With the National Magazine Awards handed out this past Thursday, we at Media City thought it would be a good idea to see if the judges who awarded Ellies, as the magazine awards are called, actually know what they’re talking about. Here’s our take on some of the Ellie winners.
With “Iron Man” raking in big bucks at the box office over the weekend, GQ‘s cover treatment of Robert Downey Jr., the film’s star, is well timed. Matthew Klam writes that the talented but troubled actor has traded in his penchant for drug-fueled self-destruction and prison stints for protein smoothies, Wing Chun kung fu and a resurgent career. Terry Richardson’s photographs suggest he’s anything but tame.
Backpacker is for the no-nonsense camper and the mountain-climbing set, so it’s no surprise to find step-by-step instructions on how to gut trout while you’re out trudging in the woods. But nothing truly says roughing it in the great outdoors like the mag’s instructions on how to cook the fish with a cranberry and toasted almond sauce.
It’s ironic that the Vanity Fair piece on teen star Miley Cyrus – headlined “Miley Knows Best” – would proclaim her a normal kid and then call it into question with the click of a camera. The Lolita-ish photo of Cyrus in a satin blanket kicked up controversy, but it doesn’t seem so strange when you read the story. In the interview, Cyrus appears both protected and precocious. With Americans tired of the grinding Obama-Clinton contest, Vanity Fair evokes nostalgia by revisiting Robert F. Kennedy’s run in “The Last Good Campaign.” Ah, happier times.
National Geographic deserves high praise for being one of the few publications to blend cultural, political and environmental coverage. The magazine’s huge spread on China is a prime example of its mission to show how much the country is changing and how this will reverberate around the globe. On one page there is a stunning photo of the Great Wall; on the next, there’s a white-picket-fence housing development that looks like it was picked up in the US and plunked down in China.
It’s hard to miss New York magazine’s cover, “Sex is Back,” featuring still-hot Sarah Jessica Parker. The cover story is an entertaining visit with Parker and her co-stars of their TV hit series, “Sex and the City,” offering welcome hype for the forthcoming movie version of the series that once defined New York. Kurt Andersen’s opinion column scores points, saying many upscale voters remain infatuated with Barack Obama, not because of his being a different brand of politician but because he’s like many of them: educated, cool, unspoiled by Washington’s evils, skinny but athletic, and a metrosexual marvel.
The New Yorker is back on the beam this week, with highly readable articles in its special issue on inventors and innovators. One article debunks the myth that inventors are solitary geniuses, saying the history of science is full of ideas that several people had at the same time. As partial proof, a group assembled by Microsoft’s former research guru, Nathan Myhrvold, turns out 500 patents a year on subjects ranging from computer chips to cancer treatments, with a backlog of 3,000 useful ideas. Also, check out the pieces on talking animals and how machines drive history.
Time picks its annual list of 100 influential people, and manages to put a thumbnail photo of each one on its cover. The issue uses a multiple-cover trick, slipping in four additional cover-design options but without the faces. Returning to Time’s annual list after getting bumped last year is President Bush. Bill Clinton remains on the list and Oprah Winfrey is on for the fifth straight time, the only person so honored.
Newsweek uses much of its current news hole for an excerpt of a new best-seller, “The Post-American World,” written by one of its own celebrated scribes, Fareed Zakaria. The work avoids bashing the US, stressing that the new world order will not be defined by the decline of America but by the rise of other nations. The author frets about what worries him the most: “We’re losing faith in the very things that have made us great – our openness, flexibility, adaptability.”