How Magazine Editors Look After Their Own

So, was Esquire's last-minute inclusion as a finalist in the National Magazine Awards a stroke of luck for the languishing Hearst magazine, or merely the result of a fix? As you might have read, David Granger's men's title, which used reliably to feature in several categories in the magazine industry's annual exercise in mutual flattery, only received a solo nomination for its work in the past year. Mixed Media's Jeff Bercovici explained that even that was a fluke: the nomination was to have been New York's, until the judges realized that the magazine, an awards hog, had naughtily entered material it had already submitted in another category. So, a lucky break. Or maybe not. More »

'Esquire' Is The Magabrand With A Penthouse

Don't tell Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger that the concept of "magabrands"—magazines that have "extended" their "brands" to new media, old media and non-media"—is out-of-control bankrupt. Esquire North is the magazine's sprawling Harlem three-level condo on Central Park North; each room and everything in it was decorated by an Esquire advertiser. To have the honor of furnishing arcade seats in eel skin in the gaming room, both Kenneth Cole and Intel had to purchase at least one page (ooh!) of advertising. Last night all these brands threw a party for Riverkeeper. We don't care really about fisheries on the Hudson, but we do care about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is the main litigator for the environmental outfit. He is so boyishly handsome and so charismatic and so, well, Kennedy-like! Semi-socialite Melissa Berkelhammer stood alone near the panini bar as Kennedy gave a speech. And—was she wearing a sad pony mask? More »