Ellies! Pre-Events, Politics, And A New ASME Prez
The Ellies are tonight! Whee! For those of you who aren't in the rarefied world of magazines and those who know how they refer to their own industry awards, the Ellies are the National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry's annual paean to the best of their bunch. Fortunately, the work that is submitted has been thoroughly copy-edited, so easy-to-misspell words like "paean" and "misspell" aren't mispelled.* All of the nominees and their nominated work is available to peruse here, because we exist to serve, and tonight one lucky (and deserving, though there may be grumbling over that after) winner will be handed the Ellie — or, the National Magazine Award statuette by Alexander Calder called "Elephant" but which has been nicknamed "Ellie" and which, either way, we've always rather thought looked more like a big scary spider. Also, the statuette is technically not handed to the writer, but to the presiding editor, which is why Adam Moss was so damn familiar to last year's audience.
But, this is this year! And it's a whole new night of Ellie-making fun to get excited about. The excitement kicked off yesterday, first in the annual ASME pre-Ellie luncheon wherein the new ASME president was sworn in, and later at a pre-cocktail party at the New York Public Library. First, the lunch in. Ladies and gentlemen, the new ASME President is....David Willey, EIC of Runner's World and, if I may, yet another strapping young man from Rodale. What the hell are they putting in the water in Emmaeus? And that is all I'm going to say about that, though there may be a "Willey or won't he?" pun at some later date. Back to the programme: By "sworn in" I actually mean "took the podium after an impromptu vote" as outgoing president Cindi Leive, Glamour EIC, explained that they'd forgotten to vote last year, causing Christopher Hitchens to liken ASME practices to the government of North Korea. So this time, Leive made sure the vote was 
carried out accordingly, and put it to the crowd. Someone made the motion and a chorus of "Yeas" went up. That actually didn't seem too far off from how they do it in North Korea ("We have picked new leader! You must assent!") but we'll let it slide because, well, have you seen the new ASME prez?
Actually, have you heard the new ASME prez? Because he gave quite a fiery incoming speech, actually, pushing back slightly on the web-crazed trends undermining quality journalism — "What once was journalism now is content, what once were readers now are users" and archly noting how magazines now have to become "the brand, which must be extended to all platforms." He was quick to note that he's not anti-web, though ("obviously the web is great for many things"), but seemed to be clearly in the camp of quality over pageview-hunting. It was a message that sat well with the room.
Next order of business in the sunny, sky-scraping Hearst Tower dining room: A panel discussion on politics of the day, moderated by NBC anchor (and avid media critic) Brian Williams and featuring the New Republic's Michelle Cottle, Rolling Stone gonzo-reporter Matt Taibbi, and the Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel, all from publications skewing slightly left (and we'll just leave it at that) , but that seemed to sit well with the room, too. Vanden Heuvel lamented what she called the "trivialization" of the news, and Taibbi pointed out that "voters take their cues from us," relating a conversation he'd had with a voter who had mentioned problems he had with Obama's "cling to guns" statement (aka "Bitter-Gate," first brought to you by the Huffington Post). He said he asked the voter if he thought that was more offensive than Hillary Clinton securing a $400 million earmark for Lockheed Martin's Marine One helicopter. The voter said he hadn't heard about it in the news, so it must not be that important. (It's in the news now, though, in Taibbi's latest piece, out today!). Ergo, said Taibbi, people learn to be offended by trivial things and "the truly offensive stuff" gets ignored.
Williams asked Cottle if reporters could trust in anything they heard from the campaigns. "Are we off the record?" she joked, looking at the room. "Just consider this a fundraiser in San Francisco," Williams joked back. Cottle laughed and told her story anyway, namely of Maggie 
Williams from the Clinton campaign calling her while she was reporting Hillarylyand, and swearing up and down that Patti Solis Doyle had not been fired (or had "stepped down") when, in fact, she had been, but they just wanted to keep it quiet until after the California primary on Super Tuesday. "No, I don't believe much of anything," she said. (Williams praised Cottle's work, incidentally, calling it "astounding.")
Switching tacks, vanden Heuvel also made a point of saying that she was a big fan of branding and mutli-platform messaging, saying that "The Nation is aggressively pursuing many platforms." "I love to hear you talk that way," deadpanned Williams. Then she talked about the Nation Cruise and how there was a huge demand for more and more panels! Said Williams: "That is gonna be one off the hook boat ride." (Couldn't attend? Buy your way into the memories with the Nation Cruise Videos! The Nation loves platforms!) There was more, including a rather punchy Cottle (she and BriWi had a vibe going) joking about factchecking at the New Republic (ha Stephen Glass ha).**
Then the panel ended and the crowd returned to their offices for a busy afternoon of three hours of work before the next event started, photos of which you can enjoy below. Special thanks to the wonderful women of Glamour who welcomed HuffPo media page editor Danny Shea and me to their table, and to the ladies of Self who our table suggested would surely have a painkiller among them and, sure enough, they did. Service journalism, indeed! Pics below.
ASME Executive Director Marlene Kahan presents outgoing ASME prez Cindi Leive with a gift from Tiffany's (or, perhaps just cleverly wrapped in a Tiffany's box).
The panel, in a thoughtful moment.
Adam Moss sitting beside David Willey. At one point, we saw him clap Willey on the shoulder. Aww. Lucky Adam Moss' hand!
Power room, power lunch (they served power chicken).
Women's Health EIC Tina Johnson, HuffPo's Danny Shea, Rodale's Mia Carbonell.
Marlene Kahan shows off the Bonander Humanitarian Award she received at the Parkinson's Unity Walk this past weekend, to Men's Health EIC (and Ellie nominee!) Dave Zinczenko. Congratulations, Marlene!
Matt Bean of Men's Health with Rodale EIC two-fer, Jonathan Dorn of Backpacker and Steve Madden of Bicycling. I guess we should mention that this cocktail party was thrown by Rodale, because we seem to have a lot of Rodale people in these photos. I am guessing that Dorn's footwear is standard-issue Rodale wear.
*Copy-editing joke!
**Speaking of factchecking, just a note: Someone on the panel said that Samantha Power's comment had been off the record and printed anyway, which isn't so; she said it and THEN said, "that was off the record" — which, of course, it hadn't been. Also, Taibbi said that the "Bitter-Gate" comments Obama made at that San Fran fundraiser had been posted as video and they were not, they were audio, and the whole thing was done under the supervision of an editor with editiorial sign-off from the very top, so the statement that it was a piece of unchecked citizen journalism was incorrect.
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Huffington Post | Rachel Sklar | May 1, 2008 10:49 AM