Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: A magazine that editors will kill for Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 19:23:58 EST Message-ID: \SE B;LIFE \SS (WS) \HD A magazine that editors will kill for \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT NEW YORK NEW YORK - Some writers and editors are starting a home for the aged journalism - articles that magazine editors once commissioned but spiked, uttering such lines as, "There's a lot of good stuff in here, but . . ." Their magazine, Kill Fee, has yet to publish its first issue. It has no business plan and no production plan, no circulation department and no circulation. But it has a mission: "to give new life to all those brilliant pieces of journalism unjustly scorned by editors at less-visionary publications." Except for its rate per word - nothing - Kill Fee sounds like a free-lance writer's dream. No deadlines, no rewrites, no cuts to make room for pictures. In a fax appeal to writers, editor Mary Billard promised that manuscripts will be treated differently: "An editorial assistant will not leave it on the corner of his-her desk for six months gathering dust before losing it. Pieces will be immediately filed under one of two headings: 'Where's the peg?' or 'Hasn't he-she-Arnold been done already?' " "There seems to be a higher rate of pieces getting killed lately," says Ms. Billard, herself a writer for Smart Money magazine. "This is a magazine for the '90s." Variety television critic J. Max Robins got the idea for Kill Fee several years ago, after a national magazine decided to kill a piece on which he had worked for two months. "They left a message on my answering machine," he says. Each story that will appear in Kill Fee has such a story behind it. Tad Friend, a contributor to Esquire and Vogue, once wrote a magazine article on the spate of lawyer series on television. The piece was delayed by a change in editors, and by the time the dust settled, most of the programs had been canceled. Ms. Billard says Kill Fee hopes to obtain some legendary unpublished manuscripts, such as a profile of New York Law Journal publisher Jerry Finkelstein once written for Esquire by Steven Brill, now president of the American Lawyer. The magazine also is after fragments: the great lead that lacked a story to follow; the juicy quote that was deemed too offensive for a national readership; the outrageous anecdote that was barred by spineless lawyers. Ms. Billard even wants any rejected expense accounts "that defy imagination" and "fawning - oops, admiring - letters written to potential interview subjects." Most new magazines wait a few issues before abandoning their principles and standards. Kill Fee, scheduled to appear in January, has begun to do so already. "Some writers think we're not going to touch anything," Ms. Billard says. "But we'll slash 'em down if we have to." In one piece, "The lead was too straight, and all the good stuff was down below. We made the person rewrite it." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM