It was a big year in media, so in addition to our Media Winners 2006, ETP has pulled together some honorable mentions from the media year that was, to trickle out over the course of the day as befits the holiday schedule. Read, agree, enjoy! And, feel free to submit your own here — we care what you think. That's why we have no comments! See below:
- Most Overanalyzed Defenestration: Brendan Nyhan — Musical chairs at the American Prospect, and a Time column as bully pulpit. Forgettable? Nah. Remind yourself here.
- Best Addition to the Vocabulary of New Republic Readers: Sprezzatura (Runner-up: Blogofascism) (Second runner-up: The Small Penis Rule, annotated)
- Best Foray Into Virgin Territory: Jane's Virgin Chronicles. Though apparently there's someone out there whose foray will soon be even better.
- Best Private Plane: The Google Boys. Larry Page and Sergei Brin are just a couple of humble Silicon Valley engineers -- with a humble personal Boeing 767 widebody. The Google co-founders took a hit to their image when the WSJ published (in the free section, no less) stories about the two arguing over the plane's furniture and renovations. One point of contention: Sergey wanted a California King Size bed, and Larry wanted hammocks. Typical billionaire banter (like 20-minute meetings about a couch) is exactly what these self-styled renegades have avoided ever since playing coy with the SEC during Google's IPO. But it's hard to keep a low profile in a jet eleven times the length of your Prius. (ND)
- Best Example TimesSelect Could Stand To Follow: WSJ Free. A year and a half after the WSJ named a designated editor to push free content in the blogosphere by emailing daily links and quotables to bloggers everywhere, the WSJ has a healthy, hearty online presence with freely linkable content undisturbed by a pesky paywall, now and forever. See above.
- Poorest Exercise of Editorial Judgment: Featuring An Aids Denialist. Harper's, what were you thinking?
- Profile You Were Least Likely to Finish: David Remnick on BIll Clinton. Next time, maybe they'll put it online.
- Saddest Exercise in Contrarianism: "A Defense of Ann Coulter". Oh, TNR.
- Lamest Invitation to Criticism: Inviting Jonah Goldberg, Michael Wolff, and a guy who admits he never reads you to write ten-year anniversary critiques of your site. (Come on, Slate, were the branded cocktail napkins not enough?)
- Best Public Display of Becoming-What-You-Once-Mocked: Graydon Carter Promoting Spy: The Funny Years on The Today Show (see also here, here and here)
- Best Creative Font Use: New York Magazine And they've got the Ellie to prove it.
- Best About-Face: David Javerbaum. He'd given months of notice, but when The Daily Show needed an eleventh-hour replacement for longtime linchpin Ben Karlin, he stepped up. Give his regards to Broadway; he'll get there eventually.
- Best Magazine From The Best School That Publishes A Magazine, Just Ask Them: 02138. (Hint: It's Harvard!)
- Goodest Magazine: Good.
- Best Recovery, By A Mile: Nick Sylvester. From disgrace at the Village Voice to staff writer at the Colbert Report. Honorable mention: Jesse Oxfeld. Nice recovery. (p.s. ND, you haven't done too badly yourself.)
- Bated Breath Award: Gawker alum Jessica Coen. Oxfeld's got nymag.com; what she does at VF.com will be watched.
- Best Show With The Snappiest Dialogue And Most Inspiring Main Characters Based On Its Creators, Just Ask Its Creators: Studio 60. Also gets the pile-on award.
- Best Publicity Campaign: Borat.
- Best Publicity Campaign, Up To When The Bad Publicity Started: Katie Couric. Hey, we got sick of Borat too.
- Best Changing of the Subject: Thomas "I'm not a neo-con, I'm a geo-green" Friedman. It'll all be different in six months, he's sure of it.
More Honorable mentions coming up...stay tuned, ish.
By ETP staff