The New Yorker does come off a bit odd because it's a middle-brow publication aimed at a mass audience and sold as 'what high society reads', hence it's motivated to try to look 'intellectual' while being as unsophisticated as possible to maintain a high school, or nowadays middle school, reading level. Since people are most comfortable at a few grades below their actual reading level.

It's a common paradigm for many 'intellectual' publications

Actual high-brow literature, such as the Physical Review Letters or the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, have no need to pretend but then they assume a bare minimum of a college graduate reading level, plus specialized knowledge on top of that for their niche. Hence they're impenetrable for the vast majority.