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A memo just out from Bill Keller this afternoon announces that Gerry Marzorati, the editor of The New York Times Magazine since Adam Moss decamped for New York, will get a promotion to assistant managing editor and, with it, a spot on the paper's masthead. It seems as though he'll still be doing his same old job — producing the magazine each week, overseeing the various monthly and quarterly and biannual supplementary magazines. But with the great new title, it seems, comes great responsibility. "We want him to help identify and develop the next generation of editors for the magazines and magazine-like sections of the paper, particularly from within the paper," Keller writes. "We want him to be a bridge between the magazine and the newspaper on big enterprise, lending a hand (or the hands of his editing staff) to Glenn where appropriate on long narrative enterprise that can use a magazine touch, and making the magazine's pages more available as a showcase for projects that originate in the newsroom. We want him to work with the Web on developing a unique Times Magazine presence on our website, including an Internet luxury magazine."

We understand he'll also be responsible for picking up Sulzberger's dry cleaning on alternating Thursdays.

Keller's full memo — which, sadly and atypically, contains neither emotional oversharing nor awkward penis jokes — is after the jump.

From: Bill Keller
Date: Mar 21, 2006 2:55 PM
Subject: Gerry Marzorati Moves Up
To: newsroom@nytimes.com

To the Staff:

Gerry Marzorati inherited a magazine and spawned a magazine group. In addition to our weekly magazine, which has flourished under his leadership, he now oversees a monthly luxury magazine, a budding sports magazine and a soon-to-be-twice-yearly real estate magazine. Other ideas are germinating in the Marzorati greenhouse. Beyond that, he is an engine of the company's "skunk works" committee, which reviews new ventures of all kinds, and a welcome presence at every table where The Times' present and future are under discussion.

It's time that the importance and potential of the magazines in the life of the paper, and Gerry's wide-ranging creative role, were recognized on the masthead. And so we are rejiggering the little box on the editorial page once again to make room for our newest assistant managing editor.

Once upon a time, for a while, we had an AME who oversaw the features sections of the paper. This is not that job. The editors who now run our weekly sections are doing just fine without another layer between them and the top. And, in any case, to promote Gerry away from the tangible pleasure of running the weekly magazine would be no favor to either Gerry or the readers.

Beyond the colony of magazines he now governs, Gerry's role will be inventive and entrepreneurial. We want him to help identify and develop the next generation of editors for the magazines and magazine-like sections of the paper, particularly from within the paper. We want him to be a bridge between the magazine and the newspaper on big enterprise, lending a hand (or the hands of his editing staff) to Glenn where appropriate on long narrative enterprise that can use a magazine touch, and making the magazine's pages more available as a showcase for projects that originate in the newsroom. We want him to work with the Web on developing a unique Times Magazine presence on our website, including an Internet luxury magazine.

And, especially, we want all of this without any slackening of the intellectual rigor and wit we associate with Gerry's magazine.

Bill