A chat with Kurt Andersen
Kurt Andersen doesn’t have to go too far to gauge what’s going on with the ever-changing digital landscape. He consults his two teenage daughters Kate and Lucy, whom he refers to as his “personal focus group.”
No knock against the kids, but I’m guessing Andersen has a pretty good grip on the digital gestalt. The best-selling author (”Heyday,” “Turn of the Century”) and columnist for New York magazine (”The Imperial City”) is the co-founder of VeryShortList.com, which plugs new (and sometimes vintage) entertainment and media that have been spared the hype machine.
In 1999 he helped launch the now-defunct Inside.com, an online publication that covered the media terrain, and was probably just a few miles ahead of its time. He’s also the co-founder of the legendary Spy magazine, which, unfortunately, is no longer with us; try to locate some back issues in print, or online or wherever, for a healthy dose of satire.
He’s also the host of Studio 360, a Peabody Award-winning radio program that explores pop culture and the arts. The show, produced by Public Radio International and WNYC, is broadcast on 140 stations to 500,000 listeners each week, so it’s a pretty safe bet that folks are eager to hear what Andersen has to say.
With that in mind I jumped at the opportunity to meet him at the recent Advertising 2.0 confab in New York. Alas, a face-to-face was not to be. But Andersen was very good about making some time on the telephone. We talked about the pros and cons of the digital age, what the future may hold for print publications and the dawn of “e-books.”
I started off the conversation by asking him how the growing migration of readers online is affecting the production of Studio 360.
Enjoy.
Matthew Schwartz is Senior Editor of ScribeMedia.org and host of the WebTV series, From Print to Digital.
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