Eat The Press

Ew, Jack Shafer. Citizen Kane?

Slate |  Jack Shafer |  Posted Wednesday August 2, 2006 at 09:43 AM

Jack Shafer has some unsolicited advice — the best kind! — for new Observer owner Jared Kushner on how best to care for his new plaything. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. The worst of it has to do with Citizen Kane. Ew ew ew. "I suggest that you watch Citizen Kane a couple of times for inspiration and drop hints to reporters about the parallels." Ew! Maybe the worst PR advice ever. I personally think Jared's done a great job of it so far: focused on the paper and making it great, pledging faith in the editorial side, keeping it about the product, keeping quiet about his own persona, letting other people dig up the details which so far are about as scandalous as him helping a drunk girl at a party. Don't listen to him, Jared. So far you're coming off like a mensch, so keep your head down and act like one.

Some of Shafer's advice is good — don't apologize for being rich (remember your readers!); don't apologize for your incarcerated dad (loyalty is remembered, and prized); throw money at the paper in content (restore the second section), editorial (hire top writers and editors) and art design (Shafer likes it creamy!). ETP disagrees with some other particulars, like taking the paper free (remember your readers, Jared! Rich people know that something you get for free is worth exactly what you pay for it) and losing the Observer's farm-team-for-great-journos rep. The Observer allows talented young writers to thrive by giving them meaty subjects and tons of column inches in which to chew them over (Tom Scocca's YouTube think piece, anyone?). If you keep making the Observer a destination for ambitious, voicey newbies you can keep the paper fresh, brash and exciting.

Finally, we almost gagged reading this recommendation: "Write more about sex and the city. Catchy, eh?" I can't do better on this point than Ankush Khardori:

Ugh. Spoken like an old guy. If I have to read another Candace Bushnell knock-off, I'll shoot myself. What she did has been copied just about everywhere. It's done. Move on. Better advice: Find someone to do what Bushnell did -- create a whole new genre. Not an easy task, but the returns will be better than running some Bushnell wannabe in a paper that's read by people who were with Bushnell from the start. They'll spot an imitator from a mile away.

A final note: Shafer tells Kushner: "I know you told the Times that you love your father, but you won't be a man until you kill him." That is, as the Brits say, bollocks. What Kushner does here is his own damn business — he's the one who's going to have to live with it.

But what do we know, we fell asleep during Citizen Kane. If we're going to watch a movie about a sled, it damn well better have Cuba Gooding Jr. in it.