The Awl is looking for an editor or two: John Herrman and Matt Buchanan, who have co-edited the influential blog for two years, are both leaving within the next few weeks.
Herrman’s headed to the New York Times — he was announced as one of the paper’s David Carr fellows this morning — and Buchanan is either “looking for a job” or “finally going to med school,” he told me over DM. “I sort of think running the Awl should maybe be a two-year position anyway,” he says. “Maybe we should call it a fellowship.”
Despite the worries of Media Twitter, the Awl isn’t going anywhere: “The Awl, which is now one of the last independent publishers left standing on the web — we’ve still never taken anyone’s money!!! — has never been as widely read or influential as it is right now,” Buchanan says, “which is why it’s in the perfect place for someone newer, younger, and smarter than a couple of straight white dudes to take over and do something far more interesting with it.”
The co-editors, who previously edited BuzzFeed’s FWD section together before Buchanan left for The New Yorker, announced the departure today in a blog post entitled, characteristically, “Job Open (Again).”
In the two years since taking over from founders Alex Balk and Choire Sicha (who recently took a job at Vox Media), Buchanan and Herrman had made the job an essential daily read for anyone interested in media, food, politics, real estate, and the infinity of time and space — among other things. (Full disclosure: I once wrote about collectible card games for the Awl.)
