This Just In: APC Blog

Beating out the magazines New York, The New Yorker, GQ and Vanity Fair, Atlanta magazine has won its first National Magazine Award in the publication’s 47-year history. The award, which is the Oscar of the industry, is for Paige Williams’ incredible story from October 2007 about a refugee living in Atlanta. I remember being riveted by the piece when I read it…and still was when I reread it. Congratulations, Paige and Atlanta magazine!

I agree with columnist James Poniewozik’s essay in this week’s Time magazine. He points out that while a woman and an African American man are running for President, nearly all the most prominent faces at TV news divisions (except Katie Couric at CBS, rumored to be leaving her post) are what Poniewozik calls “white guys.” “It should be embarrassing that presidential politics…is moving forward as TV news is moving back,” he writes 

I admit I am not an evening news watcher (I get most of my news online or from CNN), but Poniewozik’s arguments reminded me of a five-year study by The White House Project on the absence of women “talking heads” on Sunday morning talk shows on the five major networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC. In 2001, men outnumbered women 9 to 1. In 2005, more than half the shows did not include a single woman. 

So…what role does — and should — gender identity politics play in the news today? 

I laughed out loud at this essay by Michael Kinsley in a recent issue of Time magazine. Being on both sides of the writer and editor equation — in the past and now — I can “sympathize” and relate to the personality “quirks” of each group (and share those quirks). Writers, if you’re reliable and solid, we editors appreciate you. Editors, if you respect us and pay us fairly, we appreciate you too!

Rather than add my take on the ABC News Democratic presidential candidate debate the other day (yawn), I thought I’d share some “gossip:” The New York Post is reporting today that Katie Couric might write a memoir. She has a poignant piece in this week’s Newsweek recalling the 10-year anniversary of her husband’s death, which perhaps started the rumor mill. If she did write a memoir, I think I’d read it. What about you?