Jeff Koyen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted.
Find sources: "Jeff Koyen" – news · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images (February 2012)

Jeff Koyen is an American journalist, editor and media CEO known for his independent journalism and his two years as editor-in-chief of the legendary, now-defunct alt-weekly New York Press, where he helped launch and/or grow the careers of several now-famous journalists, including Matt Taibbi. Koyen was born in 1969 in suburban New Jersey and currently lives in Venice Beach, CA, where he founded the software startup Assignmint. He is a graduate of Rutgers University.[1] He has worked as a freelance travel and culture writer, filing with Travel and Leisure, The New York Times, New York magazine, Radar, New York Post, New York Press, Penthouse, Wired.com, The Prague Pill, and others. He also founded the writing project 100 Words in 2001.

Contents

Biography[edit]

Koyen was the editor of the zine Crank, from 1994 to 2000.[2][3] Crank was one of the first printed magazines to be published and distributed free online simultaneously with its printed counterpart. Distribution was offered via FTP and Usenet and, starting in 1994, on the web.

Starting in 1998, he was a contributing writer and production manager at New York Press until he moved to Prague in 2002, where he was hired as associate editor at the expatriate paper, The Prague Pill. In February 2003, he was hired as editor-in-chief of New York Press by new owners.[4] He quit after publishing a controversial article that criticized a then-dying Pope John Paul II.

In October 2007 he was hired as the deputy editor of Forbes Traveler, the luxury travel website published by Forbes; he left in 2009 during a wave of layoffs.[5] In late 2010, he joined Travel + Leisure as online deputy editor, filling in for an editor on maternity leave. Throughout this time, he freelanced for the New York Times, New York magazine and other publications; he was also one of the founding bloggers at True/Slant.

In 2012, with funding from angel investors, Koyen founded the software startup Assignmint, which promises to "change freelance journalism as we know it," according to Fast Company. Editor & Publisher described Assignmint as "a digital location where freelance writers can pitch story ideas and editors can manage invoices with just a click of a button."[6][7] The New York Times profiled Assignmint in 2013:[8]

It looks as if the futurists from the early days of the Internet got quite a bit wrong when it comes to business online. The idea that no one would pay for music was wrong. No one would buy books was also incorrect. And the idea that writers would have to work free in the face of so-called citizen journalists was inaccurate, too. So many freelance writers are being paid for their work that a start-up firm, Assignmint, has found a place as a middleman, helping put the way writers bill clients and are paid for their freelance jobs into the cloud.

Assignmint opened its private beta test on February 11, 2013.

Controversy[edit]

In March 2005, while serving as the editor-in-chief of the New York Press, Koyen ran a cover story by Matt Taibbi entitled "52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope". The article was widely condemned by Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Matt Drudge, and Abe Foxman, among others, including now-disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner who suggested that New Yorkers take copies of that issue out of their news boxes and destroy them.[9]

The publisher responded to the attacks by demanding that Koyen publicly apologize for the article. Koyen instead chose to resign his position. He went on to defend the story, attacking owner David Unger and publisher Chris Rohland in the media,[10] saying "They couldn't handle the controversy... I didn't expect them to cave in and cower so easily. I'm really surprised they were so spineless."[11][12][13]

No apology was ever issued for Taibbi's article.

Notable Reporting[edit]

Travel Writing[edit]


Reviews[edit]

"Koyen is certainly a manager who stuck by his writer. Call it the editorial Omerta—the code that required editors to support their writers and editorial staffers in times of crisis. If the staff is taking heat from readers and bloggers, from publicists, or even from the higher-ups at the company, most editors feel they need to circle the wagons, even if it means putting themselves at peril."[14]

"(Koyen's) willingness to slaughter sacred cows appears to be working. It may not seem that way, but Koyen says he is slowly, but surely building a younger readership with an approach which may turn away the older, stodgier readers and critics. Koyen's not mad – he doesn't want them reading anyway."[15]

"'The New York Times' really outdid itself this weekend. Amid the sighs over St. Lucia's proclaimed hotness, Jeff Koyen has piped in from Bangladesh, and finally we can't tease the Times for hyping the over-hyped."[16]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Green, Peter S. " A Prague Perspective for a New York Newsroom", The New York Times, February 26, 2003. Accessed December 24, 2007.
  2. ^ "Crank Magazine". Retrieved April 15, 2009. 
  3. ^ Jeff Koyen, Crank, zinebook
  4. ^ Peter S. Green (February 26, 2003). "A Prague Perspective for a New York Newsroom". The New York Times. 
  5. ^ Forbes Starts a Second Round of Layoffs; Who Else Will Join It?, Peter Kafka, March 31, 2009, Media Memo
  6. ^ Neal Ungerleider (April 23, 2012). "How Assignmint Will Change Freelance Journalism". Fast Company. 
  7. ^ Nu Yang (July 20, 2012). "From Pitch to Paycheck: New startup Assignmint hopes to change freelance journalism". Editor & Publisher. 
  8. ^ Nick Bilton (May 14, 2013). "Start-Up Hopes to Help Freelance Writers Get Paid". The New York Times. 
  9. ^ LAWRENCE VAN GELDER (March 8, 2005). "New York Press Editor Quits Over Article". The New York Times. 
  10. ^ The Fix (March 8, 2005). Salon.com. Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  11. ^ Kurtz, Howard (March 9, 2005). Who's the Next Dan?. Washington Post. Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  12. ^ Haber (Mar 7 2005). "Jeff Koyen's Exit Interview". gawker. Retrieved April 15, 2009. 
  13. ^ "Take This Job and Shove It!". Fast Company. =March 8, 2005. Retrieved April 14, 2009. 
  14. ^ "Good editors protect their staff—to a point", mediabistro.com, November 28, 2005
  15. ^ ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: THE NEW YORK PRESS' JEFF KOYEN., The Black Table
  16. ^ Bangladesh Is the New Bangladesh, jaunted.com, December 26, 2006
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeff_Koyen&oldid=558635750"