Word: shawn
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bulletin boards in The New Yorker's drab Manhattan office last week went a notice: "William Shawn has accepted the position of editor of The New Yorker, effective today." The announcement, signed by Raoul Fleischmann, the publishing company's president and largest stockholder, came as no surprise. As second in command under the late editor, Harold Ross, 44-year-old Shawn was his natural successor, although outwardly he is as different from Ross as The New Yorker is from the National Geographic...
...small (5 ft. 5½ in.), pink-cheeked man who wears a button-front sweater with his Brooks Brothers suit, Shawn has a reputation for politeness and tact that is almost as legendary as Ross's volcanic temper. "No one," says a friend, "has yet gotten through a door behind him." Editor Shawn never swears or raises his voice. He works up to 14 hours a day as quietly as a bank clerk, carries home a pile of work to his Fifth Avenue apartment. For relaxation, he plays hot jazz on the piano and reads four or five books...
Gentle Suasion. Where Ross peppered his writers with long or acid queries, Shawn gets what he wants by gentle suasion. When he likes an article he often calls the author-even late at night-to tell him so. But as editors, the only deep difference between Ross and Shawn, says one writer, "is that Shawn is about 100 decibels quieter." Shawn has the same passion as Ross for facts and accuracy, and is so precise that even a craftsman like S. N. Behrman says: "I like to do a New Yorker piece once a year just to get the benefit...
Will The New Yorker keep its tone and quality without him? The staff thought it would; their indoctrination has been thorough. For the time being, the magazine will be run by the board of editors who took over when Ross became ill. The board includes William Shawn, 44, managing editor for nonfiction; Gus Lobrano, 49, managing editor for fiction, Art Editor James Geraghty, Executive Editor Leo Hofeller, Mrs. E. B. White, a fiction editor, and Hawley Truax, vice president. Eventually, a chief editor, probably Shawn, will be named...