The Moscow Times is releasing its final print issue today. The paper will continue to publish on the web, and many employees have been let go. The paper “has played a unique role in covering Russian affairs and politics from the inside,” editor Mikhail Fishman said. “I hope it will continue to stick to these principles throughout the future.”
Abby Ohlheiser attempts to explain the alt-right backlash against CNN after the network supposedly blackmailed an anonymous Reddit user into apologizing for a GIF he created of Donald Trump wrestling CNN to the ground. Although the user apologized before CNN wrote the article, other Reddit users are threatening to “track down” the family and friends of CNN employees. “It’s a particularly threatening version of an inversion that is common on the Internet today: keep reporting on the Trump Internet, and the Trump Internet will decide it’s ‘reporting’ on you,” Ohlheiser concludes. “And many mainstream outlets are still struggling to contend with it.”
The New York Times looks at a recently-publicized stipulation in playwright Edward Albee’s will that requires his executors to destroy any unfinished works. It is unclear whether any manuscripts have been destroyed already, and some wonder if the rule applies to early versions of plays that were later completed. “Am I disappointed? Yes, because every tiny bit of everything that a writer has written provides insight into that writer’s creative process,” said Edward Albee Society president David A. Crespy. “But am I surprised? No. He maintained very strict control over the materials that were available to the public.”
Angela Chen talks to Elif Batuman about success, growing up, and her novel, The Idiot. Batuman had originally been working on another autobiographical novel set in 2010, but felt that she needed to write The Idiot in order to better understand the character’s background. “The book that I was trying to write, that I didn’t, is about an older person in her thirties, so her ideals have taken various hits in the course of her professional and personal life,” she said. “And something about going back to The Idiot, which I hadn’t looked at in all that time, and seeing the moment before she had taken those hits and seeing that this was the same person that she would become—I saw how this would be a person who would end up making a lot of compromises despite being idealistic and kind of uncompromising in a way that doesn’t really jibe with the world.”
At The Millions, Steve Paulson talks to Teju Cole about photography, writing, and his new book, Blind Spot. Cole reflected on how a bout of temporary blindness changed his work. “I was already looking intently, but I started to look more intently, more patiently. My photography got a bit more meditative and mysterious. I began to pay attention to the ordinary in a more focused way,” he remembered. “Having eye trouble made the ordinary glorious.”