Some Pearls from the Podium

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 1, 2004 by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

Byline: Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

The National Magazine Awards is a celebration of the best minds in the writing business, and it's also a moment for the biggest egos to express their minds. But awardees reactions can be disarmingly strained or spontaneous. When New Yorker editor David Remnick told Seymour Hersh about his award for reporting, Hersh replied that he had to go because he was on the other line with a general. Here are some other off-the-cuff - we hope - responses from ASME awardees.

"Unlike [upstart Budget Living ], it's the first time we've been up here in 63 years." - Gourmet Editor-in-Chief Ruth Richel

"I waited 12 years to be invited back into this room and it's an award I had nothing to do with." - New York magazine Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss, who recognized former New York magazine staffers Michael Wolff and his predecessor, Caroline Miller.

"I would have preferred a different prize but this one is pretty good." - Michael Wolff, whose Mort Zuckerman/Donnie Deutsch consortium lost New York magazine to Barry Wasserstein.

"Is this Ellie low carb?" - Men's Health Editor-in-Chief David Zinzenko.

"While we we're busy saving our readers' lives, sometimes we save our own." Zinzenko, again, on MH Executive Editor Peter Moore who wrote about his own heart surgery.