Who's going to write it? How about the writers for The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, The Economist, The Paris Review, etc. I could fill up the length of a long-form article with names of publications that have long-form writing.
The real question is, who's going to pay for it? This is like when someone complains that there aren't any good programmers out there, and, P.S., they're paying $25k a year. The article talks about 2000-3000 word articles. At the rate Tumblr's paying, that's $80-$120 per article. Who are they kidding? At those rates, if you're an established writer, you're better off posting to a personal blog and relying on ad revenue.
There have been a few magazines (both online and print) that have recently managed to establish themselves as reputable publications that have good writing. What they've done is pay above-market rates to attract good writers. After all, why would you publish in some no name publication instead of The Atlantic? Tumblr seems to be using the opposite strategy.
The real question is, who's going to pay for it? This is like when someone complains that there aren't any good programmers out there, and, P.S., they're paying $25k a year. The article talks about 2000-3000 word articles. At the rate Tumblr's paying, that's $80-$120 per article. Who are they kidding? At those rates, if you're an established writer, you're better off posting to a personal blog and relying on ad revenue.
There have been a few magazines (both online and print) that have recently managed to establish themselves as reputable publications that have good writing. What they've done is pay above-market rates to attract good writers. After all, why would you publish in some no name publication instead of The Atlantic? Tumblr seems to be using the opposite strategy.