The Way New Yorker

Don’t look now, but the New Yorker is quietly developing something of an internet beat with Rebecca Mead leading the way. Back in Nov 2000, she scooped many fine national publications with much shorter lead times with a story about weblogs. In a June 2003 Talk of the Town piece called The Way We Are, Mead profiled NY Daily News intern and Chinese native Simon Song, who — until the publication of said piece quieted him — posted his photos and observations of American life on his weblog. In the most recent issue (Aug 11), she mines convicted ImClone founder Sam Waksal’s Amazon Wish List for another Talk of the Town piece speculating on his prison reading list. The New Yorker also covered Salam Pax’s weblog (no article link available) shortly after the beginning of the Iraq war.

Shouldn’t Wired, the New Yorker’s sister publication at Conde Nast, be covering stuff like this? Seems to me that the NYer is doing a better job of uncovering the social aspects (you know, the important bit) of the internet and technology.