Word: shawne
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...years, William Shawn has presided over his domain like a benevolent father. A shy man of gentle reason, he created a familial haven for some of the country's best writers to do their finest work in. Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, but it was Mr. Shawn, as he is invariably called, who turned the magazine into a forum for serious reportage and polished fiction while retaining its breezy urbanity. Both magazine and man became institutions of sorts: The New Yorker as an elite but powerful voice in the worlds of literature and journalism, Shawn...
Something happened last week however. On Monday afternoon Samuel Newhouse, the head of a family-owned media empire that bought the magazine in 1985, visited Shawn in his sparely decorated office. Newhouse got right to the point: Robert Gottlieb, 55, president and editor in chief of the publishing house of Alfred Knopf, would succeed Shawn, 79, on March 1. Newhouse then handed Shawn a memo, dated the next day, that announced the editor's decision to retire. Shawn, taken aback, argued unsuccessfully that the next editor should come, as the magazine's staff had long expected, from within...
...likely to reverberate for months. Never mind that Gottlieb is considered a brilliant editor, held in high esteem by authors as disparate as Joseph Heller and Doris Lessing, as well as by a number of New Yorker writers who are published by Knopf. The shabby manner in which Shawn was treated and the fact that an outsider was chosen over his objection infuriated staffers. "There was an appearance of violence and crudity about what Newhouse did," complained a longtime New Yorker editor...
...argument did not sway Gottlieb, who lunched next day with Shawn at the Algonquin Hotel, the fabled watering hole of such bygone New Yorker wits as Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker. The two men had never met. As they settled at Shawn's regular table, Gottlieb gave Shawn his reply to the petition, a three-sentence note that expressed sympathy but declared his intention "to take up this new job." As Gottlieb toyed with his omelet and Shawn ate an English muffin, the two decided that Gottlieb should take over in mid- February, after a week spent working with Shawn...
Directed by Shawn Hainsworth...