Talking Points Memo writes: In a multi-platform, multimedia environment, it’s difficult for a magazine to break the kind of news that will lead every cable broadcast, every newspaper and every website for hours on end. But that’s what the Rolling Stone profile (written by Michael Hastings, who is currently in Afghanistan) of General Stanley McChrystal did Tuesday morning.
But if you wanted to read that profile, rather than rely on a couple of pull quotes or the punditocracy? Tough luck: Rolling Stone didn’t even bother putting it online before they rolled it out. In fact, despite the fact that everyone else’s website led the profile, Rolling Stone’s site led with Lady Gaga’s (admittedly impressive) machine gun jumblies all day and didn’t even put the story online until 11:00 ET.
In the mean time, readers looking to get the full scoop did have an option other than their local newsstand: Politico had a downloadable file of the full article — likely provided to them by Rolling Stone for the purpose of getting press coverage of it — on their site until well after 9:00 ET, after which the file disappeared. Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana said the publication of the reprint was unauthorized, but “there’s been no discussion” of legal action.
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By Wednesday, Rolling Stone had the article online with the link: Read “The Runaway General,” the story that made history.