In an interview with Katie Couric published in Glamour, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow says some may see her as the “face of the network” in the aftermath of Keith Olbermann‘s departure, but she has no real idea what that means. “I still think of myself as the new kid, even though I’ve been on the air for two and a half years. But my job is the same as it ever was, which is to make 9:00 P.M. as good as I can.”

Maddow tells Couric their experiences in television have probably been similar, that people tend to engage with news hosts “as brands,” while Maddow’s been very resistant, she says, to veering too far from the story:

I don’t want to insert myself into the story. I just want to give a useful analysis of it to help people come to their own conclusions. It’s why I have a conveyor belt of gray blazers—I try to look exactly the same every day. Don’t focus on what I’m wearing. Focus on what’s coming out of my face. [Laughs.] Besides, I knew that I was never going to compete on the pretty-girl-on-cable front.

What drives Maddow? “Fear of failure. It’s not that I believe a segment will be better because I read those extra 20 pages. It’s because I’m worried that if I don’t, I’ll say something wrong. It’s negative motivation, which makes for a high-stress atmosphere.”

Carusone shared some things about Giffords that most may not know, painting a more detailed portrait of the woman who has an entire nation keeping a close eye on her progress. At 40, Giffords is one of the youngest female Democrats in Congress – a factor that makes her a bit different from other representatives. For example: “She doesn’t like her bags or her umbrella to be carried, or the door held. She wants to be just another person in the room.”

The Congresswoman is also exceedingly warm to her interns, often sitting down with them to take their questions, and is known to be a “hugger.”

And? Giffords has been known to ride a few motorcycles in her day. Says Carusone:

She does ride motorcycles, and bicycling is a big stress reliever… . She and her mother are really into art. She’s also an avid reader and loves to listen to music. There’s a band based in Tucson called Calexico that I’ve liked for a long time—I remember finding out that she was into their music and that she was friends with them.

Here’s hoping Giffords is looking forward to a bike ride in her very near future.

The eclectic list includes over three dozen recipients, though some of them will be receiving collective awards. All of them will be honored at a ceremony held next Monday at Carnegie Hall. Highlights from the roster include:

- Julia Roberts, who “is helping to make the world a better place by supporting Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang camp; serving on the board of Earth Biofuels, which promotes renewable energy; and raising awareness for Rett Syndrome.”

- Cher, who gets a lifetime achievement award for being a “sensation” for forty-five years.

- Constance McMillen, the teenager who became a media darling after her high school told her she couldn’t bring her girlfriend to the prom.

- The world’s female heads of state, including including President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania, Prime Minister Iveta Radičovó of Slovakia, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago, and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor of Croatia. No American female politicians made the list.

- Athletes Lindsey Vonn, Mia Hamm and Lisa Leslie, three women who are kicking ass in the world of sports.

All of the recipients are profiled in the magazine’s December issue, which can be found on newsstands starting November 9. Congratulations, ladies!

Sid Holt, Chief Executive of American Society of Magazine Editors had this to say about this award:

“The best magazines touch their readers in print, on the Web and increasingly on mobile devices. An award just for print or just for digital can’t do justice to the multiplatform achievements of the most successful magazine brands. The Magazine of the Year honors just that—editorial excellence across multiple platforms.”

Following is a collection of titles and explanations of why they deserve this first time, big kahuna of an award!

The Atlantic

It makes sense that The Atlantic is on this list, as no other “intellectual” magazine has better embraced the blogging sensibility than they. Sure, many of their competitors have dabbled, but none of them have Andrew Sullivan‘s Daily Dish under their umbrella of content (along with a slew of other great writers.) Further, their smartly edited Atlantic Wire perfectly demonstrates how well they understand how an Internet channel can provide a perfect extension to the larger editorial point-of-view and brand. Of course, it almost goes without saying that the actual print magazine is enjoying its best time ever, under the wise leadership of James Bennett, who has completely reinvigorated the title since taking over in 2006.

Fast Company

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when magazine publishers saw a great editorial opportunity to jump on the new Internet-fueled economy. Sadly, many (if not most) of these titles have fallen by the wayside, ironically because they clearly didn’t understand the new content model that the Internet provided. But not so with Fast Company, who under Editor in Chief Robert Saffian, consistently demonstrates how long-form writing in the print version can still be relevant, entertaining and impactful, and offer a website that offers an original online experience that completely compliments the print-side point of view. The list of smart contributors at Fast Company is legion, though we choose to highlight Adam Penenberg (and his recent book Viral Loop.) Not only a great read, essay and excerpt online, but also a fascinating application on Facebook. So smart.

Glamour

Wait, what? Surely this must be a mistake! A women’s service magazine getting recognized by ASME? Say it ain’t so! We all know that women’s service magazines are only the commercial lifeblood of the magazine publishing industry; the cash cows at publishing houses that make the money that allow for the boutique and intellectually stimulating brands to exist (hello New Yorker!) Only joking (sort of.) For a variety of reasons, we are very fond of the work of Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive, who’s efforts to bring Glamour into a complete brand experience, from print to online are an exemplar of how it should be done. (And dare we say how good the the magazine looks these days? Yes we dare.) This title definitely belongs here, and congrats are due not just to Glamour, but to the judges of ASME for finally recognizing that a commercially viable brand can also be smart, cool and innovative.

Men’s Health

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to us, Men’s Health Editor-in-chief Dave Zinczenko‘s place in the industry is somehow considered a provocative discussion. Most see him as the “golden boy” of publishing, but there are still some who somehow don’t feel that his recognition is deserved, perhaps because of an overblown cover line hullabaloo. Well, sorry haters – the proof is in the pudding. Not only is Men’s Health helping to drive the Rodale P&L statement, but all of nearly its digital products have proven to be both smart, pioneering and simply cool. From their website to their iPhone application, to their great selling books. In an email to his staff Zinczenko said “it’s an award for excellence across all channels. And we’re the only men’s magazine to score a nomination. Creating excellence across all channels is something only a great team, working together with one vision and purpose, can accomplish.” Well said.

New York

Oh right. Adam Moss. How can a magazine award exist and not include New York? Well there is an easy answer: because it is awesome, great and deserving of all of its accolades. Sure – its a regional title that has comparatively lower circulation than this categories fellow nominees. But you know what? They STILL deserve the love (and are likely considered by many to be the favorite.) Why? Because week after week, no other magazine nails the cultural zeitgeist better than New York. More importantly? Moss has demonstrated how a weekly magazine can effectively use the Internet experience in a way that makes the print version more viable, relevant and actually great fun. Conventional wisdom in the industry states that weekly magazines cannot exist in the digital age. New York demonstrates how wrong that is, and for that alone, Moss and his team deserve to be paraded around the ASME award ceremony on the shoulders of Jon Meacham, Rick Stengel and Jess Cagle. Please make that happen.

Disclosure – the author of this post is married to Geraldine Hessler, Design Director of Glamour.

T: The New York Times Style Magazine

Silva, who tweeted real-time coverage via T’s Twitter account @TheMoment, bashed Dexter star Michael C. Hall‘s dark-colored beanie. The tweet:

“Is Michael C. Hall playing Bob Marley in an upcoming movie? Don’t get the hat or what he is hiding under it. HS”

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to to Silva, Hall wore to cover hair loss as a result of a recent treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Gawker, Perez Hilton and WWD quickly jumped on Silva’s back, but to be fair, he quickly apologized when he realized the snafu:

“It was a question I posed entirely without malice…I know from the effect it had on my family, how devastating cancer can be and it’s not something that I take lightly. I apologize for any hurt that I may have caused.”

NY Times staffer Andy Port, however, straight up called people fat.  In a slanderous post on T’s The Moment blog, she opened with “Maybe it’s just me, but I could have sworn that some of the ladies who showed up at the Golden Globes on Sunday had put on a little weight.”

No names were named, but pictures of Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Courtney Cox accompanied the post. “You could definitely see the difference if you concentrated solely on the upper arms,” quipped Port.

What is this: the New York Times or high school? Maybe Ms. Port should check out Glamour’s plus-sized models to realize that “womanly” is in.

‘Cute’s good. But cute only lasts for so long, and then it’s, Who are you as a person? That’s the advice I would give to women: Don’t look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. Look at how the guy treats his mother and what he says about women. How he acts with children he doesn’t know. And, more important, how does he treat you? When you’re dating a man, you should always feel good. You should never feel less than. You should never doubt yourself. You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole. And if you’re in that relationship and you’re dating, then my advice is, don’t get married.’

So far everybody on the web has pulled the same quote from a write-up of the new dating site in British Vogue:

Trulymadlydating.com is Conde Nast International’s first dating site, supported by Glamour.com and GQ.com, and created to unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven.

Upon first glance, the new site seems like it’s mostly for British readers. The subscription fee (6 months for £59.94, 1 month for £19.99) is given in sterling, and most of the profiles are for people living in the UK. The site is powered by The Dating Lab, a British company that has experience powering dating sites for other media companies, like the Guardian and the Telegraph.

And, for the record, this is not Condé’s first try at online dating. At the end of the ’90s, Condé floated Swoon, a personals website. But Swoon shriveled into a section of Glamour‘s site where you can make sure a potential boyfriend’s astrological sign is compatible with your own … and other date-y stuff, but no personals.

Trying to set up Glamour readers and GQ readers seems like a pretty clever idea. One Fashionista editor, Abby Gardner however, is worried that most of the people in said “style heaven” are gay, so setting them up with a site that seems geared towards heteros will be hard. She also wonders why Condé thinks that entering the online dating business is a good idea: “I simply don’t understand this use of resources or what on earth it has to do with your core business. If someone else can explain it to me, please do.”

Well, I think we’re kind of beyond the explanation phase. Something is terribly wrong with the core business and it’s time to try anything. And, hey, maybe a few people will get laid. Better than getting laid-off.

It seems more accurate to say though, that the ads reinforce more than a refreshed image of the Glamour reader. The magazine’s 70 year run has always had a focus on the “average,” albeit exceptional, “all-American girl.” Out of those 70 years, the magazine has been holding an annual Top 10 College Women competition for 52. The contest attests to the ardent level of appreciation the beauty mag has always had for intelligent women, who are recognized for their “campus leadership, scholastic achievement, community involvement and unique, inspiring goals,” and not their waist size.

The 10 winners, whose colleges ranged from University of Iowa to USC to West Point, were honored at a fancy awards luncheon at The Modern last week, where Ivanka Trump and Editor-In-Chief Cindi Leive spoke. Besides the ceremony, the girls are glorified in a detailed 5 page spread in the October issue.

Glamour has been dedicating this much space to real, exceptional women every year for half a century, which suggests that its new ad campaign isn’t refreshing its readers’ image, but rather maintaining its tradition of accessibility. The sprinkling of the cupcake ads around New York may add some refreshing color to the city, but Glamour‘s continued success and high readership has always been rooted in their their long-established tradition of providing an attainable space for the voices of real young women.

Rolling Stone, January 2005: This cover is classic Gwen Stefani — we’d recognize that midriff anywhere. On the heels of her first solo album L.A.M.B. (2004), Gwen was coming into her own. So what if she’s been polished within an inch of her life.

Mediaite Grade (B+): The bra-and-hoodie look screams ‘post-’90s grunge, angsty funk’ louder than “Rock Goddess with Major Issues.” But let it be known that she was ahead of the curve on busy sweaters. Safe to say, then is when some of us fell in love with Gwen.

V, March 2008: Couture magazine V, decidedly more artsy than mainstream, breaks step with the drumbeat of Gwen Stefani covers. Instead of her body, Gwen’s face is featured prominently though veiled; there is interesting play between the light and her skin, which looks real in some places and pale and plastic in others; and her hair is … orange?

Mediaite Grade (B-): We like all of the visual play on the cover, but Gwen’s face cradled in the V is overtly sexual, in kind of an uncomfortable way. Maybe it’s just us, but the V over her face is inherently vaginal, and the nearly overhead perspective makes it seem like she’s going into our crotch. But maybe we’re projecting.

Elle, July 2009: In hindsight it has been a pretty nutty summer of Elle covers. Megan Fox in June was fine, but then things got weird. This Gwen Stefani cover set off an avalanche of weird, sending up a black plume of rubbery covers with Miley Cyrus in August and Jennifer Aniston in September.

Mediaite Grade (C+): We’re going to stick with our guns on this one: If we may say so, Gwen’s whole look is a little strange, and she appears even paler between the white background and rich tones of her clothing. For whatever reason her shoulders look enormous, yet we still feel her flaunting that midriff through horizontal stripes. File this under edgy gone wrong.

Glamour, October 2009: We’ve picked on Glamour for indulging in funky trompe l’oeil before, but we really dig it this time around. Somehow Gwen really pops off the page (and not in the weird cunnilingus way).

Mediaite Grade (A-): If Gwen’s palette of pale and blonde tones is poisonous, Glamour has found the antidote with pink. Her skin doesn’t look too pale, nor does her hair look too orange. Gwen comes alive on the page as her loose doo and fingertip run over the margins.

COVER WARS WINNER: Magazines are always trying to make the subject of the cover pop off the page: Ted Kennedy on the cover of Newsweek; Kristen Bell on this month’s Allure; Audrina Partridge on the cover of Maxim. When the pop goes off without a hitch, you forget that you’re looking a magazine because you’ve already been sucked into the vortex. There’s no hitch in the latest Glamour‘s pop. (But we’re still waiting on our plus-sized triples cover).

The Forbes list was compiled by comparing a variety of metrics each meant to measure popularity in different spheres, including web traffic, Google prominence and media mentions, as well as advertising revenue for 2009 and year-over-year circulation numbers. While weighed heavily, that of course is all added to the all-powerful Forbes editorial vision in determining their omnipresent “most powerful” lists. The Mediaite power grid measures similar metrics objectively, functioning entirely by algorithm. This year in Forbes, the highest slots went to fashion editors who have diversified their marketability and defined a personal brand outside of the ivory tower of magazine publishing.

For instance, Glamour‘s Cindi Leive, #2 on the Forbes list, beefed up her magazine’s online presence, up 54% in unique users since last year. She also boasts the second highest amount of media mentions, a number that has only gone up thanks to the positive press Glamour received for using a normal-sized model in a September nude shot. As a result of the recent attention, Leive shot up 13 spots in our power rankings, landing at #4 among all magazine editors.

Television has also provided a demonstrable boon for fashion editors, as evidenced by Marie Claire‘s Joanna Coles (#9 according to Forbes), who has welcomed The Style Network into the magazine’s offices to shoot the reality show Running in Heels, and is sponsoring the sixth season of the popular Lifetime show Project Runway. Meanwhile, Harper’s Bazaar’s Glenda Bailey (#6 on the Forbes list) is a judge on Bravo’s The Fashion Show, while #7 Ariel Foxman of In Style has deployed his fashion director Hal Rubenstein to judge on Lifetime’s Blush: The Search for the Next Great Make-up Artist. Coles comes in at #45 among all magazine editors according to our own power metrics, while Bailey ranks #33 and Foxman breaks the top twenty.

The lesson is clear and media variety is key, especially for those editors seeking a younger audience who are increasingly turning to the internet. Ann Shoket of Seventeen is hanging on at #24 according to the Power Grid, but slipped one spot from last year’s Forbes list, with ad pages and web hits down 15.2% and 10.1% respectively. You know what that means: someone get Bravo on the phone.

One reader called the shot of the normal-sized girl, the “most amazing photograph I’ve ever seen in any women’s magazine,” and Editor in Chief Cindi Leive assured readers, “Trust me, Glamour‘s listening.” Women’s blog Jezebel was also listening, as were Newsweek and The Today Show, among countless other media outlets commenting on the 3-inch x 3-inch photo. The average American woman is, after all, a size 14 and to see this reality reflected in a glossy magazine — even if relegated to a story about body acceptance — is a small victory worth lauding.

But with the conversation successfully stoked, the real winner in all of this is Glamour and its editrix Leive. As expected, the mag and its chief have seen their buzz skyrocket as a result of the popular stunt, so much so that Leive jumped 13 spots on our Power Grid rankings, landing at #4 among magazine editors. Her sizable leap can be attributed to a surge in blog, Google and news presence, a welcome blast of attention for a title in the struggling Conde Nast universe. Still, no amount of topical relevance can equal the cultural cachet of general goodwill from your magazine’s readers.

Lizzi Miller

Trebay is not alone, however. Glamour‘s September issue won the applause and acclaim of its readers (and even the women’s blog Jezebel) for a stunningly unabashed but not self-congratulatory photograph of model Lizzi Miller, who flaunts a supple roll of fat and a positively beaming smile. “It’s a sign of the time that women are looking for more authenticity, a little bit less artifice in every part of their lives,” said Glamour EIC Cindi Leive to Matt Lauer on Today this week. “Will it change our approach? I think it will.” There you have it: Look for more ‘plus-sized’ models in your copy of Glamour soon.

And then there’s Cintra Wilson, one of Trebay’s colleagues in the NYT Style section. Wilson penned a “Critical Shopper” column earlier this summer that offended readers across the country — overweight readers in particular (if you missed that bit of above-the-fold news, catch up here). That was nearly two weeks ago, but the Times, among others, is still chattering about it (read: getting traffic from it).

Clark Hoyt, the Times‘ public editor, said in his column this weekend that Wilson wrote her mockingly disdainful piece about the arrival of a J.C. Penney’s in downtown Manhattan with “virtual sneer seeming to drip from her keyboard.” Hoyt also relayed the thoughts from his colleagues: Fashion editor Anita Leclerc classified Wilson’s writing style as “stream of consciousness … full of barbs.” Executive editor Bill Keller said the column “would make a fine exhibit for someone making the case that The Times has an arrogant streak.” In his mind it should have never been published. Hoyt even reported that Wilson said her work was “provincial” and that it was “dumb on [her] part not to see this coming.”

Ralph Kramden.

If Glamour learned the lesson that readers will respond positively in spades when they see realistically shaped people validated in print, then the Times has learned quite the same lesson but in the opposite way: Average readers will loudly disapprove when they find the stores that average income, average-sized people shop at lambasted in their newspaper. Along with toned bellies, pretension is very out (Anna Wintour went on David Letterman, for God’s sake).

But what has happened to the fantasy of print? The glamour of Glamour? The elitism and perfection of Vogue? The brave provocation of the Times?

Lewis Grossberger chimed in yesterday on his True/Slant blog to put a an end to the Gray Lady’s pity party, calling Keller a “Louis XVI wannabe” and Clark’s column a “hit job on the witty and readable Wilson.” Why such harsh words? Because, he says, Wilson’s only sin is writing well and being funny — and “Damn few people can do funny!” Instead Wilson has been made to apologize for her craft and a column that Wilson’s fans probably enjoyed.

But Grossberger is excessively harsh on the Times. His writing feels vindictive — when has the Times ever been about flash and pop?

Let me now make this diatribe even more apocalyptic: You, Clark Hoyt and the cluck-clucking, brain-dead editors (starting with the Times’ Louis XVI wannabe, Bill Keller) who agreed with your Babbitt-like op-ed-page hit job on the witty and readable Wilson, are one of the reasons why the Times is having that little problem we all keep hearing about…you know, the sliding-into-oblivion thing?

Because it’s boring. Always has been but now, because there’s actual competition, people notice. And here you are, Clark, proclaiming, “Let’s make it still more boring!”

This might just be the absolute worst time in the history of newspapers to come out for boring.

That’s a stretch, and the nuance of Grossberger’s point is lost in his anger. The Times is not becoming more boring, it’s just going about the business of trying to save face and keep readers happy (ever-important in this climate, right?). Hoyt’s column, after all, was more symbolic than anything else. I don’t see Wilson losing her job or trying to flatten her ‘barbs’ any time soon, otherwise she wouldn’t be the writer she was hired to be. Grossberger hits that nail on the head.

This summer’s newfound media sensitivity to overweight readers probably, like everything else these days, has something to do with the economy. Simple-minded though it may be, attitudes about weight have to shift in lean times. I’m reminded of an article from 2001 about beauty queens in Niger who eat animal feed to plump up for their pageants. But that’s a bit much — America’s fantasy body image isn’t going away any time soon, though we certainly eat less healthy food when money is tight.

The economy — insofar as it has forced magazines and other mainstream print outlets to march down a rocky road, splattered with the red ink of hemorrhaging ad pages — has definitely played a role in pushing the fat question. Rather: the question of how we should talk about and handle fatness in the media. Magazines somehow have to remain a luxury good that fewer people will pay more for (or something like that), while not seeming so detached and frivolous that nobody can stand to pick one up.

Meanwhile, the Internet is constantly reminding everybody in the media business that being opinionated and even offensive is a great way to make cash, get buzz and attract eyeballs online; even if a select slice of readers walk away with a bad taste in their mouths, click numbers are still up and ads are still more valuable. This commerce is trickier for established newspapers like the Times, hence the apology. Even so, think about how many clicks Wilson’s column generated (including the traffic generated by Hoyt’s column) and then consider how many readers the Times lost because of the incident. How many people really canceled their subscription or are boycotting NYTimes.com because of a trivial Style column?

For now everyone has had their cake. Overweight readers have made their voices heard (or at least acknowledged) by editors at a popular and widely read Condé Nast title and the New York Times. But will this just be a recession-era summer love affair with the fat? Will more plus-sized women really make it into the pages of Glamour? Will the Times really be more mindful of offensive ‘barbs’ that might catch the sides of fat readers? And will all the Ralph Kramdens of the world wilt once stock indexes boom again?

Frankly, we have hope the answer to all of those questions is no. Otherwise the things we read will only become more vanilla. And as any fat kid could tell you, vanilla tastes best with the toppings piled on high. Nuts are our favorite.

Editor in chief Cindi Leive relayed some of the letters she has received from readers about the photograph in a post to one of Glamour‘s blogs, Vitamin G:

“The most amazing photograph I’ve ever seen in any women’s magazine,” wrote one reader in Pavo, Georgia. From another in Somerset, Massachusetts: “This beautiful woman has a real stomach and did I even see a few stretch marks? This is how my belly looks after giving birth to my two amazing kids! This photo made me want to shout from the rooftops.”

The model, 20-year-old Lizzi Miller, also known as “the woman on p. 194,” is a size 12-14. For all intents and purposes, she looks totally “normal,” according to Leive, but she’s definitely not what we’re used to seeing in the pages of a women’s magazine. Sure, from time to time we see attempts at renormalizing curvy girls in print, but these usually feel artificial and calculated — more of just a chance for magazines to pat themselves on the back.

Jezebel has consistently chimed in about magazines’ attempts to include images of women with every body type. Following the release of the May issue of Glamour earlier this year, Jezebel applauded the title for filling its feature well with photos of women of every shape wearing swimsuits, before noting that immediately following the feature there was a hard cut back to weight-loss drivel.

That’s why after this uplifting series of shapes and sizes, the VERY NEXT PAGE is: Hey, lose weight! That is a command! Whether or not you need to lose weight, you should probably take off say, 8, 10 or 12 pounds. We’ll show you how! Feel free to keep doing crunches, LOL.

Jezebel and her commenters gave a roar of approval to the picture of Miller in the September issue:

On its own, the picture may not seem that incredible, but after flipping through 193 pages of uniform sample-size models, the image is striking. Rather than thinning her via Photoshop or having her sit in an unnatural pose, the model is shown with a bit of belly hanging over her underwear and slightly-bulging thighs, looking happy and genuinely confident.

But still a caveat for Glamour:

But still, being the ladymag with the most body diversity isn’t that hard when your competition is Vogue. Both pictures of Miller were included in articles about body acceptance and May’s plus-size swimsuit spread was a rarity. Every other model featured in this month’s Glamour was very thin.

Newsweek‘s The Human Condition blog also picked up on the picture, showing pleasant surprise at the way a roll of Miller’s paunch was featured so unabashedly. And Miller looks so happy with her body:

The spread is typical of the women’s magazines I normally roll my eyes at: “self esteem” squeezed between pages of emaciated cheekbones, jutting shoulder blades and gangly arms. Except that this time, I do a double-take. The girl on page 194 of the September issue of Glamour is Lizzi Miller, a 20-year-old model with—get ready—a roll in her stomach.

Glamour‘s September issue has clearly tipped something in the dialogue about plus-sized (er… normal-sized) models. Newsweek‘s Human Condition really got it right: The picture itself is what is really groundbreaking here. Never before have women’s glossy readers seen a model showing off a roll of fat with such joy. As for Jezebel’s continued gripes, we think that photos of rolls will be restricted to articles about body acceptance for the foreseeable future; normal in gloss will never be normal in real life. It’s called Glamour magazine, after all.

Then again, Leive writes: “Trust me, Glamour‘s listening, and this only strengthens our commitment to celebrating all kinds of beauty.” We’ll see if that ‘celebration’ will occur on a regular basis, not just when body acceptance is on the docket.

Update: Leive went on the Today show this morning to discuss reactions to the photo. “Will it change out approach — I think it will.”

1. How do you get your first news of the day?

NYT online, along with blogs, WSJ, Facebook/Twitter. Then Times and NY Post in print on the way to work. The Today Show on in the background if I’m in the office. (But never at home…too much chaos.)

2. Either, Or (you gotta pick one!):

iPhone or Blackberry?
Iphone! Completely addicted.

Dateline or Nightline?
Dateline. Or maybe the High Line!

Do’s or Don’ts?
Don’ts, because we’ve all been there.

3. What’s the biggest story the media has missed this year? (Or last week):
When psychos pick up guns (as in the Pennsylvania gym rampage just recently or the Wesleyan shooting this spring), why are they so often targeting women? Bob Herbert wrote a great column about this, but he’s been pretty alone.

4. Obligatory Twitter Question: Describe yourself in 140 characters or less (hash tag optional!)
Glass-half-full type. Adore magazines, shoes, good storytelling, my family most of all. Pronounce like, “Drove my Chevy to the…”

5. Are you nervous or excited about the future of Journalism? Why?

More excited than nervous, because I think the openness and opportunity outweigh even the most serious problems posed by the death of how things were.

Read more about Leive at her new Glamour blog, “On The CL,” here, the official Conde version here, and check out her ranking on the Power Grid here.  A good time for disclosure: Mediaite managing editor Colby Halls’s wife, Geraldine Hessler, is the Design Director at Glamour; and I got my own start in magazines in the pages of Glamour, wearing a very fashionable garment.

Photo via Jezebel.

What a strange set of covers – both using the same exact image of Katie Holmes shot by noted fashion photographer Brigitte Lacombe. Traditionally an image used for a magazine cover cannot be used by any other publication for at least a year, and any usage after that term typically requires a written release.

Glamour declined comment when reached for a response. Efforts to reach Lacombe have not yet been returned.

Judging from Elle’s September cover, which features Jennifer Aniston clad in black leather (last month anyone?), it’s beginning to look a lot like August. Magazine lovers beware: your September feast will be anything but.

In what is widely considered the most important month in both fashion and magazines, ad sales have dropped dramatically: Harper’s Bazaar’s ad pages are down over 20%. W has estimated a loss of 53% of its ad pages. Even Anna’s issue is losing weight – Vogue has experienced a 36.7% loss to be exact (these numbers were taken from the Ad Page Totals at WWD.com)

But ad pages aren’t the only thing September is hungering for. Where is the couture? Where is Uncle Karl’s newest tweed? Or Lanvin’s sexy fall dress? Why are we seeing Jennifer Aniston –yawn –in a black strapless leather bustier and black silk pants, when we saw Miley in leather and lace just last month? Joe Zee, my love, where are you?

WAKE UP! It’s SEPTEMBER, in case you have forgotten, and without high fashion ads itching our scratch, readers will need more than last month’s left overs.

Other soon to be disappointments include, but may not be limited to:

Vanity Fair’s sugar sweet, yet seemingly sell-out-ish choice to memorialize this year’s two biggest celebrity deaths by recycling images of Farrah and Michael

Marie Claire’s cover featuring Ashley Olsen, wearing a gorgeous, yet unoriginal, white see-thru frock and sporting her usual nose-narrowing smirk

Glamour’s cover girl, Jessica Simpson (aka, Marie Claire’s January Cover Girl and Vanity Fair’s June Cover Girl) decked out in slightly ripped denim – shocking – something sparkly – even more shocking – and too much blue eye makeup.

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This month, women’s fashion mags across the globe dipped into the young, supple crop of up-and-comers. Will putting tarted-up teens on the cover help attract younger readers? (Any readers at all?) Or will this month’s covers just fall flat and lose their way?

Maybe Emma Watson looks like she’s getting ready to audition for the part of kinky tinman in some indie Wiz remake on the cover of UK Elle. But underneath all that eye-liner lurks outspoken, bookish Hermione. Actually it took us a double-take to recognize her. Maybe that’s the idea?

Mediaite Grade (B+): We’re a little uneasy about seeing 19-year-old Emma wearing something called silk and metal trousers, and the wool corset can’t be conformable. Somehow her get-up remains modest (at least as far as visible flesh is concerned); there’s a tinge of elegance somewhere on this cover. We’ll try to overlook the glimmering leather stool underscoring her widespread legs.

Hayden Panettiere, 19, weighs in on the dress she’s wearing on the cover of Lucky: “The shape is conservative, but the shade is totally fun.” OMG, totally.

Mediaite Grade (C-): Inside this issue, Lucky touts Hayden’s “Playfully sophisticated, totally age-appropriate look.” Props to Hayden for keeping it classy on the cover, but the result is pretty boring. Nothing against her, but so far Ben & Jerry’s is the only company that has figured out how to sell vanilla.

Between the trippy black and white stripes on Taylor Swift’s shirt and trompe l’oeil play between her arm and the banner, we’re too dizzy to read the August cover of Glamour.

Mediaite Grade (C+): There’s something to be said for having a mesmerizing (albeit stomach-churning) cover: Readers will want to get inside the magazine as fast as possible. Or in the case of this month’s Glamour — “40 Little Ways to Connect With a Guy (Besides Sex, Duh!),” “Plus, Your Breasts: An Intimate Q&A on What’s Normal, What’s Not”  — they’ll just put their head between their legs until the spinning stops.

On the cover of Elle at 16, Miley Cyrus is the youngest of the August flock of teeny covergirls. She also takes the cake for most seductive gaze and the deepest cleavage (notice the cross necklace… JC would be so proud). Believe it or not, Subscribers saw something even bawdier. Or was it artsier?

Mediaite Grade (C): We’ve been over this before (hi, Rolling Stone!): Writing decks like ”On Dad, Boyfriends, and Why She’s Not a Kid Anymore” won’t fool anybody that your covergirl (or boy) is old enough to be taken seriously, and in this case it just draws attention to how ridiculous Miley looks. (And to be fair, Elle is also guilty of the same nauseating banner play).

COVER WARS WINNER: We hate to let the Cover Wars crown leave the country, but we have to give this one to UK Elle. C’mon, the other covers were sooo bad. And, after all, the British are just better than us at pulling off the whole prim-sexy-sophisticated-steamy look — exactly the sensibility you need when you’re talking about dressing up girls in women’s clothes and making them sexy enough to sell.

Prior to three weeks ago it’s questionable whether many media watchers even knew who Jay Penske was. It was then that news hit the blogosphere that Nikki Finke — the “digital-age Walter Winchell” according to Carr — had sold her blog to Mail.com. Whaa? Suddenly everyone wanted to know what Mail.com was and how much they’d had to cough up for Finke (the answer appears to be somewhere between five and ten million). Here’s how Carr describes Finke in today’s A-1(!) piece:

Among movie executives, the stories of Ms. Finke’s aggressiveness are legion, but they remain mostly unspoken because people fear being the target of one of her withering takedowns…Her liabilities in the world of print — a penchant for innuendo and unnamed sources — became assets online. To admirers and detractors, she is the perfect expression of the Web’s original premise, which suggested that a lone obsessive could own the conversation, which she punctuates with the phrase TOLDJA in capital letters.

Clearly a huge get. But it doesn’t stop there! News also hit the wires (Twitters?) yesterday that Bonnie Fuller, formerly editor-in-chief of Marie Claire, Cosmo, and Glamour, and perhaps most spectacularly US Weekly had been hired as the editor-in-chief and President of Hollywood Life, a celebrity website based in LA and owned by Mail.com. Fuller is one of the more recognizable faces in New York media, and says she intends to stay on the East Coast. What was perhaps most surprising about this announcement? The fact that up until it was made Fuller was telling people she was full steam ahead on her plans to launch Bonnie Fuller Media. No more apparently! Penske has somehow lured her away. From Carr’s other media piece on Fuller:

Last year at this time, Ms. Fuller said she was looking for financial backing for Bonnie Fuller Media and planned to create an independent media company aimed at the kind of young women she edited for at a variety of magazines, but she has set those plans aside and decided to work at Mail.com.

According to the Times the “acquisition of Deadline Hollywood Daily and the hiring of Ms. Fuller is part of an effort to expand Mail.com sites dedicated to producing original content.” A big effort! Finke and Fuller are two media powerhouses in their own right. What has also gone mostly unnoticed in all this reporting of Penkse maneuvers is Movieline.com’s (also owned by Mail.com) hiring of former Defamer Mark Lisanti (if you’re not following his twitter, you’re missing out) who has his own devoted Internet following. For those keeping score at home, that actually makes four former Defamers: Lisanti will join his former Defamer colleagues Seth Abramovitch, Stu Van Airesdale and Kyle Buchanan whom Movieline picked up back in February.

So who’s next? There’s certainly no shortage of media people looking for work and Penske is apparently playing large.

On the cover of Glamour 44-year-old Sandra Bullock — the eternal girl next door — throws caution, age and hair to the wind. Inside she ‘busts up’ about the word ‘vagina’ with pal-slash-interviewer Anne Fletcher.

Mediate Grade (B): ‘Sandy’ could stand to act her age, or at least act more like the wife of a tatted-up motorcycle mogul. The girl-next-door routine is growing old.

Marie Claire goes red, white and blue this month to talk about Cameron Diaz’s involvement in the Green movement: “Not to crash anybody’s party, but to actually make the party better… Really, that’s what it’s about — that’s my participation in it.”

Mediaite Grade (B+): Kudos to Marie Claire for not going overboard with the story of Diaz’s  fun-loving Hollywood altruism of convenience. The Al Gore’s of the world are glad to see that a spade is still a spade, even when ad pages are down.

Harper’s Bazaar goes tabloid this week, running a quotation and reporting-free profile of Angelina Jolie and lifting the newsstand cover off the wire (subscribers saw a model instead). Inquiring minds want to know, and desperate editors want to sell.

Mediaite Grade (C-): We admire Harper’s Bazaar for its sell-at-any-cost ferocity, but once magazines stop producing original (not to mention high-quality and well-reported) content they won’t have anything to sell.  Plus, Wolff’s profile is insultingly bad: “Consider how patriarchal civilization has managed to keep women in hand for all these millennia.” If we wanted to read a St. Joan of Arc wikipedia bio, we wouldn’t have reached for the glossy with a paparazzi photo on the cover.

Sienna Miller finds this month’s Vogue slimmer than before in her first cover appearance since the September 2007 issue, the fattestVogue ever – 840 pages.

Mediaite Grade (A-): Miller looks great straddling the high-brow/low-brow divide: high-fashion cover to promote forthcoming “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.”

Even with no new album in site, fully clothed, 39-year-old mother of two Gwen Stefani beats out the likes of Taylor Swift, Katie Perry, Fergie, Lady Gaga and Missy Elliot for the cover of Elle’s music issue. Kate Hudson’s profile spread hides at the bottom.

Mediaite Grade (C+) :The ‘Women in Music’ cover feints interest in Stefani’s music (what music?), but we can’t help but notice that the decks are built around her look (“The Red Lipstick Anyone Can Wear,” “How to Make Short Hair Sexy”).

Cover Wars Winner: Vogue wins the week on looks alone, but not because Sienna Miller is almost a full decade younger than the field. Nooo, nothing to do with age. By all means rock on, cover moms.