In a parking-lot-adjacent patio behind a low-slung building in Burbank, California, one recent morning, Jeff Hasler, a Gen-Xer who runs Original Productions, which makes documentary and unscripted programming, is holding a summit with his staff. The employees, younger than he by a decade or more, sit around folding tables, some wearing combat boots, others in hoodies, munching on sandwiches. They’re here to give their boss feedback. Why, they wonder, did Hasler feel the need to be at every pitch meeting? Could he please explain the chain of command? And what about that deal they were told to chase that was clearly never going to happen?
“That was my mistake,” says Hasler, tapping his blue suede shoes. He looks pleadingly in the direction of a judiciousseeming woman with chunky tortoiseshell sunglasses on her head who is there to facilitate this intergenerational parley. She meets his gaze, then turns to the group, marriage-counselor style, to ask, “At what point did we know it wasn’t going to work out?”
She is Lacey Leone McLaughlin, a consultant who has become the go-to underling whisperer for bosses perplexed by the very demanding young people who now work for them. As one showrunner who was pitched her services for thousands of dollars a month puts it to me, “She’s who you call when you need to play defense against a town that’s pretty quick to cancel people.”
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin March 14-27, 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin March 14-27, 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.