The supercharged atmosphere of New York was a long way from Webster Groves, Mo., where Clay Schuette Felker, born on Oct. 2, 1925, grew up.
"Widely credited with inventing the formula for the modern magazine, giving it energetic expression," according to the New York Times, Felker is highly regarded for his development of New York magazine. He had also edited at Esquire, The Village Voice, Adweek and other magazines.
Felker was a reporter for Life magazine for six years, just out of college (Duke Univ.). He worked on the development of Sports Illustrated. He was later a features editor of Esquire but quit when his rival, Harold Hayes, got the top editor job. In 1963 he joined New York's Herald Tribune. He became founding editor of the supplement called New York. It became a standalone mag under his watch and control.
The NY Times explains: "He embraced the New Journalism of the late ’60s: the use of novelistic techniques to give reporting new layers of emotional depth. And he adopted a tone that was unapologetically elitist, indefatigably trendy and proudly provincial, in a sophisticated, Manhattan-centric sort of way. The headlines were bold, the graphics even bolder.
"Mr. Felker’s magazine was hip and ardent, civic-minded and skeptical. It was preoccupied with the foibles of the rich and powerful, the fecklessness of government and the high jinks of wiseguys. But it never lost sight of the complicated business and cultural life of the city. Articles were often gossipy, even vicious, and some took liberties with sources and journalistic techniques."
Conventional journalism, they said, reported what people said; the New Journalists tried to present what people really felt and thought.“I know why Clay is such a good editor,” said his friend the novelist and playwright Muriel Resnick. “He works until 8 o’clock. He goes somewhere every night. He’s out with people, he talks to people, he listens to people, and he doesn’t drink.”“Nonsense,” its critics countered. They considered New Journalism fiction masquerading as reportage, and its practitioners as manipulators of reader responses.
Among his writers were Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Gloria Steinem. He even helped start the latter's Ms magazine.
Felker lost New York to an aggressive stock ploy by Rupert Murdoch, in 1977. Felker's writers apparently dumped their jobs just before a deadline rather than work for Murdoch. Their efforts assured Murdoch would take the paper, according to the Times recollection in the July 2, 2008, article (linked).
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Maverick and hard-working men and women such as Felker, while anonymously, inspired me in my work for (some much smaller) publications. He was far more involved and "up there" than I, of course, I'm not kidding myself. The passion for stories of places and people were what always kept me at it, though, and my belief in my own talents for the work (while my workplace choices were far less financially secure than they were "task-secure").
My little beast of burden that I enjoyed killing myself while working, of years ago, was Goodlettsville, Tennessee's, paper, the Gazette. It existed from April 1998 until June 2000 (my paper was short-lived, while there was for many years before I moved to the Nashville area, the Goodlettsville Gazette). During that time there were also several sports publications I did mostly creative and production work for, with the Squires brothers (Tom and Raleigh). I was also one of the leading professionals in launching, in 2000, Nashville's still-stumbling City Paper. I tried to focus my efforts at that daily paper on the production, layout and design, then on the advertising and design, aspects. I craved being a journalist, but I also appreciated that some worked needed to be done in those areas, and so I did it. That paid off, I think, while I doubt the impact was particularly recognizable by any but a few. I was laid off in 2002, after new ownership took it over, and a mere six weeks after being married. Rude, that was.
I didn't stick with print media, as that loss of a steady job (or so I thought), the extremely low pay for the job that I finally found after losing that City Paper role, and the industry's financial instability weren't attractive to me any longer. Since moving to Florida in 2003, technical writing and business development writing and other work helped me out of a career in print media.
I do enjoy media, whether it is news, entertainment, marketing, or some hybrid. I hope I can find my way back in some day -- it seemed not to be in my cards in 2003-04.
- Jon O
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