Congratulations, BookBeast! (image via moneyries.tumblr.com)

Today the American Society of Magazine Editors honored New York magazine's website as well as its general digital excellence. Congratulations, Adam Moss and Ben Williams; Ben Williams and Adam Moss. Wired picked up two as well, one for design, and one for reporting for digital media. Find out why Time, The New York Times Magazine, and Newsweek were awarded by reading the full list below.

The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

General Excellence, Digital Media 
Honors the best magazines published on digital platforms

Ben Williams, Editorial Director, nymag.com
New York
Adam Moss, Editor-in-Chief

Website
Honors the best magazine websites

New York
Adam Moss, Editor-in-Chief
Ben Williams, Editorial Director, nymag.com

Tablet Edition
Honors magazine editions published on tablets and e-readers

National Geographic
Chris Johns, Editor-in-Chief
Bill Marr, Creative Director
Melissa Wiley, E-Publishing Director

Design, Digital Media
Honors magazine websites, tablet and e-reader editions and utility apps for visual and functional excellence

Wired
Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief
Brandon Kavulla, Creative Director 
For “Underworld Issue,” February 2011, iPad App

Website Department
Honors a department, channel or microsite

The Daily Beast
Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief Newsweek and The Daily Beast
For “Book Beast”

Utility App
Honors single-purpose apps distributed on mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones

TIME
Richard Stengel, Managing Editor
For “PopuList” iPad Apps

Personal Service, Digital Media
Honors service journalism on digital platforms

MensHealth.com
David Zinczenko, Senior Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
William G. Phillips, Editor
For “The Skin Cancer Center,” by Adam Campbell, Executive Editor, and Amy Rushlow, Senior Editor

Reporting, Digital Media
Honors excellence in reporting for digital media

Wired
Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief
Noah Shachtman, Digital Editor
For “FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical,’” by Spencer Ackerman, Senior Writer

Commentary, Digital Media
Honors excellence in opinion journalism on digital platforms

The American Scholar
Robert Wilson, Editor
For “Zinsser on Friday,” by William Zinsser

Multimedia
Honors the use of interactivity and multimedia in the coverage of an event or subject

Foreign Policy
Susan B. Glasser, Editor-in-Chief
For “The Qaddafi Files: An FP Special Report”

Video
Honors the outstanding use of video by magazines

The New York Times Magazine
Hugo Lindgren, Editor-in-Chief
For “My Family’s Experiment in Extreme Schooling,” by Julie Dressner, Shayla Harris and Clifford J. Levy

(image via BeingWrongBook.com)

Kathryn Schulz was named book critic at New York today, filling a post that has been officially vacant since Sam Anderson left for The New York Times Magazine more than a year ago.

Ms. Schulz is probably best known for her own book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, although her byline appeared in the magazine a handful of times in 2011. Earlier this year she won the National Book Critics Circle's Nona Balakian Prize, which her predecessor also won, in 2007. At New York, she will write a monthly essay on books and occasional web stories, according to an announcement from editor-in-chief Adam Moss. 

“Kathryn has a wide-ranging intellect and a vivid voice, and I’m thrilled that she’s bringing her formidable talents to New York,” Mr. Moss wrote in the announcement. “Our readers, who had a taste of Kathryn’s work last year, can look forward to thoughtful works beyond the traditional book review, on literary subjects and big ideas that books put in motion. She's the kind of writer you want to read on anything, because her mind is so interesting.”

Hypersensitive authors may find comfort in the fact that, because of Being Wrong, Ms. Schulz is often referred to as "the world's leading wrongologist."

The panel was hosted by New York editor-in-chief Adam Moss and three of the magazine’s contributing editors, Wesley Yang, Jessica Pressler and Dan P. Lee. All three of their pieces had been put up for National Magazine Awards, Mr. Moss said, and all three were edited by David Haskell, New York features editor and part-time moonshiner, who was seated in front row.

“It’s somehow thrilling and somewhat unbelievable that there is now a thriving community of lovers of long-form periodical nonfiction,” Mr. Moss told a packed audience of readers and—judging by the technical specificity of the question-and-answer session—fellow writers at Housing Works Bookstore.

“Longreads is an especially gratifying corrective to the comments I read at NYMag.com complaining that anything over 400 words is too long and therefore necessarily boring,” Mr. Moss said.

But behind the longreads, it turns out, is a pile of short reads.

Mr. Yang, author of “Asian Like Me,” the magazine’s most-viewed piece ever, was cajoled into writing the piece by editors after Amy Chua’s controversial “Tiger Mother” archetype blew into the national media via her Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” “David, seeing the opportunity in this, said, well, we know a person of Asian descent who writes for us, so let’s get him to do something,” Mr. Yang said dryly.

Mr. Yang said he was defensive at first but, once he began poking around, settled on a different, though related topic. What happens to all the academic strivers after they leave their Tiger Mothers’ dens?

The final piece became the starting piece for yet another, longer read: Mr. Yang’s first, forthcoming book, which was bought by HarperCollins imprint Ecco Press in July.

“One of the things that’s amazing about the piece is its language,” Mr. Moss said, as he gave the audience a taste of its opening salvo.

“Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving, middle-class servility.”

Good luck getting language like that past editors at the Wall Street Journal!

Ms. Pressler’s Nieman Journalism Lab-lauded profile of Diane Passage, the ex-stripper wife of celebrity accountant and Ponzi schemer Kenneth Starr, came straight out of the tabloids.

“It was a great story in the New York Post and went on for weeks and weeks in that wonderful Post way,” Ms. Pressler said. “It kind of went away and then there was another blurb, six months later, that the wife, Diane Passage, was going to be in a reality show about Scores, the nightclub where she worked.”

New York news editor James Burnett thought the reality show was a good peg for a “Minutes With” interview with Ms. Passage.

“Why don’t you go out with Diane Passage and maybe you can go to Scores and she can teach you how to pole dance?” Ms. Pressler remembered Mr. Burnett telling her.

“And then I called human resources …” she joked. “No, and then I went.”

After spending time with Ms. Passage (still a friend, Ms. Pressler said, and by far the most glamorous person in the audience Wednesday night), Ms. Pressler decided that her and Mr. Starr’s hustler love story was too big for a front of book column.

The story of Travis, the chimpanzee raised as a human who turned on his “mother” and mauled her friend in 2009, was “scorched earth” by the time Mr. Lee got around to pitching “Travis the Menace” (named Best Longread of 2011).

As a former newspaper reporter, Mr. Lee said that if he’s interested in a story, he tends to ignore it out of jealousy that he’s not covering it. But after accidentally catching the mauled woman, Charla Nash, reveal her face, post-transplant surgery, on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he decided to shop a pitch around.

“I became extremely upset that this story was coming back and I had still never had my hands in it and I felt there was still something else there,” Mr. Lee said.

In fact, less-than-generous treatment by the tabloids and the Today show, which cast the chimpanzee’s owners as “freaks,” opened up sources who wanted a more dignified legacy for the family.

“Once the pack of wolves leaves … ,” Mr. Lee said.

Mr. Seitz, most recently the television critic at Salon, replaces Emily Nussbaum, who took the same position at the New Yorker.

Prior to Salon, Mr. Seitz was a critic at the Star-Ledger and The New York Times.

Adam Moss just wants to tell you about his new hire! (Patrick McMullan)

In today's Socratic dialogue between Adam Moss and Frank Rich on New York's Daily Intel, the esteemed editor teases his new star writer's forthcoming contributions to the magazine.

"When you came over to New York, we said we’d try a weekly dialogue of some sort. Right now you’re closing next week’s cover story and we haven’t figured out how these dialogues are going to work, but I thought maybe we’d sneak a kind of trial one in, given the passage into law in New York of gay marriage."

Right, this is just a normal way an editor talks to his writer. Just reminding him that he's closing a cover story, in case he forgot! No one here but us two professional media types, chewin' the fat.

The substance of the conversation--regarding gay marriage in New York as well as national politics and literature--is interesting (the text is unInternetishly dense!), but is inflected with an inside-baseball-ism that has seemed the tenor for our daily reading since the New York Times Magazine's relaunch under former New York staffer Hugo Lindgren, with its crediting editors and its blogged updates on (purported) inner workings. A magazine hired a writer! His writing will be good or it will not! The sneak-peek at the fact that he is writing for them reveals nothing other than the fact that the inner workings of New York are so uniquely interesting to Adam Moss that he cannot contain himself. Readers, waiting for the cover story they knew was coming from the full-page ads, might be forgiven for remembering a time when the weekly Frank Rich column was an expectation, not cause for exultation.

Here's a bomb blast in the war between Adam Moss and his former protege, Hugo Lindgren: Sam Anderson is leaving New York to join Mr. Lindgren's growing roster of talent at the New York Times Magazine. Two days ago, Adam Sternbergh made the same move, escalating the two editors' budding rivalry. Both hires were first reported in The Observer.

Mr. Anderson did not respond to a request for comment. As New York's book critic, he has built a reputation for sharp, deliriously crafted prose--see the first paragraph of this 2009 review for an example--but it was not immediately clear whether he would continue in a similar role at the Times Magazine.

Mr. Moss announced the move to his staff at New York with this memo just after 4 p.m.:

From: Katherine Ward
To: One Hudson
Re: A Message from Adam Moss

Everybody,

You all know by now that Adam Sternbergh is leaving us to join our friends and colleagues at The New York Times Magazine.  I am sorry to say that Sam Anderson will be decamping for the Times Magazine as well.  It goes without saying that we will miss them both, and wish them the best in their new uptown gigs.

Both have been important players in the evolution of New York over the past half-decade.  To name just a few of their obvious contributions, Adam provided the voice for the Approval Matrix, one of the signatures of this incarnation of the magazine.  He wrote stories such as “Up With Grups” and “The What You Are Afraid Of” that imaginatively covered the tensions of gentrification.  He got us to wonder what was wrong with wearing shoes; insinuated his sensibility all over our culture pages (“Beware the Curve of Undulating Expectations!”), gave us strong interesting ideas and provided critical gloss that helped define the way the magazine talked to its readers.  

Sam’s impact has also been far-ranging.  In my view, he redrew the boundaries of book criticism, infusing his reviews with erudition, a sense of adventure and an implicit throughline that explored the changing nature of how we read.  His features, on James Franco and Augusten Burroughs to name just two, were wild experiments with form--genre-bending, smart and fun. He is a fearless and committed writer and thinker.

When people tell me what they like about this magazine they often say they admire the way New York finds the intersection of seriousness and fun.  Both Adam and Sam have helped us figure out what that means — in print and online.  It’s a great corner of the world to inhabit, just where we ought to be.

It’s always painful when cherished colleagues leave this place and I can’t pretend I’m happy to see them go.  But it’s also true that this magazine has always had as its project the discovery of new, vital talent and that exciting work continues.  We won’t find another Adam and Sam; but we will find other wonderful new voices who will keep the magazine fresh and moving forward.  Our burden is that sometimes we’re so good at discovery that we are vulnerable to other publications that want what we have.  But that’s our opportunity as well.  In the perpetual hunt for talent, the magazine stays vital.  We are constantly remaking ourself; that’s the thrill for us, and also, when we do it right, for our readers.

Over the last few months, we have been lucky to have join us Nitsuh Abebe, as great and original a pop music writer as I’ve ever seen.  We have been proud to welcome as contributing editors Wesley Yang and Jason Zengerle; excited to publish such talents as Ben Wallace-Wells.  With this issue John Heilemann becomes our National Affairs Editor.  News editor James Burnett and senior editor Raha Naddaf (for those who don’t know, James was editor of Boston magazine, then did a stint at Rolling Stone; Raha rose as an editor at GQ, and then was a senior editor at O) are off to sensational starts.  Carl Swanson and, soon, Jada Yuan begin their next evolutions here working primarily as writers.  Young Danny Kim, until recently an intern at Time, has been making such amazing pictures for us that he will now become our official staff photographer.  They are just some of the reasons to love New York right now.  Since this seems to have morphed into a kind of year-end message, let me just say what I hope you all know: the rest of you are too.  The staff at this magazine is a true blessing.

Thanks, and happy holidays.

Adam

nsummers@observer.com | @nicksumm

Sternbergh is an editor-at-large at New York magazine, where he and Lindgren worked together before Lindgren left for Bloomberg BusinessWeek in January 2010. Lindgren was named editor of The New York Times Magazine in September and has since assembled a dreamy team that includes former New York staffer Lauren Kern as deputy editor and The New Republic's Greg Veis as front-of-book editor. GQ story editor Joel Lovell is believed to be joining the staff soon, too. 

"I was [Sternbergh's] editor, he did the Approval Matrix, and he was great at everything," Lindgren told The Observer. Sternbergh's position is an addition to the existing Times Magazine culture staff, reflecting a greater emphasis of cultural coverage which will become more apparent after the redesign is unveiled at the end of February.

"Adam's got really good, broad taste and a lot of enthusiasm for a wide range of cultural subjects. He has a great sense of humor and a light touch--just the kind of person you'd want to see in the office in the morning," Lindgren said.

 @kstoeffel | kstoeffel@observer.com

Lindgren has been instrumental in helping Moss build his reputation as a master magazine editor. The pair began working together in 1999 when Moss, who was editor of the Times Magazine, hired Lindgren to join his staff. When Bruce Wasserstein hired Moss to edit New York shortly after he purchased the weekly in December 2003, Moss brought Lindgren in to be his right-hand man/editorial director.

Eventually Moss and Lindgren began to have regular editorial disagreements, including one in February 2009 that, according to Koblin, culminated in a shouting match that was "the magazine equivalent of a domestic dispute."

Lindgren left New York for Bloomberg Businessweek in January.

Lindgren told Koblin that the tension between himself and Moss was a natural result of a long working relationship.

"I have no grudges. Our differences were the by-product of working together a lot ... It’s time for us to have different situations and it’s worked out pretty well for both of us," Lindgren said.

"Hugo became unhappy in that job for whatever reasons ... It became unpleasant for him and it became unpleasant for me. Hugo knew himself well enough to realize he should go and do something else," Moss told WWD.

Now, the two former colleagues are doing battle on magazine racks all over the city. Lindgren is planning significant changes at the Times Magazine.

So far, it seems like this will be a relatively good-natured media feud. Moss even told Koblin that he gave Lindgren "a glowing reference" when he was being considered for the Times job. But even if they do manage to keep things civil, the competition between Moss and Lindgren will be endlessly entertaining for media watchers next year. We'll hesitate to name a favorite just yet, but the New York media's version of the Subway Series is definitely heating up.

Once the show began, models in swaths of tanned leather, frills and oversized bullhorn belt buckles trotted underneath the chandeliers. The entire show seemed hyper-conscious of its Western feel, especially as the shiny twang of Bob Dylan's "Everything is Broken" flooded the space with a sense of American nostalgia. 

We caught up with Mr. Lauren immediately following his glad-handing of the audience, and found him dressed in a tucked-in button-up, gold-brown leather pants and boots, and an outlaw-style necktie. "I feel strong about the American roots," Mr. Lauren told The Observer, before rushing back to his family and friends. 

On our way out we ran into André Leon Talley, who had by now ditched the overcoat in favor of a three-piece number. Again, he recognized us.

"Oh, you're the blogger," he said, dragging out the word like it was a trend that went out, like, a whole season ago. 

Mrs. Lauren walked up to us. "Oh, hi-eeee!" Andre exclaimed upon seeing Ralph's wife, Ricky. She was dressed head to toe in her husband's most recent collection. "Everything that looks like you was perfect!" Mr. Talley said to her, pecking her on the cheek. "Everything that looks like you was perfect. Perfect! Perfect!"

"Oh, thank you, thank you," Mrs. Lauren said.

"It was beautiful — beautiful," Mr. Talley told her again. "You look lovely. Fringe is one of my favorite things!"

André turned back to us. 

"I love Ralph Lauren because Ralph Lauren is a quintessential master of American elegance," he said to us. "It's an attitude of dressing. And this season it's about the fringe, and about being in the wild, wild, West without being a cowgirl."

With that, Mr. Talley walked outside, where two of Mr. Lauren's very svelte models were smoking cigarettes surrounded by an army of cameras. 

David Carr reports today that Mr. Waserstein's children are dedicated to the magazine. "The family members meet with the management team monthly and weigh in on broader budgetary and strategic priorities," writes Mr. Carr.

Pam Wasserstein, who works for the Tribeca Film Institute and spent time with New York staffers in the past, said that the family sees New York as an investment:

"We reviewed our family's investments after Dad passed away. We concluded, as our father had, that New York Media was an attractive long-term investment. The strength of the company we're building, both in business terms and in the quality of the editorial products, is the result of years of long-term planning by our father and the New York team."

Last October, it wasn't clearly what would happen to the magazine. Editor Adam Moss told Mr. Carr that he received a few phone calls from some rich folks who wanted to see if it was available, but, he said, "the family did not miss a beat. They told us that the magazine was always meant to be owned by the family, and that it was not bought as a quick turnaround project or to flip."

The only thing that isn't clear at this hour — or maybe in the years to come — is when the Wasserstein family will actually assume full power over the magazine (that is, when they participate in something more than a monthly meeting), and what will happen when that process begins. At this point, it appears that Anup Bagaria is keeping his steady hand at the wheel, and none of the Wasserstein children have asserted themselves as the active owners of the magazine. When that happens, we'll once again review whether or not New York remains, as Mr. Carr argues, one of the shining beacons of great media property ownership.