I agree with Ann Friedman. I value the stability and flexibility that editing Dan's work allows. Also, freelancing work pays very little. By working together, we were able to shoot into the stratosphere, earning more than a dollar a word -- which many magazines have been paying for the past two decades. Dan's New Yorker wages and his advance for Nine Lives allowed me to work on fiction, for which, as yet, I haven't been paid.

Thanks for responding, Margaret, I appreciate your input.

I don't understand why Dana Goldstein didn't do some reporting for this piece. What she means by "I don't presume to know" and "maybe" and "seems" is, "I didn't bother to ask."

On a related note, I once heard David Rawlings say that he plays in a two-person band named Gillian Welch.

Dana Goldstein writes: There's also a hard truth reflected in the Baum-Knox relationship ... : Many wives in dual-journalist couples assume the "editor" role because editing jobs often have better hours, are more stable and flexible, and allow women to take on the lion's share of child rearing responsibilities.

Why is that a "hard truth"? Implicit is the notion--and the pseudo-feminist resentment-- that Margaret Knox has been relegated to old-fashioned wifely duties, as opposed to creating an arrangement that works well for her, as she says.

Grow up.
Seriously.

Meaning what?

What if publications were asked to put a 'written by Dan Baum and edited by Margaret Knox" byline?

They would refuse. Which somewhat illustrates how they came to their arrangement, I imagine.

Seth has it right. I couldn't even get the New Yorker to credit Margaret on the Contributors page.

Grow up, indeed! The Baum-Knox arrangement works as long as a heartfelt marriage works. Let's pray it always does, so that a marvelous editor and collaborator will never have to start from scratch as a result of her talent not known publicly. Sound familiar?
Very practical reasons exist for every Mrs. to have career recognition and credit in her own name.

Your article very interesting, I have introduced a lot of friends look at this article, the content of the articles there will be a lot of attractive people to appreciate, I have to thank you such an article.

Whatever else may have gone on at the magazine, I've always gotten, within a day, responses to pitches, and not just "We regret." An actual editor made actual comments about why what I was pitching wouldn't work for the New Yorker at least three times over the last 3-4 years that I can remember.

But that's me...

I'm not sure of the point of this item. If it had been about his tweets and working for the New Yorker, fine, I'm interested. Whether or not the author is uncomfortable about the husband and wife's working relationship -I could not care less. It is their business, not mine, not the authors.

If Baum-Knox doesn’t have a problem with it, why should anyone else?

If Dana has personal experiences that lend her to belief this arrangement is troublesome or sexist, those are her personal experiences.

Why has it become the belief of certain "progressives" that everyone must think and act as they do? Everyone didn't have the same experiences, so how can one expect people to think and act the same?

Exactly right, James. The implication is that Knox is too stupid or weak to understand for herself that she's being exploited.

Re: "Grow up. Seriously." That's what is termed an ad hominem attack. I'd hope for more subtle thinking from readers of this site.

Thank you.

While the arrangement--which I would never do--works for them and they are happy, so be it.

What I had problems with was their portrayal of New Orleans. It was very one dimensional in the sense that they could only really cover part of the city--they did not have a car, and the city is so much larger and diverse than the hipster neighborhood they lived in.

More than once I rolled my eyes at some of his statements. It seemed like if he couldn't get info. from his bike rides or a phone call (google, perhaps?), than he never considered covering it.

Katherine Boo did a much better job at covering the region after the storm.

I am hugely impressed with the aplomb and grace Dan and Margret have shown in responding to this rather accusatory post. Perhaps the world lost a great writer because Sonya Tolstoy was too busy editing her husband's messy notes. Or perhaps Dan just likes being out in the world of journalism and Margret likes editing from home so she can concentrate on her fiction. At what point are we women going to stop calling foul at every potential sexist set up? It shouldn't be anti-feminist if a woman chooses the private sphere. It should be celebrated that many women in the US have so many varied options before them.

Here I was expecting to read a story about a staffer writing about his departure from one of the country's most influential magazines. Instead I get a worthless opinion piece from some feminist who's apparently still on her rag. Very disappointing.

I thought the main point of the post is Baum's tweeting about his New Yorker experiences. Yet, it's the parenthetical aside about the couple's domestic arrangements that has sent most fingers wagging. Why? Goldstein is clearly petty, resentful and judgmental.

I'm astonished that so many of the posters here don't grasp the fact that a writer's reputation is not, in fact, community property. When one member of a writing team gets all the public credit (whether perforce, as Baum seems to put it, or by choice) then when/if the marriage (god forbid) dissolves the uncredited party walks away with relatively little. There's nothing new there--its been happening to women for a long time. That's why Dana is quite rightfully curious and concerned about the lumping of two people's work under one person's byline.

If the story concerned two men of different races (say), one of whom worked "invisibly" for the other all of these absurd accusations that Dana is at fault ("on the rag" "petty" etc...) would be recognized as absurdly out of place.

I'm old enough to remember that most of my elderly male professors used the unpaid/unacknowledged work of their wives as researchers and editors and secretaries. That was all very well and good for their careers and even for their marriages (until they dumped the old wives for the young graduate students) but when it came time to compare "their" "output" to that of young women in the profession, or unmarried junior men, suddenly it became clear how much the unrecognized work of the invisible married woman mattered. It totally skewed the output distribution in a way that the senior men never acknowledged--other than by joking to the junior women "you should get a wife."

aimai

Just a note about the statement that editors are always credited in the masthead...That's usually true, except for one glaring exception: the New Yorker, which doesn't have a masthead.

Well put, aimai. The arrangement that Dan Baum and Margaret Knox have established may work very well for them indefinitely. Let's hope so.

But historically such setups have not been ideal for the woman -- or, let's say, for the uncredited partner. If this couple were to break up, only one of them will have a googlable byline and clips; the other's contributions to what is ostensibly a one-person job are unknown or unclear. In fact, their verification will depend on the word of her (currently) amicable partner.

It's a metaphor for what happens in families when the wife quits to take care of kids, thereby supporting her husband's career advancement at her own economic peril. As long as the couple remains together, the setup may remain ideal indefitely. But Goldstein is right to point out that such an arrangement is risky in the long term for the woman -- I mean, for the non-bylined person, who perhaps by pure chance, as with most stay-at-home parents, happens in this case to be a woman.

Best of luck, though, to Dan and Margaret.

Goldstein is right that this is a pretty unconventional arrangement these days, and, with some reason, not one that she would want. Baum and Knox respond, politely and cheerfully, that they have their reasons and it works for them.

This wasn't a cover article or a blog dedicated to the issue, it's a post on a blog. One writer's reaction, other writers' response. It's why God created the Internet. And what a happy story we are treated to! Everyone is happy and having fun!!!

I don't get why so many people on this thread want to call out either party here.

I get the point, but Margaret Knox is a ghostwriter (editor). Everyone knows that a ghostwriter's name doesn't appear on the work.

$90,000? I wouldn't complain about that.

exactly right, aimai.

too bad some people would rather grind their personal axe than take a second to stop and think.

Do we really care about a couple a magazine hacks?

Can't you people read between the lines?

They're swingers.

For obvious reasons, journalists may get caught up in what bylines mean to us.
But I think this discussion misses what should be the most salient point:
What does a byline signify about identity and accountability to average joe readers, based on their reasonable assumptions about the newsgathering and the writing process?

I sympathize with everyone here. I have been through the ringer myself in the past five years and God help me, still love being a journalist (and only sometimes as a freelancer.)

It's better not to throw stones, in my book. The writer of this piece could very well be right, but I think achieving both a successful marriage and writing for the New Yorker is remarkable.

I hope the fired journo licks his wounds, enjoys his book sales, and soon is able to Tweet about something more urbane.

I did a ton of behind the scenes work for my wife when she was in law school and interviewing with firms. We were a team and I would often schedule her interviews and do research on the companies for her.

I don't get cited in Lexis-Nexis. She does. It doesn't feel like reverse-sexism.

I don't see what's wrong with this. It's not like a poor and/or ignorant person is being exploited.

-trent

Hey,you will do better.your posts have inspired me! - I love the way you directly get to the point, and then work outwards. I’ve been trying to do figure out what I want to say about ,that would allow me to do exactly the same thing.