magazines

Multiple Magazine Awards For Geographic And Vanity Fair

Ryan Tate · 05/01/08 10:19PM

Gawker's Hamilton Nolan is at the National Magazine Awards, and notifies us via his Sidekick that Anderson Cooper is there! Someone else emailed us a photo of the adorable silver-haired CNN anchor (left) earlier tonight, looking pretty casual. Oh, also, on a less important note, some awards were given out to various magazines. Hamilton said something about New York's Gawker story, "Everybody Sucks," losing to Atlanta magazine's "You Have Thousands of Angels Around You." Outrage! Everybody sucks!! Anyway, it looks like the full list of winners is up and the only multiple-award winners were National Geographic (three awards) and Vanity Fair (two). Nominated for 12 awards, the New Yorker took home just one, though it was for general excellence, so that's nice. I mean, err, it sucks! Everybody sucks! [National Magazine Awards]

The Death Agony Of America's Biggest Magazine

Nick Denton · 05/01/08 03:14PM

The death of the quintessential TV listings magazine is a shabby affair. The rumor we floated yesterday-that editor-in-chief Ian Birch and other staff are being laid off-appears indeed to be true. The new owners, Macrovision, is thought only interested in the TV Guide's online and electronic program guides; the print edition is loss-making and may be shut down if a buyer can't be found, according to Deadline Hollywood. The magazine-which could not cope with the proliferation of programming in the 1980s and 1990s and further lost relevance when viewers began to use the program guides supplied by their cable provider-will not be mourned. But let's at least pay some respect to its history.

New York's New Media District

Hamilton Nolan · 05/01/08 11:23AM


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Newsweek is considering a move from Midtown to SoHo. It would join media outlets already in place that range from high-end names like New York Magazine to many of the country's most popular blogs and other online operations. Is the SoHo area NYC's new media district? Rents are cheaper than Midtown, and it's an easier commute for the critical mass of Brooklyn-based writers. Plus, it's just cooler. Take a look for yourself: more than a dozen of the eclectic downtown media neighbors, mapped above.

New ASME Prez Runs Things

Hamilton Nolan · 04/30/08 02:11PM

The American Society of Magazine Editors has elected David Willey, the editor of Runner's World, as its new president. That's right: he'll be running the group. Ha... eh.

Vanity Fair Fashion Director Can Add Self To "Stylish Casualties" List

Hamilton Nolan · 04/30/08 01:02PM

Michael Roberts, the Vanity Fair fashion and style director who attributed the uproar over the sexy Miley Cyrus photos to unsophisticated Americans who don't handle "chic pictures" as well as his fellow Europeans, is not just dispensing cultural criticism through the media: he has a book coming out! And in a fun coincidence, the 112-page tome is going to be called Fashion Victims: The Catty Catalogue of Stylish Casualties, from A to Z. Perhaps he'll add a section addressing the fact that "The whole kiddie porn prurient angle seems to be worryingly sour grapes from other magazines that didn't get a picture like this." After all, at Vanity Fair "We don't do cheesy teen pictures. We do chic pictures and pictures that are beautiful portraits." Alrighty then. Just for kicks, another now-ironic quote from last October's Telegraph profile of Roberts:

TV Guide

Nick Denton · 04/30/08 11:51AM

Anyone have news on the bloodshed at TV Guide in the wake of the merger of its parent company? We're hearing editor-in-chief Ian Birch, executive editor Steve Sonsky and managing editor Lois Draegin have all been dismissed from the TV listings magazine, but no confirmation. Email tips.

How Shaky Is ALM?

Hamilton Nolan · 04/30/08 11:17AM

Earlier this month, American Lawyer Media laid off 42 staffers across the board. The company is also "scaling back" plans to expand the scope of one magazine, and moving another to an all-digital format, according to an internal memo. One insider says all of the laid off people are gone, but a sense of nervousness still pervades the office. What, lawyers can't afford to buy magazines any more? Cheap bastards. The full memo from ALM CEO Bill Pollak is below.

The Miley Cyrus Reaction Roundup

Hamilton Nolan · 04/30/08 10:12AM

This whole Miley Cyrus incident, a young pop star being immodestly scandalized by Vanity Fair photos: it's so complicated! How should you feel? Who should you blame? Who is the biggest jerk in this whole sordid incident? Where should America direct its momentary outrage so that it can return to playing video games, eating snack foods, and conducting imperial conquest? Allow us to help. After the jump, a roundup of all the reaction from our most important opinion leaders to the Biggest Media Celebrity Scandal Of The Final Quarter Of April 2008. Was Rosie O'Donnell right, that we all need to lay off the heroic and intimidating Annie Leibovitz? Or is Germaine Greer, a Guardian critic, correct in predicting the beginning of Miley's existential decline? It's quite the heated argument:

Inside the CosmoGIRL Studio

Sheila · 04/30/08 09:35AM

"I fear what this might look like," says a tipster of CosmoGIRL!'s newest initiative, an Inside the Actors Studio -style "intimate discussion session with a popular musical act." That popular musical act will be Phantom Planet, "an alternative rock band whose song "California" became a hit on the popular TV series, The O.C." Nope. We've had nothing to "intimately discuss" with them since that hottie drummer of theirs, actor Jason Schwartzman, left the band.

What Was Nina Garcia Doing in the Hearst Building?

Sheila · 04/29/08 02:02PM

Fashionista spotted the recently ousted Elle editor (and Project Runway judge) "leaving the Hearst building, sprinting across the street before hailing a cab and trying to avoid eye contact with anyone as she left." Maybe she had a job interview! (Hearst publishes lots of ladymags, but not Elle.) [Fashionista]

Yucky Miley Pictures Are Just Like Teen Cult Impregnation, Says Bonnie Fuller

Hamilton Nolan · 04/29/08 12:17PM

Bonnie Fuller, who oversees Star magazine and is therefore the arbiter of American media standards, has a question about this whole Miley Cyrus thing, and its connection to the current Texas polygamy scandal: "Is it OK to sexualize a fifteen-year-old if it is in the pages of a high falutin' magazine and her parents seem OK with it? Or is this really not much different from parents in a cult acquiescing to having their teen daughters wedded and bedded?" Ummm... can we say 'No' to all of the above?

Snotty European Prolongs Vanity Fair's Miley Debacle

Hamilton Nolan · 04/29/08 10:49AM

Michael Roberts (pictured, probably pointing to something refined and beautiful) was the fashion and style director on Vanity Fair's creepy Miley Cyrus shoot. And instead of letting the fiasco die out quietly, he spoke out to WWD to reveal the real reason behind the outcry: sour grapes, and a bunch of American clods with an insufficient sense of sophistication! Europeans aren't like that, he'll have you know:

A Brief History Of 'Jailbait' Exploitation

Hamilton Nolan · 04/28/08 04:06PM

As loud as the uproar over Miley Cyrus' too-racy photo shoot gets, she of course is not the first young star to be packaged as a sly sex symbol. The American print media, and its advertisers, have a history of getting into trouble for this sort of thing. The two common methods are to either portray an underage girl (or, less often, boy) in an overly sexualized light, or to use "barely legal" girls in a way that evokes underage taboos with a wink and a nod. It's really a standard form, at this point. After the jump, we've compiled some of the most famous ad campaigns and media spreads that play the slick jailbait game. Does this stuff work? Apparently so.

Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault

Hamilton Nolan · 04/28/08 01:01PM

Annie Leibovitz: come off it. Really now. As dirty as the media business is—and particularly the celebrity media business, which Vanity Fair revels in under a sheen of high class pretension—there are some bare, bottom-level standards to which we all must adhere. One of those is, "Do not sexually exploit minors." You want to economically exploit a minor? Fine. That's a grand American tradition. But trotting out 15 year-old Miley Cyrus with pouty lips, tousled hair, and only a bedsheet is just bad. Bad! Of course Vanity Fair bears the responsibility for publishing it. But the idea for the shoot can be traced to the tired celeb photographer Leibovitz (who is sorry it's been "misinterpreted"). And her narrow, robotically transgressive act has now played itself out. This incident, and Leibovitz's entire style, is less shocking than it is boring—but with a 15-year-old involved, it's boring and creepy.

Did Vanity Fair Already Pull The Miley Cyrus Slideshow?

Hamilton Nolan · 04/28/08 11:28AM

Well that was quick. It looks like you can no longer access Vanity Fair's behind-the-scenes slideshow of Miley Cyrus pictures. We have a selection of the vaguely creepy shots in our earlier post. Now the link on the magazine's website goes to a landing page for the feature story on the young star, but when you attempt to click through to the slideshow, an error message appears. A tacit admission of guilt, or just, ahem, a technical issue? We've emailed VF for comment, and we'll let you know what we hear. [UPDATE: The slideshow is back!]

David Sedaris: Do You Remember Smoking?

Sheila · 04/28/08 10:52AM

Remember when you could smoke, like, everywhere in America? David Sedaris does in this week's New Yorker: "When I was in fourth grade, my class took a field trip to the American Tobacco plant in nearby Durham, North Carolina. There we witnessed the making of cigarettes and were given free packs to take home to our parents." Sedaris goes on to helpfully explain which kind of cigarette goes with what kind of person: "Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites..."

How Vanity Fair "Groomed" Miley Cyrus

Hamilton Nolan · 04/28/08 09:58AM

There's a technique called "grooming" that pedophiles use on their victims (yes, we just learned about it today, thank you). One definition says "Grooming behavior is intended to make the victim or potential victim or victim's guardians feel comfortable with the molester and even interested in interacting with him." And here's a characteristic of a regressed child molester: "They place pseudo-adult status on their victims and then view them as they would their peers." Now take a look at the following behind-the-scenes pictures from Vanity Fair's controversial new Miley Cyrus photo shoot by 58-year-old lesbian photographer Annie Leibovitz and ask yourself if any of that rings a bell. We're not accusing these stylists of being pedophiles, we're just saying... ugh:

George Lois' Classic Esquire Covers

ian spiegelman · 04/27/08 01:18PM

From 1962 to 1972 adman George Lois created some of the most iconic magazine cover art of his era. Thirty-one of them are part of a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Times is offering a handy preview. My faves after the jump.

Hills Star's Awful Fashion Award

Ryan Tate · 04/25/08 03:53AM

Janice Min will come to regret this: Her Us Weekly has named Lauren Conrad "Celebrity Designer Of The Year" as part of a special section called "Us Hot Hollywood Style Winners." (Click the picture at left for a full-sized image, courtesy Bryanboy.) Wow. Well, that's, uh, bold. Because the critics have not been kind to the Hills star's work. New York called her Lauren Conrad Collection "tragique." When Bryanboy saw the Us spread, Marc Jacobs' favorite gay Filipino fashion blogger barfed. Well, haters, Us wrote that Conrad has "won... a wide array of fans," so there. Their source? Oh, that would be Conrad herself, repeating something someone else told her: