Courtest of Good Magazine
Good on GOOD: After launching with much fanfare and following up with a standout sophomore cover story on everywhere-everything everyman John Hodgman, GOOD has opted to throw itself into the media mix with its upcoming Media Issue. A tad brash, given it's just the third issue, but shrewd of GOOD, too — they know that everybody loves a list, especially "bigshot editor" and, now, GOOD contributor Graydon Carter, who, after a brief shout-out to "the smart, charming gazette you hold in your hands", kicks off the issue's centerpiece, a list of the "51 Best Magazines Ever," with a concise and erudite history of the "marvelous invention" that is the magazine (from Graydon's lips to your ears: "Magazines — or rather, certain magazines — aren't going away any time soon") (note that "certain" is the rub here, as elsewhere GOOD notes that 60% of new magazines don't last a year). The list, compiled by the GOOD team, features plenty of the usual suspects, but with sharp qualifiers ( for example they cite Esquire...under Harold T.P. Hayes from 1961-1973, that is) and Spy, but only, of course, in the vaunted "Funny Years." The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly (sic), The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Rolling Stone, and a pre-Conde Nast Details make the cut, as do Ebony, The Face, Cosmo, and Life (1936-1972) and many more besides (Mad, Colors and Tiger Beat, plus Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts, possibly clinching that 51st spot). Lists are easy and 51 gives you a wide berth for hits and misses, but either way the feature stands as a refreshing reminder that the magazine really is a "marvelous invention" (clanging death knells notwithstanding).
Elsewhere, GOOD even takes a stab at media insiderism with its very own poke at Radar ("more fun to talk about then to actually read") (did we mention that it's only their third issue? And that they were brash? We'd warn darkly of karma here, were it not for the heavy stock paper and lush, plentiful ads, including a backpage Ralph Lauren Rugby ad declaring itself "dedicated to Volunteerism And Community Service"). Jack Lechner's ode to HBO and David Puner's article on how network newscasts are struggling to stay relevant in the age of internet, while well-written, won't be news to most readers. However, Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, puts out a fascinating piece on how the internet is managing to upend, or at least rattle, established orders in other parts of the world, including Bahrain, where Google Maps has exposed unfair land parceling, and Kenya, where ordinary citizens have come to question the credentials of parliamentarians whose biographies were published online. This is the kind of news that, more than any party or feel-good celebrity, goes to show that, however hard a time some may have buying into its do-good credo, GOOD is really on to something. Here's hoping people notice. And that GOOD doesn't let them forget, when it turns its eye on a subject the media is less inclined to talk about than itself.
*Oh, please. Of course we went there. Today is goofy pun day on ETP!
