I’m in New York today meeting with editors. In honor of the trip, here’s five media-related things I like about New York:
1. The New Yorker – My favorite magazine. From week to week, you never know what stories you’ll find – wild boars, smallpox, Seymour Hirsch’s latest Iraq war expose, a George Clooney profile. Jenny Allen’s humor essay, Awake, in the June 2, 2008, issue had me laughing out loud.
2. The New York Times – Not for the obvious reasons. I’m a West Coast girl and cut my news teeth on the Los Angeles Times. But when it comes to crosswords, the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles are the best. I buy spiral-bound volumes at Powell’s Books and take them on plane trips and vacations.
3. I’m usually down on New York-based publishers because too many of them carry stories with sources based in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut and completely ignore the rest of the country. This is especially irritating in shelter magazines that feature page after page of suggestions for doing up your 650-square foot Manhattan apartment but never showcase stunning homes, large or small, in places like Spokane, Washington, or Sacramento, California – for those you have to read Sunset. But now that I’m visiting, I’m glad so many publishers are based here, it makes for an easier trip.
4. Because so many magazines are based here, a lot of writers are based here too. So in my off hours, l’ll be hanging out with a handful of former colleagues I haven’t seen in a while, and getting together with a writer who I’ve worked with for some time but never met in person.
5. The term “media” includes more than just newspapers and magazines – it’s movies too. That’s why I purposely waited to see Sex in the City on the big screen until I was here where all takes place. Somebody get me a cosmo.
What’s your favorite New York media memory?