Not a single member of The New Yorker‘s esteemed panel was willing to argue in favor of the proclamation that television has surpassed – or would surpass – the prestige and prowess of Hollywood cinema. However, some were more willing than others to argue that TV shows have come a long way in proving that they, too, can be taking seriously as an artform.

There is something about creativity that tends to bring out the worst in certain people. Maybe this is because the pursuit of a personal vision tends to be isolating and not particularly conducive to sharing or collaboration, or maybe this is because success requires often off-putting qualities like aggression and ruthlessness or the need to set impossibly high standards. In either case: Getting to know the personalities behind bold names can be an exercise in frustration, as Malcolm Gladwell‘s New Yorker piece on the late Steve Jobs aptly demonstrates.

As evidence of Jobs’ sometimes difficult nature, Gladwell offers the following revelations from Walter Isaacson‘s well-timed biography on the driving force behind Apple.

Guys, incredible news! Somehow, someone snuck cameras into the headquarters of a bunch of major American news outlets to see how they’re biases inform their reporting on the Occupy protests! What’s even more incredible is that the editors of these outlets all seem to look like the same three popular New York-based comedy actors! And what’s even more incredible than that is that the first site to break this story is the comedy video site Jest!

…ok, maybe this is just a comedy sketch. It’s still pretty darn hilarious.

Who: David Denby
What: “Do Movies Have a Future?”
Where: The New York Psychoanalytic Institute
When: September 13, 2011
Thumbs: Up

The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza will likely spark some interesting conversation with his profile of Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus. Lizza, who flew with the Bachmanns aboard their campaign plane (dubbed the “Barbie Jet” by the candidate herself, we learn), reveals the rules of access between the candidate and the press: no pictures when she’s in casual clothes:

The New York Post leaves much to be read between the lines of its story on how Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller site sought to unearth a plagiarism scandal surrounding a New Yorker piece on the Conversative billionaire brothers behind Koch Industries.

Glenn Beck‘s recent three-part examination of George Soros‘s supposed plans for world domination has ruffled a lot of feathers. Now The New Yorker‘s Hendrik Hertzberg has written his own Beck rebuttal, excoriating the Fox host for taking quotes from a New Yorker profile of Soros out of context.

Dylan Stableford of The Wrap’s Media Alley blog looked around on Twitter to find out which national magazines had the most Twitter followers. After analyzing his findings, Stableford was surprised to find that “the biggest magazines in terms of print circulation have a shockingly puny presence on Twitter.” For example, Good Housekeeping (4.4 million circulation, 4,683 followers) didn’t break the Top 25. Neither did AARP The Magazine (24 million circ., 358 followers), which, really, should shock nobody. Meanwhile, Time (3.4 million circ., 2.2 million followers) and the embattled Newsweek (1.9 million circ., 1.2 million followers) both placed in the top ten.

Who: Jonathan Alter, David Remnick, moderated by Abigail Pogrebin
What: What Everyone’s Talking About: The Obama Experts
Where: The JCC in Manhattan
When: October 13, 2010
Thumbs: Up

The long-rumored, much-anticipated (in the blogosphere, anyway) New Yorker profile on Nick Denton is out this week and geez is it long. Ten thousand words long to be exact. And yet in all those ten thousands words I’m not convinced writer Ben McGrath reveals a whole lot about the man behind the Gawker empire beyond that the MSM has finally come round to thinking the “evil, soulless, Machiavellian puppeteer” (as he is often caricatured, according to the New Yorker) is now a sort of respectable voice of wisdom regarding the future of media.

In an article dramatically titled “As the World Burns,” Ryan Lizza gives readers of The New Yorker a lengthy account of Washington’s inept handling of climate change issues. Lizza also paints an unflattering portrait of Sen. Lindsey Graham, revealing that the Republican tried to expedite a climate change bill “before Fox News got wind of the fact that this was serious process.”

Facebook may have been down yesterday, but its cofounder Mark Zuckerberg is up. The 26-year-old social-media whiz kid has been listed in the Forbes 400 as the 35th richest person in America, shooting past older media barons like Newscorp’s Rupert Murdoch, who is ranked 38th, and Apple’s Steve Jobs, who is ranked 42nd. Software kingpin Bill Gates of Microsoft still reigns on top of the Forbes list of rich people.

Billionaire David Koch was not happy with Jane Mayer‘s recent profile of him in The New Yorker, which accused Koch and his brother Charles of secretly financing the Tea Party movement. He expressed his ire to Daily Beast writer Elaine Lafferty, who penned a lengthy defense of Koch that was posted last Friday. But as The New York Observer notes, Lafferty’s defense of Koch didn’t initially tell the whole story.

A few weeks back New Yorker scribe Jane Mayer penned a much-discussed piece about the nefarious backroom dealings of the billionaire Koch brothers. Suffice to say, the Kochs were not pleased with the article, perhaps had they just spoken to Mayer in the first place things might have been different.

Plenty of space has been devoted in the last year to figuring out who the Tea Party movement is, why they exist, and who is in charge. Today The New Yorker reveals it has an answer to the most burning question of all: who is paying for it? Probably not who you think.

Mark Coatney, better known to many as the funny guy behind the Newsweek Tumblr account, just announced via his own personal Tumblr that he will be leaving his post at Newsweek — to take a job at Tumblr itself: My new job, basically, will be to take the lessons I’ve learned at Newsweek and bring [...]

Americans increasingly love soccer. This news however, may not be reassuring to some on the American political right who apparently hate soccer. In this week’s New Yorker Hendrik Hertzberg examines the phenomenon, and namechecks Glenn Beck.

No country puts a positive spin on the news better than North Korea, habitually using censorship to hide problems in the nation and boost “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Il‘s public image. So the fact that no major North Korean news outlet has reported on their team’s devastating 7-0 World Cup loss to Portugal is nothing out of the ordinary.

Mike Huckabee loves to talk, whether it be on his Fox News show or during an interview with Ariel Levy that resulted in an 8,378-word profile for The New Yorker. And while the article is meant to explore the persona of the likely contender for the 2012 GOP nomination, the shining moments in the piece come when Huckabee opens his mouth and spits out beautiful little gold nuggets, embedded in quotation marks and sparkling amongst the pebble-gray type on the page.

As Frank Rich noted in his Sunday column this week a whole lot of people suffer from the habit of comparing President Obama to past political heavy-weights. Or not. At least according to New Yorker editor David Remnick today on Meet the Press, who noted that Obama “does not have the talents” of Ronald Reagan.

April 4 is Major League Baseball’s opening day, with the World Champion New York Yankees playing the always dangerous Boston Red Sox at 8p in Fenway Park. The New York Mets open the following day, with a home game against the Florida Marlins. We’ve dug deep into our archives to present some great baseball magazine covers to celebrate the start of the season. See more after the jump, and view the full list here.

Ink-stained wretches, it’s not just you! The social media and Twitter elite fret about the future of journalism too — and wonder how it will survive the digital revolution. At SXSWi, there was no shortage of panels obsessively deconstructing this topic (and tweeting about it, natch).

Sigh. Granted, Paul Krugman is one of the preeminent columnists and economists on the planet. Also, he’s won the Nobel Prize. Still! I suspect this lifestyle, as described in this week’s New Yorker profile of Krugman, is not one any sort of media person can probably hope to have in the future. Sigh. It certainly sounds nice. Also, nice to see credit his wife Robin Wells being recognized for her blogger-like contributions! Plus, how great is this picture.

I recently stumbled on a little antique market and, there, a 1977 issue of New York magazine. In this particular issue: Seattle Slew’s chances in the Triple Crown (good), the opening of Studio 54 (bananas), and a shocking review of Annie Hall. But check out the inspirational cover story for our friends in the media industry. For if you’re struggling every day to publish magazines and newspapers that, unfortunately, probably won’t be along much longer (or websites that, unfortunately, will) – at least you’re not making $23,200 a year.*

A beautifully-designed Valentine’s Day cover used to be an annual event for many magazines, but today, Valentine’s Day has almost disappeared from the newsstands – except for the New Yorker. They’ve done an annual Valentine’s Day cover for over 70 years, and their covers keep getting better. We’ve collected 20 of the greatest New Yorker Valentine’s Day covers. Co-produced by Linda Rubes. See a sampling after the jump, and for the full list of 20 covers, visit here.