National Magazine Award Finalists announced: Christopher Hitchens to be recognized
The finalists for the National Magazine Award have been announced.
One of the most notable things that caught my eye was that they’re giving one to Christopher Hitchens, for “both his prolific columns in Vanity Fair and as the subject of a masterful profile by Ian Parker in The New Yorker.” I haven’t actually read the New Yorker profile and with a quick google search it looks like it was never placed online for some reason. Damn. I really want to read it. I don’t have much respect for Hitchens, I think he’s a fact-dropper, one of those people who debates dirty by dropping in some random tidbit to prove his point that people don’t have time to fact-check right away. In most cases, it turns out the “fact” was a complete fabrication, but because it comes from out of nowhere, the people on the panel are unable to call him on it right away.
As a news journalist, I ran into a local Republican once who I guess used to somehow handle Hitchens’s media relations. He fondly told a story of Hitchens showing up to a debate with several well-informed college professors who had actually prepared for the discussion. The Republican described Hitchens as obviously hung-over, and said that he had had to ask what the discussion topic even was. Then he proceeded to go onto the panel and start bashing the professors for their opposition to the Iraq war.
The way the local Republican told the story, it was like he was giving a compliment. I kind of nodded my head, but to me, this was the epitome of what Hitchens stood for: lazy journalism. He treats it like a Trivial Pursuit game where if you can have just one random piece of anecdotal evidence that nobody else has, then you can win the discussion. Plus, he argues like an asshole.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to go off on a Hitchens rant. Back to the finalists. I was glad to see that “The New Yorker leads the list of 125 finalists, with a total of nine nominations.” I was surprised that this is the first time that The Economist made it onto the list. People have always told me how great a magazine it was, even though I haven’t read much of it myself. It looks as if both Salon.com and Wired Online got snubbed in the online category, neither were nominated.
via bookslut
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