There’s a certain art to interviewing and writing for cover stories – much of it comes from humanizing the subject. These stories are effortless to read, and you walk away feeling like you know the subject even better. But bad cover stories are missing much of the nuance.
This week fans and journalists were calling out a particularly bad cover story that profiled Tomorrow x Together for GQ Hype. We discuss where this story went wrong and compare past profiles on TXT as well as Lana Del Rey’s recent Rolling Stone UK as evidence of good journalism. We consider how the publication’s audience and the experience of the journalist play into the approach and quality of the interview – and whether or not journalists should be fans to some degree.
P.S. We’ll be on break for the next two weeks and back in your feed on April 9!
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Sources for The Good and The Ugly of Cover Stories
Tomorrow X Together Are the Future of K-Pop (GQ Hype, CHRIS GAYOMALI, March 15, 2023)
TXT’s Beomgyu Is Writing His Own Story (Crystal Bell, Paper Magazine, Aug 2021)
Tomorrow X Together Speaks to Everyone (Paper Mag, Crystal Bell, Aug 2021)
Lana Del Rey: she does it for the girls (Rollingstone UK, Hannah Ewens, March 2023)
Jae-Ha Kim on Twitter
Crystal Bell on Twitter
Syed Saquib on Twitter
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