paper trail

Atul Gawande named CEO of Amazon healthcare venture; Why are Americans reading less?

Being Mortal author Atul Gawande has been named CEO of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase’s joint healthcare initiative. “I have devoted my public health career to building scalable solutions for better healthcare delivery that are saving lives, reducing suffering, and eliminating wasteful spending both in the US and across the world,” Gawande said in a statement. “Now I have the backing of these remarkable organizations to pursue this mission with even greater impact for more than a million people, and in doing so incubate better models of care for all.”

At the New Yorker, Caleb Crain looks to the American Time Use Survey to explain why Americans are spending less time reading.

Read an excerpt from David and Lauren Hogg’s new book, #NeverAgain.

Univision is offering buyouts to Gizmodo Media employees in an effort to reduce its editorial budget and possibly avoid layoffs.

After an internal investigation, MIT has announced that Junot Diaz will return to teaching there in the fall.

Medium’s vice president of editorial Siobhan O’Connor talks to The Idea about the company’s new editorial vision. O’Connor says that the company now has eleven full-time editorial employees and that switch to an new ad-free, $5-per-month subscription plan has been successful. “Medium is unique in that you’re getting very different kinds of writing from very different kinds of writers — and it’s all presented together in one place,” she said. “We’re also unique in that we find ourselves in this rare moment where our business model . . . is aligned with our mission, and it’s working.”

Tonight at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, Susan Choi talks to Lillian Li about her new book, Number One Chinese Restaurant.