When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

Branko:

Here’s a sentence:

Honor Levy, 23, with a piece of fiction published on The New Yorker’s website and a short story collection coming out next year, was regretting her decision to pull her piece from The Drunken Canal as we walked last Thursday past the publication’s unmarked white newspaper box in Lower Manhattan. 

I have so many questions.

Is the person a writer for New Yorker? Is The Drunken Canal somehow related to the New Yorker? What is The Drunken Canal? How was she “regretting” something at that point in time? Vocally or otherwise? What publication was being stored in those unmarked white newspaper boxes? Wait, is The Drunken Canal a publication?