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Andersen has teamed up with former Spin editor Michael Hirschorn and the erstwhile president of Brill's Content, Deanna Brown -- with money from TheStreet.com founder James Cramer, Spy publisher Tom Phillips, Flatiron Investors, preeminent Internet venture capitalists and other investors -- and is gearing up for a spring launch in new offices in Manhattan's hip West Chelsea neighborhood.

Hand-scrawled posters in Powerful Media's vast office space -- which is currently occupied by a dozen new hires, lots of iMacs and long, unfinished-plywood work tables called, in new-media parlance, "pods"-- suggest the site (which may or may not be called Insidedope.com) will include bits of music, movies, TV and other multimedia displays as well as more traditional reporting, analysis and commentary.

In a recent hiring spree, Andersen and Co. signed up editors and writers from a range of glossy magazines, daily papers and trade publications: Kyle Pope from the Wall Street Journal; Craig Marks, former Spin executive editor; Lorne Manly, a senior editor at Brill's Content; Chris Petrikin from Variety; Suck founding editor Ana Marie Cox; and author and editor Fred Goodman.

Andersen, 45, was the editor of New York magazine from 1994 until 1996, when he was fired after Henry Kravis, a partner in New York's parent company, reportedly had had enough of the magazine's aggressive business coverage. He resurfaced as a New Yorker contributor. Andersen co-wrote a satiric stage review, has written television pilots for NBC and ABC and, before founding Spy, was Time's architecture critic; next year he hosts an hour-long Public Radio show, "Studio 360," about art and culture. Andersen is, of course, the ultimate media insider, and so is nicely poised to deliver genuine inside dope. But who, exactly, wants this stuff? Can Andersen and Co. make money? What do they know about Web publishing? What exactly do they have in mind? In an interview in his lofty new office, Powerful Media man Kurt Andersen answers these and other questions, speaks of "Web-specific things," calls Spy a prototypical Web publication and identifies the story of our time.

Have you had enough of magazines?

No, not at all.

When I left New York magazine, I certainly didn't say, "Oh, I'm through with this medium." On the other hand, I had been so spoiled by my magazine experience that my bar was very, very high, so there just weren't many great magazines to do, and aren't.

As of June, I was looking forward to a very happy rest of my life doing nothing but writing novels and occasionally writing magazine pieces. Things happen. Opportunities arise. This reached that point of irresistibility.

OK, so what are you doing? What will Insidedope.com, or whatever it's called, look like?

Like nothing that exists quite yet. The closest model is TheStreet.com. We are going to sell subscriptions; like TheStreet.com, we'll focus on one particular area and try to cover it in serious, useful and authoritative depth.

We're hiring A-list journalists to break stories, create analysis, etc. We'll also have various Web-specific things -- database stuff and aggregate things and all those Web things. We'll aspire to be a must-go place for information about these worlds that -- for better or worse -- I'm obsessed with.

Who's going to read it?

Millions and millions, worldwide. There are several hundred thousand people who subscribe to trade magazines and newsletters about the industries we're going to cover. And there are people in the various businesses -- screenwriters and executives and editors and producers -- who, for a variety of reasons, don't subscribe to those trade magazines. We hope to get them to read this thing. Plus, we'll have material for the millions of Americans who read Entertainment Weekly, Talk, Premiere and the rest.

Do you guys know anything about the Net? You know about magazines. Does that mean you can succeed online?

A completely reasonable thing to ask. We know enough not to try to simply redo a magazine. We know enough to abandon the habitual ways of thinking about writing journalism. There are ways to think about doing stories, presenting stories, that can be transplanted. I think we know enough to know what is the bath water and what is the baby. We're saving the baby.

Whenever I do something -- whether it's starting a magazine, or writing a book -- I wonder, Would I want this thing, will this fill a void for me personally? This will. Am I, therefore, better equipped to do it than a lot of other people? Maybe. We'll see.

"Turn of the Century" focuses a lot on the convergence of news and entertainment, and dramatizes the lack of available sorting mechanisms -- or an ideological framework -- in which to make sense of a vast stream of unsorted cultural information. Does your interest in these subjects affect the way you think about the Web magazine?

One of the exciting qualities of this moment is that there is flux and volatility, a proliferating glut of information and a great confusion -- in a professional sense -- about what to do next. Yes, the train is leaving the station. But which train? Where's it going?

One thing this [Web site] can do is bring real editorial coherence to the accelerating flurry of news and gossip and chatter that is a little overwhelming to people.

Buzz did not serve Talk well. Are you nervous about the buzz surrounding this project?

I don't know that buzz served them badly. I guess there is a general fourth law of thermodynamics that says if you get this much buzz [points hands up] you get this back from it [points hands down]. All of us here have been around enough blocks to be aware of various ways you can go wrong with buzz -- too much, too little press, all that stuff. You try to play it the best you can.

What, on your site, is free? What's for sale?

We're figuring that out.

Why all the confidentiality?

Isn't that what you're supposed to do in a new-media venture?

We're still months away from starting. I don't know what's to be gained from showing sketches and rough drafts. Nondisclosure agreements are part of the standard operating procedures for the lawyers and venture capitalists behind this thing, so when people come in for interviews, we have them sign nondisclosure agreements.

It's an attempt to keep all those nosy, goddamned journalists out of our hair!

Next page | What are we going to do that the New York Times doesn't do?