<![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines - Jezebel Comments]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines - Jezebel Comments]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> I work for an inflight magazine. (Go ahead, let the jokes commence). Even though I work on the front of the book, my favorite section to edit and read is the feature well.
So magazines are my crack. My mail carrier hates shoving them into my too-small mailbox. I love the eye candy, but I really read mags for the features.
I respect the pubs that haven't abandoned the gazillion-word features--difficult when its all about the ads and readers' shorter attention spans.



that megawatt smile

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> I just got around to reading this, and I think it's one of the best things I've read on Jezebel. And it's a shame it only got 16 comments, because there's a lot to respond to (and I myself don't have the time now. )Great, Moe.

SarahHeartburn

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> The Dollard profile is definitely worth the read, especially for the Coulter cameos at the end (page 15):

Dollard attempts to ditch his cigarette. "No, no," Coulter tells him. "Blow smoke in my face." She leans her oblong, Brazil-nut-shaped face toward Dollard's lips, and he exhales through his yellow, cracked teeth. Coulter, who later explains she recently quit smoking and is still jonesing for tobacco, shuts her eyes and coos, "Thank you."

Its a great profile in general, with a quote-heavy middle, great story telling, and some seriuosly witty lines at the end:

A male guest approaches, slips Coulter his number, and delivers what must be the ultimate pickup line at a conservative party. "I'm having dinner tomorrow night with Richard Perle. Would you like to join us?"

cJeta

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> I think this post blazingly illustrates why it is that, after now living through nearly a year of her writing, on a near-daily basis, I continue to read Ms Tkacik. Despite her numerous self-described deficiencies, she may work for popularity, but she genuinely desires to do great work.

Zagnut

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> Oh, shut up about how much you "love" magazines already.

the Librarian

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @nikaoh: f'reals

midnightecho

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> block quotes, block quotes, ACK!!!

nikaoh

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @krismry: I got the title of the Barbaro piece totally wrong. It's "Gone Like The Wind."

"Go Baby Go" was an advertising slogan promoting horse racing a few seasons back. Too bad the Vanity Fair article didn't come out a bit more strongly against the idiocy of the sport of horse racing.

krismry

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> The idea behind your post, stoprobbers, was completely understandable, and no apology needed, really.

There is also a good link above where the Vanity Fair article about the race horse Barbaro, "Gone Baby Gone," is particularly significant today, the first Saturday in May, when yet another horse met the end of her short life.

krismry

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @stoprobbers: Sorry, I do realize that it's important that we write about the soldiers in the war, in order to get a good perspective. I really do understand that. I'm sorry if it came out that way.

However, I do think that there is a thin line between patriotism and jingoism (or militarism). And sometimes people tend to cross that line. We see that happening more and more every day. (People saying going to war "builds up people's character", etc.) That's what I was really responding to in my comment.

Also: I was really cranky last night.

ladyM2000

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> Here's the direct link to Onstad's article:
[www.elle.com]

ktln

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> Not to derail an important discussion of disabled combat veterans, and the probable futility of anti-war reporting, a noble endeavor since Remarque's classic "All Quiet on the Western Front" in 1929, but.
It's relevant also to note the long tradition of quality in magazine writing as a literary form, and good to see that it hasn't entirely disappeared yet. Thanks to Moe for links well worth pursuing over a quiet weekend.

krismry

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @Lymed: I meant I think she was referring to Dollar's quote, not I don't think. I don't think she was referring to coverage of soldiers by the media.

Lymed

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @stoprobbers: I don't think ladyM2000 was referring to Dollard's quote thate the "the coolest, fucking most badass and most noble thing you can be today is a combat Marine." She wasn't saying that the media shouldn't cover soldiers, she was commenting on somebody encouraging young people to become Marines.

None of the articles quoted above profile soldiers.

Lymed

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @ladyM2000: Why so knee-jerky? If you'd read Pat Dollard's War On Hollywood, you would realize that it IN NO WAY glorifies war; it charts the spectacular fall from grace of a Hollywood agent. Pat Dollard's retarded, fucked-up philosophy and depressingly fucked-up life is displayed for all to see, wrapped up in a gripping piece of journalism.

And by the way - knee-jerk reactions are what got us into this fine mess in the first place. Jus sayin.

Louficer

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> @ladyM2000: You write about soldiers during a time of war because it is important to understand what these people are going through. It's important, because it makes one-dimensional war mongers (potentially) consider the psychological and phsyical effects of the war they so blindly support on Americans as normal and innocent as any of their children or family members; It's important because telling the stories of otherwise-faceless soldiers makes war a tanigble thing at home, especially when it's being fought solely aborad; and it's important because one day these soldiers are going to come home and they will not be the same as when they left.

And you write about them because dozens of them die every day, men and women who signed up for the military because they thought it would get them a college education and all it got them was death.

Sure, it's good to write about the peace movement, but when you write about the war, you get a better anti-war message. These articles profiling marines, battalions, even areas of combat (Vanity Fair had a great article along these lines, in the issue with Katherine Heigl on the cover, I can't remember the title right now) rarely glorify war in a good way -- they underline it's horror, its unjustness, its random violence, its lack of solution. And there is nothing more debilitating to a war than a country that sympathizes with its soldiers too much to let them fight anymore.

And you write about them because chances are that article will be the only thing left of them one day.

stoprobbers

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> ..PS, I meant, "Casualties..." was also nominated in the ASME "Profile" category but lost to "Pat Dollard's War on Hollywood."

lanouvelleheloise

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> Ironically, in the same category as the Dollard profile was "Casualties of War"--the profile of a fallen marine and the ripple effect his death had among his family and friends.. An eminently moving piece by Steve Oney of Los Angeles magazine.

lanouvelleheloise

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> Can I heartily recommend Katrina Onstad's "My Year of Living Dangerously" that was in Elle magazine? Just beautiful. It was nominated in the Essays category. She takes a school sex scandal that was all over Canadian papers for a time and uses it as a jumping off point to talk about young women and sex and danger and risk and everything. I loved it. Often I think personal essays are just an excuse for shoddy journalism, but in this case her personal experiences make the piece sing. And of course she lost to someone writing about his prostate.

ktln

]]> <![CDATA[The National Magazine Awards: 3 Hours Better Spent Reading Magazines]]> I am so sick of the glorification of war in this country. Seriously, why should we all want to be Marines? What about the peace-loving people? What's so wrong about that?

And this makes me so depressed about the quality of magazines. It looks like all the good stuff is being ignored, and all the bad stuff comes to the fore. Makes me afraid of going into communications.

ladyM2000

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