Round numbers are so overrated — just look at any magazine cover line lately. Sticking to that trend, WWD decided to poll 103 people in the media industry to ask them about 11 different events from the last 16 months. Here, an imprecise, totally anonymous (naturally), but hopefully democratic, look at the best and worst of all of 2004 and the first 119 days of 2005. The poll, via e-mail, was of everyone from editors in chief down to assistant editors. Winners in each category had a clear plurality of votes. Give or take.
LAUNCH
Best: Apparently, voters are a self-promoting lot. The results in this category almost had to be thrown out when virtually everyone who voted for “best launch” dropped the name of a publication they were affiliated with. Said one writer, whose work has been featured in Best Life: “[Best Life] is a magazine that has not only dared to take on established brands — Esquire, GQ, Men’s Journal — in a very competitive niche of men’s magazines, it has come out of the womb an instant competitor.” Presumably, the embarrassment set in right after he hit “send.”
Final tally: After discarding all the self-promotions, the winner was — surprise — Suede. Though it received only a handful of votes, there clearly was no nepotism factor since everyone who worked on the magazine was unceremoniously laid off by Essence or Time Inc. when Suede folded after only three issues. But how could a wacky “design soup” of a magazine that actually took fashion-obsessed minority women seriously go unrecognized?
Worst: Fortunately, the hive mind was way more candid — and unbiased — about what it didn’t like. The resurrected Life magazine was “downright upsetting.” Votes also flooded in for new or newly reconfigured sections of The New York Times, like T: The New York Times Style Magazine and Thursday Styles, or, as some people like to call them, “blatant ad receptacles.” Also mentioned were Cargo, Sync and Best Life, which one editor deemed “a worrisome triptych of the American male.” Shop Etc. was cited for its “terrible title, terrible design, even terrible shoes, which is hard to do.” And Jane, which was technically just a redesign, became a write-in candidate thanks to comments such as, “Such a different (and lesser) beast since it abandoned some of the winning Jane staples for more luxury and shopping.”
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Final tally: All You. One pollee summed up the low-priced rag best when he said, “Here’s an inspired idea [from Time Inc.]: Let’s put out a magazine for the people we imagine shop at Wal-Mart — overweight, single moms without a high school education….Typical of New York-glossy myopia and snobbery.”
CATFIGHT
Best: What a year (and four months) it was for all-out brawls and snippy exchanges. From the widely published stories about former New York Times Baghdad bureau chief Susan Sachs allegedly ratting out her correspondents, Dexter Filkins and John Burns, for reportedly cheating on their wives to Zell Miller’s cartoonish top-blowing on “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” the scent of blood was often wafting off of newsprint or through the airwaves. The New York Post and the New York Daily News traded below-the-belt jabs over circulation troubles and gossip scoops. Lynne Cheney called presidential hopeful John Kerry “not a good man” after he “outed” her daughter, Mary, who was already openly living as a lesbian. And publicist Leslee Dart fled PMK/HBH after she and longtime partner Pat Kingsley fought their “bloody power struggle,” according to Defamer.com, taking with her clients such as Harvey Weinstein, Mike Nichols, Brian Grazer and Tom Hanks.
Final tally: Nothing trumps a little mudslinging on air. When Jon Stewart took to task the hosts of “Crossfire” for looking “to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity,” calling conservative pinup Tucker Carlson out on his bow tie in the process, many a liberal viewer got their jollies. Said one poll-taker: “Stewart said what we all want to say to Tucker [Carlson] and to CNN.” A news producer added pragmatically, “Real vitriol equals great TV.
Worst: “Is there such a thing as a worst catfight?” one cheeky media watcher asked. The answer is yes, when it comes to Ann Coulter vs. just about anyone she’s come to blows with in the last year and change. “Who cares?” said one person. “She’s just awful!” and “Boring!” were the notes from others. The “overhyped catfight of the ‘Desperate Housewives’ cast on the Vanity Fair cover shoot,” was also noted as a worst, as were the e-mail screeds that passed back and forth between public relations flack Doug Dechert and gossip reporter Ian Spiegelman last year. Spiegelman was subsequently let go from Page Six because of the online chest-thrusting.
Final tally: It was Nikki Finke’s rant against Graydon Carter during Oscar season that received the most votes. “Turn in your copy on time, Nikki, and we’ll take you more seriously,” one voter said inexplicably. Another added, “While there was an element of truth [to what she wrote about Carter in L.A. Weekly], it was a paragraph’s worth. She was clearly not invited to the [Vanity Fair Oscar] parties, hence an entire column.”
PILE ON
Best: Star Jones’ flagrant publicity efforts before, during, after, between, around and on top of her wedding to Al Reynolds — and the media ire that ensued — earned her several mentions for “best pile on.” Male escort-cum-conservative reporter for Talon News James Guckert/Jeff Gannon also got his share of nods from those surveyed. But the incident that incited the best dog pile in our poll-taker’s humble opinions was “Insider” host Pat O’Brien’s randy messages on the voice mail of one his “unfortunate” colleagues. The sexually explicit recordings landed on the Internet, which in turn landed O’Brien in rehab. Said one person of the “riveting fiasco”: “More, please.”
Worst: CBS anchor Dan Rather and former “60 Minutes” producer Mary Mapes were pitied for the public drubbing that followed “memogate.” “As if it was really her fault,” one person surveyed said of Mapes. Marc Jacobs’ delayed collection during the fall 2005 shows in New York also was cited as a pile on that should not have been. But the biggest sympathy vote went to William Morris head Dave Wirtschafter, who lost clients — and face — in the wake of Tad Friend’s page-turner of a profile in The New Yorker earlier this year. One writer said, “The dude just told it like it is…Hate the game, not the playa.”
EDITOR’S LETTER
Best: “So bad it’s good” scored votes in the ed note category, where one voter cited Anna Wintour’s recent call to the fashion industry — in her shape issue, no less — to lead the charge in fighting obesity. As for Jane Pratt’s stream-of-consciousness musings on her editor’s page, one voter said: “If you were trapped in an elevator with her and she rambled on like this, you’d want to shove a shoe in her mouth. But hey, confined to a few hundred words, it’s car-wreck-a-riffic.”
Final tally: The tell-all takes the prize. Dan Peres of Details was lauded, specifically for his self-deprecating mentions of weight gain and loss of virginity.
Worst: Glenda Bailey’s “absurd shopping tips” in Harper’s Bazaar were singled out.
Final tally: Another tie. “Jim Nelson’s notes are the smartest, most entertaining notes out there,” wrote one voter, and as such, GQ’s editor in chief might have landed in the best column, if only his lighthearted, Republican-baiting missives didn’t turn off as many readers as they tickled. “His letters read like the old Paul Rudnick spoof in Premiere,” opined a critic. “I think he actually used the word ‘gobsmacked’ once.” There’s also that little matter of his endless rotation of head shots, some shot by the magazine’s top photographers, which one voter singled out for “unprecedented fiduciary irresponsibility.”
Perhaps it was inevitable that Atoosa Rubenstein would fail to find favor with our voters, since everyone voted was at least several years older than Seventeen’s target demographic. One ballot read, “Someone needs to call her on the ‘one of you’ persona she’s based entirely on her body hair. I swear, count the mentions over a year.”
BOOK BY A MEDIA PERSON
Best: It would have been easy to fill this category entirely with books by and about employees of The New York Times. There was Maureen Dowd’s “Bush World,” a collection of her columns; former executive editor Joseph Lelyveld’s memoir, “Omaha Blues”; former executive editor Howell Raines’ book-length postmortem in the Atlantic Monthly; “Hard News,” Seth Mnookin’s account of the Raines era at the Times; “The Underminer,” a piece of comic fiction by Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan and her co-author, Mike Albo, and “Rebels on the Backlot,” Times Hollywood correspondent Sharon Waxman’s look at maverick directors, which was panned by the Times. And we haven’t even gotten to reporter Alan Feuer’s forthcoming and already controversial book, “Over There,” his fuzzy account of the few weeks he spent in an Iraqi war zone.
Final tally: The New Yorker reporter-at-large James Stewart’s “DisneyWar,” was the critical favorite. “You try cracking on [Michael] Eisner and [Michael] Ovitz,” said one person who was surveyed. Our voters also agreed with the reading public by giving the popular vote to “America: The Book,” by Jon Stewart and the writers of “The Daily Show.”
Worst: It was an even split. Paula Froelich’s “It! 9 Secrets of the Rich and Famous That’ll Take You To the Top,” an extended blurb of a book that was immediately eclipsed by its own promotional orgy, elicited an all-around “ugh.” “If that book becomes a bestseller, I’m quitting the business,” said one editor. Froelich’s book shares the (dis)honor with “The Abs Diet,” the bestseller by Men’s Health editor in chief David Zinczenko. As one voter surmised, “Do sit-ups. Eat less. Cash check.”
MEA CULPA
Best: Photoshop got at least two magazines into trouble in the last 16 months. Newsweek claimed readers would know its doctored Martha Stewart cover was a “photo illustration.” And Bonnie Fuller changed the color of Demi Moore’s gown on the cover of Star to make it look like a wedding dress, then explained she had done it “to better represent the theme.” Meanwhile, Jessica Cutler said she thought her private blog about sleeping with Washington power players would stay private. It didn’t, but she got a book deal and a Playboy spread out of it.
Final tally: Fuller gets the brush-off award. One voter called Fuller’s alterations “the ultimate display of narcissism — admitting that her reality counts more than actual reality,” while another said, “So outlandishly inappropriate, it’s worth admiration.”
Worst: Meanwhile, a trio of backpedallers were chastised for their lousy excuses. For starters, voters didn’t buy Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham dismissing his premature write-up of the Republican convention as a “rhetorical invention.” Conservative columnist Armstrong Williams’ acceptance of ad money from the Department of Education’s “No Child Left Behind” program also was considered “inexcusable,” in spite of Armstrong’s open letter of apology. And after Graydon Carter, speaking to WWD earlier this year, blamed a run of poor newsstand sales on three consecutive covers featuring men, voters responded by pointing out that, “over the years, men have been all over that cover. Remember Matthew McConaughey rocking the house?”
Final tally: Carter’s fuzzy newsstand math was the least forgivable sin, particularly since he’s likely to be shrugging his shoulders with the opposite excuse later this year. Early scan data for Vanity Fair’s March Hollywood issue — which features several actresses on the cover and is typically a strong seller, and scan data for the April issue, with three Eastern European supermodels in white swimsuits — indicates that those covers haven’t exactly blown off newsstands, either.
COMEBACK
Best: Still popular the second, third — or is it fourth? — time around with at least a few voters was Radar editor in chief Maer Roshan. “He came back two years younger!” one poll-taker said, referring to a recent story in The New York Times that put Roshan, 37, at age 35.
Final tally: It was a tie between fresh-from-the-penitentiary domestic goddess Martha Stewart and the president and chief executive officer of Stewart’s company, Omnimedia, Susan Lyne, who joined last fall. Voters said of Lyne, who greenlit “Desperate Housewives” as president of ABC, but was fired before the show aired and became a hit: “Smarts and nice wins the race.” Stewart, meanwhile, was mentioned “because she looked so hot at the ASMEs” and because of the fashion statement she made as she left Alderson prison. “That crackhead poncho was awesome,” said someone surveyed.
Worst: While Bob Guccione’s resurfacing scored a few votes, and several respondents begrudged Martha Stewart’s return — “Our books were so much fatter without her,” one editor sighed — the worst comeback of the year clearly belonged to Lizzie Grubman. “With the launch of ‘Power Girls,’” said one voter, “she singlehandedly proved that peroxide causes brain damage.”
MAGAZINE COVER
Best: Class, sass and, well, a– ruled when it came to covers this — and last — year. Photographer Irving Penn rarely agrees to shoot covers, which is perhaps why his austere image of Nicole Kidman for Vogue was a favorite with several people asked. Scarlett Johansson steaming up Esquire was also a clear favorite, as were the twin covers of barely legal Lindsay Lohan on W and GQ. Playboy’s “Real Desperate Housewives” also grabbed some attention. And so did “Vanity Fair Does Maxim” as one replier put it, referring to Vanity Fair’s trio of Eastern European models on the April cover.
Final tally: It was a Star cover that provoked the most emotional responses. Of its ill-timed issue, “Brad and Jen Back On! It’s Baby Time!” which broke the week the couple split, one voter said, “They gave a sorrowful America hope! If only for a day!”
Worst: Covers that voters could have done without were W’s “Asexual Revolution” with androgynous models, and “Goldie Hawn, looking younger than Kate Hudson on Bazaar.” Voters also said, “New York has had some doozies.” But it was Melania Knauss on the cover of Vogue that had them asking, “Et tu, Anna?” of Wintour’s decision to jump on the Trump bandwagon. In Style also was noted for “running Melania on its weddings issue so long after Vogue, which itself was bad.”
BRAND EXTENSION
Best: Perhaps this category should have been called “most anticipated brand extension,” as many votes that came in were for projects that haven’t even rolled out yet. Men’s Vogue got some nods, as did Martha Stewart’s forthcoming “Apprentice”-like reality show. Same goes for Seventeen’s still-in-the-planning-stages reality show with MTV. Vitals Women, the female-targeted extension of Vitals, was cited by voters who said, “talk about cart before the horse.” And while at the time it came out, copies of New York magazine’s Republican National Convention Daily seemed scarce, apparently some people were able to get their hands on it, as it also scored some votes.
Worst: Impossible to call: Maxim’s line of bedding and Us Weekly’s “Brad & Jen” similarly received votes as both best and worst brand extension, though scales tipped both toward worst.
LOWBROW READ
Best-Worst: The only thing that’s clear about low-brow is that people haven’t tired of it yet, though they are conflicted about their habits. Gawker.com came up time and again in the polls as the “best way to get a daily dose of gossip.” Each of the celebrity weeklies appeared on both best and worst lists, making it a four-way tie for best-worst between Us, Star, People and In Touch. The National Enquirer, “always ahead of the rest of them,” got one lone mention as a best, while someone else hated the “free morning dailies” that litter trains and subway stations in New York. But it was a magazine editor in chief who had the line of the week when he said, “In Touch is best, because it makes me feel dirty after, and People is worst, because it makes me feel sad after.”
LIFESTYLE PORN
Best: From The New York Times real estate section to the New York Observer — “still the only place that really reports these things and finds genuine trends” — the papers topped the list of publications that voters went to for the purpose of snooping on the wealthy. Absolute got mentions in both the best and worst columns for its “paper stock-as-foreplay” philosophy, as did Vanity Fair, New York and Departures. Trailing the print publications was patrickmcmullan.com, which one voter liked because “anything with actual text is out.”
Worst: While Quest and Avenue provoked the response, “What’s hot about colostomy bags?” and New York magazine was out of favor with some “for not admitting it’s about the rich,” “anything spawned by Jason Binn” got the most votes, specifically, Hamptons magazine and Gotham.
BACK PAGE
Best: Multiple votes on best closer came in for Teen Vogue’s “My Room” and the Proust Questionnaire in Vanity Fair, which one voter called, “The perfect marriage of format and wrangling muscle.” GQ’s open letter was deemed “brilliant and never fails to make me laugh so hard I cry and double over,” while The New Yorker’s newly instituted cartoon contest was “clever” to some and “uncharacteristically lazy” to others.
Final tally: Elle’s cherchez la femme Q&A’s with Andrew Goldman — “good, quick, funny and so often men, which I always like in a women’s magazine.”
Worst: Unlike the mixed bag of results that came in for so many of the other categories listed here, one back page was universally panned. There were, in fact, too many votes to count, slamming Details’ “Gay or…” feature. “Gay or…painfully tired?” one editor in chief said. Another editor even nominated the page for “worst mea culpa,” saying: “They apologized for ‘Gay or Asian’ and then they’ve continued to run that column month after month since.”