Wired editors unveil their feature-editing process in a new blog

This month, the editors at Wired are trying something new with their ordinarily super-confidential production process–they're letting it all hang out. Senior editor Jason Tanz sez:

We at Wired are engaged in what we think is a pretty cool experiment. We’ve just started a blog called Storyboard, and on it we’re documenting, in near-real-time, the process of conceiving, writing, editing, and designing a feature for our November issue. We’re posting pretty much everything–internal emails, rough drafts, edit memos, PDFs of layouts, marked-up page proofs, etc.

The other cool thing? The story in question is a profile of Charlie Kaufman, the brilliant screenwriter behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich. He’s got his directorial debut coming out in October, and gave us unprecedented access. So anyone who’s interested in his work may enjoy seeing how this piece comes together.

It starts with an idea, of course–a bunch of dudes gathered around a table talking–and then comes the pitch, and in a few days time, you should see the rough draft.

If you ever wondered how a magazine article is made, or if you're a fan of Wired, this is a great opportunity to see some of the most brilliant minds in tech journalism working with award-winning magazine designers to make it all come together. (Check out The Process, creative director Scott Dadich's blog, for updates on the design front.)

Storyboard (Wired)

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

• [Keir]

  It’s seemed to me like there’s been a difference in the stuff I’ve been getting on the Wired feeds in the past few days, it’s seemed to me like they’re trying to change their appeal and getting it wrong, a lot of dumb stories like the worst bits of boingboing done worse with less of the good bits of either boingboing or Wired.

• [Art Adams]

  Wired recently wrote an article about the RED camera and got nearly all of the technical details wrong. It was embarrassing to read. Now I’m not sure I can trust any of their fact checking. I’m certainly looking at their magazine very differently–the quality of writing is excellent but the quality of their journalism seems to be questionable.

• [claud9999]

  ZZzzzzzz….Wha? Oh, that ad-heavy technolust wannabegeek rag Wired is still around? That’s so, 1990′s.

• [pspinrad]

  Neat! The important part is making the fact-checking public. I hope all publications do that some day.

• [Rob, Denmark]

  Ditto that!

• [AceJohnny]

  fact-checking, or lack thereof.

  The question will remain on how differently they’ll behave from normal, knowing that they’re being observed.

  If they show evidence of heavy fact-checking on this article, does it mean they do it as much (or appropriately) for all other articles?