medium

The Medium Model: Making Shit Up About Suicidal Journalists

J.K. Trotter · 02/04/14 12:47PM

Last week, Medium editor Arikia Millikan published a bizarre essay about an “important war correspondent” who gave her a “red-blooded introduction to journalism” by drinking with her, seducing her, maybe sleeping with her, and telling her all of his secrets—including marital infidelity and a suicide attempt involving a shotgun. It’s supposedly a story of how “Tom Random,” the name she gives her famous mentor, exploited Millikan’s naiveté. Turns out that most or all of it is horseshit, and its author won’t say what—if anything—actually happened.

The Medium Model: Can Writers Live Large?

John Koblin · 05/03/13 04:00PM

What comes next after unpaid microcontent? Try 4,700 words about foreskins, at about $3 a word. That, according to a source, is what Sloane Crosley supplied to a new project called Medium, from Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. Williams won’t pay you for a Tweet but, for now at least, he might pay you depending on who you are.