My Favorite New York Magazine Story
The moment of the reveal has finally come!
Hello, good readers!
Last post, I left you all dangling with a cliffhanger. You must be wondering, "What the heck is Tamsin's favorite New York Magazine article ever published?" Let's dive into it and analyze New York Magazine's ability to produce a multimedia story.
In my previous post, I explored whether New York Mag — known for its long-form, feature pieces — can handle breaking news. In this post, I will look at a feature piece more up New York Mag's alley. Now, the moment of truth. My favorite article New York Mag has ever published and the focus of today's post is (drum roll, please), "The Truths and Distortions of Ruby Franke" by Caitlin Moscatello, a features writer and New York Mag contributor since 2020.
Before we get into this piece, let me provide some brief but necessary background on the story. Ruby Franke was a Mormon "mommy vlogger" based in Utah. For years, multiple times a week, Franke would post videos to her YouTube channel "8 Passengers" (now defunct) chronicling the lives of her seemingly picture-perfect family, according to Moscatello. Franke made millions from her channel. That is, until she joined a cult called “ConneXions.” In 2020, Franke stopped posting videos to YouTube about her family and started making sit-down videos with her new "business partner," Jodi Hilderbrandt, about parenting, mental health, "truth" and "distortion." In August 2023, Franke and Hilderbrandt were arrested for the physical and mental abuse of Franke's two youngest children.
The Cut published "The Truths and Distortions of Ruby Franke" on Sept. 24. If you remember from my first post, The Cut is a sub-publication of New York Mag that focuses on style and culture. This article clearly falls into the latter category. There are four major elements that I will analyze in this piece: the writing, its use of multimedia, its promotion on social media and its audience engagement.
I know the rule is to save the best for last, but sometimes it is okay to have dessert before dinner. The writing of this article is probably its biggest attribute. Moscatello does a beautiful job weaving together a horrific story. I am a reader who has a very short attention span and is easily distracted. That was not the case for this piece; it held my attention the entire time. This is quite a feat considering the article is pretty long.
"In 2015, Ruby Franke, a 32-year-old Mormon woman in Utah, became another parent sharing her family's life on YouTube," Moscatello wrote. It is the first line of her story and it immediately sucked me in. Her writing reads more like a book than an article. Moscatello does a terrific job bringing color to the story and painting a picture for the reader. The piece is also visually organized like a book. Each section consists of a few paragraphs. The start of each section looks like the beginning of a chapter. The first letter of the sentence is big and bold and typically follows a few photographs of Franke. Visually, this attracts my eyes and makes me want to read the content. The division of the story with different sections and images makes it easily digestible. Moscatello is not throwing a bunch of information at the reader. She is allowing them time to take in everything they just read before moving on. Typically, when I am overwhelmed with information, my attention goes elsewhere. Breaking up the story this way prevents that from happening.
Now let us look into the area this article can improve on the most, multimedia. This piece incorporated multimedia in two ways: photographs and audio narration. New York Mag typically offers audio narration for all of its feature stories. This is done for accessibility, so everyone has the opportunity to take in the story at hand. What particularly stands out for this piece is the quality of the audio narration. The narrator is artificial intelligence, like with most of their publications, but it is produced in a way that is so engaging I did not realize it was not a real person narrating the piece until my professor informed me. Besides accessibility, this is a great option for people on the go who may not have time to sit down and read because they are commuting or going for a run. It is also a great option for readers who are auditory learners. Listening to the piece allows them to take more of the story in than if they read it.
30 second audio narration excerpt of “The Truths and Distortions of Ruby Franke” on The Cut. (Video by: Tamsin Vidal)
The photographs Moscatello includes are curated well. There is a large variety, from happy pictures of the family to screenshots of Franke doing videos for her cult and photographs from the crime scene. Each image adds to the story because it helps articulate Franke's development — who she was during her family vlogging days, who she was as a cult member and who she was as a child abuser. However, this piece lacks video. Because Franke was such a big presence on social media and the majority of the content she produced were videos, this article could have benefited from including a short clip or two. It would give the reader a clearer picture of the persona Franke put on when it came to presenting herself online versus the crimes she was charged with. The cult Franke and Hilderbrandt were a part of still has a public Facebook page with videos listed, so Moscatello could have included a clip from there.
New York Mag successfully promoted this piece on social media, capturing at least one reader's interest: mine. I literally discovered this article because New York Mag posted about the story on their Instagram. New York Mag promotes stories across all of its six publications, so it is easy for a post to get overshadowed by another. That is the case here. I am not sure if it was a strategic algorithm or pure luck, but the right post popped up on my feed at the right time. It cannot be guaranteed for others. New York Mag also promoted the piece on their Facebook page, but that feed is even more overwhelmed with promotions than their Instagram. The pieces its Facebook page promotes are less curated and more frequent than on its Instagram page, like the daily advertisement of The Vulture's crossword puzzle. More should be done to highlight this story so it is not lost in the shuffle. I am not sure exactly how to do so since New York Mag is responsible for promoting many stories. Maybe reposting feature pieces, like Moscatello's, that are not time-sensitive. That may help garner more traction.
In direct relation to New York Mag's use of social media for this article is the last element I will evaluate today: their audience engagement. To be frank with you all (or should I say "Franke"), New York Mag's audience engagement is not good. As of my post's publication, New York Mag's article has a total of 75 comments on its website. Their Instagram post has 37 comments and their Facebook post only one. New York Mag does not engage with their viewers' comments in any of these mediums, which is a missed opportunity. If they responded to their subscribers' comments on the article, it may encourage them to keep on spending their money to pay for a New York Mag subscription. If they engaged with commenters on social media, it might lead to new users paying for a subscription to the publication. However, this lack of audience engagement did not take away from my experience with this piece. The writing alone makes this article a great success. That is why it is my favorite.
Alas, we have come to the end of my series delving into New York Mag and its sub-publications. But don’t unsubscribe, because this is not the end of my Substack! I’ll occasionally post pieces from my classes that best showcase my reporting skills, ranging from features to short, hard news articles. Since I’m a busy student, posts will be sporadic and in no particular order.
Keep an eye out—the best is yet to come!