The Cocktail Hour Newsletter

I like happy hour, and my friends know that it is a ritual for me, whether I am with company or by myself. A glass of champagne, to be precise, is what my happy hour consists of. For years, I have decided that a glass of bubbly around 6 pm is good for the soul. If it was a bad day to forget, a good one to celebrate. No excuse. Reach for the bubbly, uncork it and cheers.

Vanity Fair offers us a cocktail hour Newsletter, and I have just discovered it, although it has been around for a while.

Take a look:

What I like about this newsletter is that it has no pretensions of becoming the essential news briefing . For example, the one we see here starts with news about the President Trump impeachment inquiry, but it soon goes into a series of news related to entertainment, then returns to a political analysis, and, then an item from the archives of Vanity Fair.

So, this is a newsletter light, and, as its name implies, one that if one reads it before getting together with friends for a drink, will allow us to have a couple of conversation pieces to go along with the gin and tonic, or, in my case, with the glass of Clicquot.

For me in this particular edition, the news I would discuss over drinks would be one of discovery: A Historical Hollywood Mistake-–I had no idea that Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 drama, The Cotton Club, set in 1930s Harlem, was heavily edited to cut scenes in which black players appeared. Now the unedited version is available, as you can read below.

I drink to that. I also celebrate a newsletter that recognizes the time at which it appears, and offers at least one surprise to make the happy hour conversation wiser.

From Monocle Weekend

THE INTERROGATOR / EDITION 30

Mario García

Editorial consultant Mario García has advised the most important newsrooms in the world on design – and how best adapt to a digital transition. More than 700 publications, from The Wall Street Journal to the South China Morning Post, have received his strategic steer. Other than being an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, he also runs his own consultancy firm: García Media. Nowadays his speciality is how digital devices influence narrative structure and consumption; his latest book, The Story, was written specifically to be read on a phone. Here, though, he confesses to a few analogue pleasures.

What they are saying about The Story!

The Story is here!

You can now download my new mobile storytelling book, The Story, from Apple Books at $6.99
This is Book 1 of a Trilogy! The other two books coming soon.
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-story-volume-i/id1480169411

The newspaper remains the most powerful source of storytelling on the planet. But technology threatens its very existence. To survive, the Editor must transform, adapt, and manage the newsroom in a new way. Order The Story by Mario Garcia, chief strategist for the redesign of over 700 newspapers around the world.

My chat with in Monocle Radio

Listen to my chat in Monocle Radio’s The Stack: Latest episode‘The Face’ and ‘The Story’:We welcome the return of the print version of ‘The Face’ and talk to legendary newspaper designer Mario Garcia about his latest book, ‘The Story’.
https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-stack/368/play/

My interview with CNN en Español

I was a guest in the program Encuentro, hosted by Guillermo Arduino daily at CNN en Español. The interview was about how we read on mobile devices and my introduction of my new mobile storytelling book, The Story, to a Spanish-language audience.

García: Si tienes una buena historia, la gente la va a leer