Ask yourself, what's in a name?

Sent:* Thursday, July 14, 2005 *
To:* *444 Madison *
Subject:* from Adam Moss

everybody,

i am happy to announce that ben wasserstein will soon be joining our staff. as many of you know, ben is now an associate editor of vitals, where he helps edit/assign all the text (there's more of it than you think). he's been a frequent contributor to slate (among other things writing for their "summary judgment" column, like the other bens around here) and to the new kinsleyfied opinion pages of the la times. in various capacities, he's also worked at brill's content, caa, miramax, cbs and time warner — and on the fabulous, if short-lived, new york magazine convention daily.

Oh, but if only he weren't a Wasserstein, bearing the mark of Beezlebub! After the jump, Adam struggles with this and other capitalization issues.

for obvious reasons, i have had the opportunity to get to know ben over the last year. he has impressed me as a smart and lovely guy, a talented editor who wants to work hard and to learn. i have remarked to some of you that he'd be a perfect candidate for a job here if he weren't a wasserstein — and then recently, it began to seem like his last name was a pretty dumb reason not to hire him. so, in the past few weeks, we began to talk about a job. ben will be an associate editor, working principally for intel with jared and carl. he will also take on assorted projects for the strategist (exploiting some of the skills he's learned at vitals), and where necessary, pitch in on the culture pages.

so that's the new configuration. ben will be joining us after labor day. many thanks

Enlightened Self-Interest [Media Mob]