True/Slant
“NEWS IS MORE THAN WHAT HAPPENS.”
Certified Mail –
Return Receipt Requested
June 22, 2010
RE: Content License Agreements
Dear Contributor:
As you are probably aware True/Slant Inc. has been bought by and merged into Forbes. This transaction means great changes for True/Slant. Unfortunately it means that at this time we must exercise our right to terminate our Agreement with you effective 30 days hence. We will be working with you to move your content to a WordPress blog; we’ll send details on that shortly. While at the moment we do not have a need for your services, we forsee the possibility down the road of contacting you again.
I wanted to personally thank you for all that you have done to make True/Slant what it is today. We wish you good luck and hope that our paths cross again in the future.
Very truly yours,
Lewis Dvorkin
549 BROADWAY SUITE 1012 NEW YORK, NY 10012 INFO@TRUESLANT.COM
TRUESLANT.COM
.
God knows, I’ve been laid off before. Just usually by people who knew my name.
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For those of you who are interested, no, the Michael Jackson posts didn’t do it. It’d be a sorry-ass news site indeed that would fire somebody for getting hate mail. Coates and I had a lot of talks before I got hired, and one of the things that made him say Yes was my ability to generate controversy. Which hasn’t gotten my work posted to the front page ever since I started talking about Michael Jackson, but who knows? Maybe Steve Forbes is a big fan. I actually have no complaints about the way I was treated, except the one about a non-specific noun rather than a personal one in that greeting. May I be excused my emo moment?
It’s okay, I’ve still got my poetry.
By the way, for trivia fans no, they did not in fact send it Certified Mail, so I guess this will have to do as a return receipt.
I’ll be very, very sorry to see this gig go. It was never going to be a millionaire-maker, nor was my drawing power something that had Matt Taibbi staying up nights, but I was proud of the work I did there (and, I guess, will continue to do right up till the end of July, just because I’m so nice) and having briefly had one, I will never again underestimate the power of a site that has the attention of the New York media.
John Cusack retweeted my post about him, and said (somewhat loopily, as usual) “I liek lorriane!” Ian McKellen retweeted my post about him.
It’s not supposed to matter, but it does. At least they know my name.
raincoaster 