How Robert Gottlieb quelled a rebellion and saved The New Yorker.

Note: Elon Green is a contributing editor to Longform.

“But the journalism itself is not free. It can’t be free. And if it is free, it’s not going to be very good.”

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, has written a new Obama biography expected to be a best-seller. His frugal streak has kept his staff intact. And yet, after a dozen years, he’s still the new guy at Condé Nast.