the agency also has an office in Los Angeles. The petition listed the agency’s liabilities as more than $50 million and its assets as between $10 million and $50 million. Creditors listed in the petition with the most money owed them included the cable channels Comedy Central, ESPN and FX. KSL, which also operated subsidiaries that included TV10’s, specializing in 10-second commercials, worked for marketers like PetSmart; its largest client, Bacardi, which spent more than $130 million a year, left KSL in May for Mindshare, part of the GroupM unit of WPP.

AgencySpy, part of MediaBistro, reported that KSL’s chief executive, Hank Cohen, and president, David Sklaver, had unexpectedly left the agency last month. A reporter who called KSL in New York on Friday reached a recording that said the number “has been disconnected or is no longer in service”; pressing the prompt on the voice mail at the Los Angeles office to reach an operator generated repetitions of the general recording for the office.

■ Carton Donofrio Partners, Baltimore, which was founded in 1964 as Richardson, Myers & Donofrio, said it was making plans to close, affecting 24 employees. In a statement, Ellen R. Moore, chief executive, said that the majority owners of the agency, the Donofrio family, cited changes in the advertising industry as a reason for the decision, along with family health matters; Ms. Moore became chief executive in 2010 when Chuck Donofrio stepped down after given a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

â–  Chinn Creative, Laurel, Md., was acquired and absorbed by the Jacob Tyler Creative Group, San Diego. Financial terms were not disclosed. Chinn Creative becomes a Tyler office and Michael Chinn of Chinn Creative becomes managing director. Tyler said it planned to move the office to Washington in 2014.

A Subtle Redesign of The New Yorker

For decades, fans of The New Yorker have been drawn to its pages for its meticulously crafted prose, its enterprising journalism and its predictable type face and layout.

New Yorker fans are going to notice some small but subtle design changes across its pages.

Over the last five years, The New Yorker’s total circulation grew by 1.1 percent to 1,055,922, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

But starting on Monday, New Yorker fans are going to notice some small but subtle design changes across its pages, which were led by its creative director, Wyatt Mitchell. The magazine is updating its table of contents, contributors page, “Goings On About Town,” Briefly Noted and Fiction sections. These changes include changing the number of columns, redrawing the Irvin font and introducing Neutraface as a secondary typeface.

Many of these changes are subtle enough that David Remnick, the magazine’s editor, said that if the magazine fell on the floor and was three feet away, it would still be identifiable to longtime readers. The changes include a cleaner presentation of the table of contents and contributor pages. The most notable change may be on the “Goings On About Town” pages, which start with a more distinctive presentation of the section’s opening image and include less detail on every museum and show listing. The revised pages also highlight the work of the magazine’s critics.

“We’ve kept the DNA and added some modern elements,” Mr. Remnick said.

Mr. Remnick said that in the past, The New Yorker had been slow to embrace any major changes (for example, not embracing photography in its pages until 1992.) He added that trimming the listings made sense now because there was less need for such detailed theater and gallery listings and because so many New Yorker readers are not even in New York.

“It’s a living thing. It should also have a sense of fun and improvisation and experiment,” Mr. Remnick said about the magazine. “You want to know where the theater is? It’s a Google search away.”

Over the last five years, The New Yorker’s total circulation grew by 1.1 percent to 1,055,922, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. Its advertising pages are down by 4.4 percent in the first half of 2013 compared to the same time the year before, better than the decline of 4.9 percent for consumer magazines over all, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau.

Mr. Remnick said he expected to receive some complaints from readers next week. “That’s O.K. Things settle down,” he said. “Our bread and butter is the language and the reporting and the stories that we publish.”