Even in this crappy economy, The New Yorker is a magazine that we’ll plop down a fiver for at the newsstand. And it has been oddly great lately. So when a rumor cropped up this morning on Twitter that they might be going biweekly or even monthly due to recession pains, we were scared, confused, and devastated. We hit the retweet button, and started rocking back in forth in our desk chair.
But thanks to a point in the right direction from Sarah Weiman our (incorrect) fears were quickly (and sharply) put to rest by the magazine’s own pop-music critic Sasha Frere-Jones. To quote him: “These biweekly/monthly TNY rumors are total bullshit. Report it out, or shut the fuck up. Have a nice day.” And then: “The mags that got hit hardest are the ONES THAT DON’T EXIST ANYMORE. Seriously. This fear-mongering falling-sky shit is. Doing. No. Good.” And finally: “Didn’t mean to bark but it’s maddening to see conjecture being floated. When somebody catches fire or spills something on Si, I’ll tweet it.”
Fine. We’ve learned our lesson about believing everything we read on Twitter (and passing it along…oops!). But while we’re on the topic of upsetting news about The New Yorker, can anyone explain this little token of the apocalypse? File it in the same mental spot you keep Charles Isherwood on Gossip Girl.