Magazine media: The New Yorker launches an online docu-series

New York – The New Yorker has been condensed into a half-hour docu-series to be launched on Amazon Prime instant video.

The literary publication, which often focuses on long-form journalism, has been re-imagined by Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney into a series called The New Yorker Presents, meant to emulate the experience of reading the magazine for its often time-poor readership and introducing a new audience to its content.

Co-produced by Condé Nast Entertainment and Jigsaw Productions, The New Yorker Presents takes a pinch of irreverance, pithy humour and cultural insights in the same equal measure as its print format cousin.

The pilot episode opens with a vignette from Simon Rich, in which Alan Cumming’s God sits on a New York pavement, attempting to advise one of his doomsday disciples, ending with an equally mysterious passage in which Social Network and Spiderman actor Andrew Garfield reads a poem by Matthew Dickman. Sandwiched somewhere in between sit meatier documentary shorts based on magazine articles.

For more on the disruption of traditional media landscapes, read our Transmedia Futures macrotrend.