How ‘The New Yorker’ embodied the elite but survived

In a Netflix documentary that celebrates one hundred years of The New Yorker magazine, its staff writer Andrew Marantz, says that he has often been in places where people would say “All you elite [expletive], you don’t know the first thing” about America.

- MANU JOSEPH

It is the kind of magazine, he says, that would faithfully quote that expletive, but place an accent on the first ‘e’ of elite, thereby confirming at least one part of the abuse. The documentary, The New Yorker at 100, though insipid, will baffle millions who have not heard of the magazine, who are far removed from arts or journalism or the West. It is not only a revered magazine, but also one of the most revered things the upper crust has ever created.

The New Yorker’s evidence that there are some things only the cultural elite can do very well and that an exceptional product does not need geniuses, just an exceptional system. It carries, apart from poems, short fiction and cartoons, articles that are at times over 10,000 words long about anything that might interest a curious American. In return, the magazine actually makes money. It is probably the most imitated product in the field of print media, except the profits part. Many magazines have tried to be The New Yorker and generations of writers have spent months writing long and soulless articles that often begin with an anecdote.

I have been in rooms where Indians have tried to understand how they may recreate the success of The New Yorker, only to come to the conclusion that the magazine is successful because it is simply very good, a realization that oddly made them sad. But I don’t think that is the actual reason why the magazine is inimitable.