Peter Krupa

1. Salon.com - “You can’t stop the outsourcing tidal wave with a fork”

Money quote: The government could slow things down by granting subsidies to American firms to help compete with overseas companies. It could provide them incentives to buy locally. But, in the end, it can’t stop the flow of work and money from traveling around the world.

Clarinda [a typesetting company] was founded in Iowa when it served publishers in New York and Chicago because the technology of the day — trains and trucks, telephones and fax machines — allowed Midwestern states to be the outsourcing outposts of their day. At the time, the big cities were mourning the loss of their “printers’ rows.” Much of the desolation that was SoHo in New York was caused by manufacturing leaving the city for the hinterlands. Only decades later did it rediscover itself as a mecca of art and fashion — a rebirth that came on the back of the economic growth of the entire country.

2. Radar magazine: “Adam’s Apple: Adam Moss is America’s most celebrated editor. So why is New York magazine such a bore?”

Money quote: I noticed a curious thing about the “Sex and Love” issue that helps explain much of what ails New York: The central characters—not just the writers, but the people being written about—were all people likely to run into one another at a book party. The sex diaries featured both a publishing assistant and a magazine editor. Katie Roiphe, a New York City writer, wrote about her own life. Ariel Levy, a celebrated New York writer—and occasional Radar contributor—wrote about her wedding. Caroline Leavitt, a New Jersey (close enough) writer, wrote about the break-up of her marriage. These are people who are ostensibly supposed to take journalism’s reflective surfaces and turn them outward to the world. But Moss asked his writers to turn them inward.