As Time Magazine’s 36-page cover story “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us” started to attract a storm of attention online and on television on Thursday, so did the story about how the article’s author Steven Brill came to write it for Time magazine.
In recent weeks, it was well-known in journalism circles that Mr. Brill’s comprehensive look at the health care industry was scheduled to be the cover story for the relaunch of The New Republic on Jan. 28th. (Michael Calderone at The Huffington Post first described the behind-the-masthead intrigue here.) Mr. Brill who has been reporting the story since June said he had agreed to work with The New Republic because he said he was promised by The New Republic’s new owner Chris Hughes that he would invest a lot in promoting that issue and ultimately Mr. Brill’s story.
“When I realized all the good stuff I had, I said ‘Listen this piece is going to be a big deal,’” said Mr. Brill in an interview about his conversations with Mr. Hughes about publishing the article. “Chris Hughes said ‘It’s absolutely going to be the cover. We’re going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on it.”
But when Mr. Brill learned that his story was going to be bumped to The New Republic’s second issue because Mr. Hughes had landed an interview with President Obama, Mr. Brill pitched the article within hours to four other magazines. While The Atlantic, The New York Times and The New Yorker considered the article, Mr. Brill said he ultimately worked with Time because the magazine’s editors agreed to publish the article as a single story, rather than partly online and in print.
Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time Magazine, said he that while he first had some reservations about Mr. Brill’s story pitch because he thought the article would be “a tough story to read”, he was quick to snap it up once he read it. Mr. Stengel also used the story as a way to experiment with presenting and promoting stories. He said that it was the first time he dedicated an issue to one article and promoted the articles across platforms, like CNN.com and Anderson Cooper 360. He noted that during lunchtime 32,000 people were reading the article at one point.
“This is going to be a famous piece for Steve Brill, a famous piece for Time and nobody is going to care about the provenance,” said Mr. Stengel.
As Mr. Brill managed television interviews and letters from readers on Thursday afternoon, he still questioned the benefit of featuring an article with President Obama on a relaunch issue. Mr. Brill said that when Mr. Hughes described the interview with Mr. Obama, “he must have said Oval Office nine times.” Mr. Brill also remained disappointed that Mr. Hughes promised to place his story on the cover and said “no way” when asked if he would write for The New Republic again.
“No editor needs to make a commitment to someone that your article is going to be on the cover of that magazine. But he made that commitment,” said Mr. Brill. “He did because he wanted to get me to write this for them.”
Franklin Foer, The New Republic’s editor, wrote in an e-mail, “It’s a great piece. I’m sorry that we weren’t able to run it and I’m glad that it ultimately found a home.”
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/how-brills-health-care-opus-jumped-from-the-new-republic-to-time/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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