The New Yorker: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The New Yorker is a widely respected weekly American magazine (debuted on February 21, 1925), well known for popularizing the nearly plotless short story as a literary form in English in the mid-20th century. The magazine also is known for its journalism—John Hersey's Hiroshima filled an entire issue—and for its criticism and essays, particularly the short "Talk of the Town" pieces. Its cartoons and short humorous sketches are also quite well known. Its longer pieces are known for their rambling style that pays close attention to characters. Because of its quality and reputation, The New Yorker has a wide audience outside of the city of New York. For the first, occasionally precarious, years of its existence, it prided itself on its cosmopolitan sophistication that was "Not for the little old lady from Dubuque."

It was founded by Harold Ross, who wanted a sophisticated humor magazine--in contrast to the corniness of other humor publications such as Judge, which he had worked for, or Life. Ross partnered with yeast heir Raoul Fleishmann to establish the F-R Publishing Company and established the magazine's first offices at 25 West Forty-fifth Street in Manhattan. Ross would continue to edit the magazine until his death in 1951.

The magazine's politics are largely liberal, though this has a large effect only on the magazine's editorial pieces; much of the journalism it publishes contains little if any political bias, and pieces by prominent conservatives are regularly printed.

The New Yorker is probably most famous for its cartoons, which have a reputation for being slightly surreal and often inscrutable. One popular stereotype is that the cartoons have punchlines so non sequitur that they are impossible to "get". (This stereotype once inspired an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld.) However, the cartoons remain quite popular, implying that there is a substantial constituency of readers who enjoy them and find them funny. In addition, certain contemporary New Yorker cartoonists such as Roz Chast break this mold, using humor that almost any reader would find accessible.

The magazine's first cover, of a dandy peering at a butterfly through a monocle, was drawn by Rea Irvin, who also designed the font the magazine uses for its nameplate and headlines. The character, which became the magazine's mascot, was named "Eustace Tilley" by Corey Ford.

One unique feature of the magazine's typesetting is the occasional placement of diaeresis marks in certain words with repeating vowels, such as reëlected and coöperate. The magazine does not put titles of plays or books in italics, but simply sets them off with quotation marks.

The editor of The New Yorker is David Remnick. Previous editors have been Harold Ross (1925-1951), William Shawn (1951-1987), Robert Gottlieb (1987-1992) and Tina Brown (1992-1998). It was acquired by Advance Publications in 1985, the media company owned by S.I. Newhouse.

Famous contributors

Contributors have included:

• Charles Addams - cartoonist
• Woody Allen - humorist
• Roger Angell, fiction editor and baseball writer
• Peter Arno - cartoonist
• Hannah Arendt - journalist
• Robert Benchley, humorist and theatre critic
• Elizabeth Bishop - poet, essayist
• Sidney Blumenthal - editorialist
• Andy Borowitz - humorist
• George Booth - cartoonist
• Raymond Carver - short story writer
• John Cheever - short story writer
• John Collier - short story writer
• Robert Crumb - cartoonist
• Joan Didion - essayist
• Mark Danner - foreign affairs correspondent
• E. L. Doctorow - fiction writer
• Dave Eggers - writer
• Clifton Fadiman -- book reviewer
• James Fallows - journalist
• Jules Feiffer - cartoonist
• Wolcott Gibbs - parodist, humorist, reviewer, and short story writer
• Brendan Gill - nonfiction writer
• Jonah Goldberg, political and social commentator
• Adam Gopnik - journalist
• Philip Gourevitch - journalist
• Alma Guillermoprieto - journalist
• Emily Hahn - journalist
• Seymour Hersh - Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter
• Pauline Kael - film critic
• Alex Kozinski - essayist
• A.J. Liebling - journalism critic and boxing writer
• Janet Malcolm - essayist
• Don Marquis - cartoonist
• Steve Martin - humorist
• Bruce McCall - humorist, illustrator
• John McPhee - nonfiction writer
• Joseph Mitchell - nonfiction writer
• Susan Orlean - journalist
• Dorothy Parker - short story writer, drama critic, poet, humorist
• S. J. Perelman - humorist
• George Price - cartoonist
• J. D. Salinger - short story writer
• Simon Schama - historian, art history, professor
• David Sedaris - humorist
• Anne Sexton - poet
• Robert Sikoryak - cartoonist
• Art Spiegelman - illustrator
• William Stieg -- cartoonist
• Saul Steinberg - illustrator
• James Thurber - cartoonist, short story writer, and essayist
• Calvin Trillin - nonfiction
• John Updike - fiction, essayist
• Chris Ware - cartoonist
• E. B. White - essayist and editor
• Edmund Wilson - literary critic
• James Woolcott - television critic
• Alexander Woollcott - theatre critic

The look alike Novy Ochevidets (The New Eyewitness) has started to be sold in 2004 in Russia.