‘Phillymag’ Guns Down A National Mag Award Nom

Looks like Phillymag’s publicity stunt of putting a gun on the cover paid off! The posh local monthly is up for a 2007 National Magazine Award for general excellence in the 100,000 - 250,000 circulation category. (To be fair, Wired’s Chris Andersen is up for an article about effing Second Life.)

Joking aside, the mag is up for its September, November and December issues, and November was the gun one. Phillymag is up against Foreign Policy, lefty mag Mother Jones, a magazine called Seed and, of course, Salt Water Sportsman. The magazine’s last nom for general excellence was in 1998 under Eliot Kaplan.

Putting a gun on the cover wasn’t really all that shocking or courageous — Oh! A gun! On the cover a magazine ostensibly about a city with lots of homicides! Gasp! Let’s write some articles about it! — and the magazine clearly has bad taste in blogs — a B+ for Philadelphia Will Do earlier this year? (Grade Inflation at its finest.) Now, we all know that Phillymag is no Salt Water Sportsman, but the mag has gotten better in recent months under current editor Larry Platt.

Can it beat out gay-porn (well, you tell me what it is, then) mag Seed? I guess only time will tell. But I think we know one thing: Next year’s national mag awards will surely give a nomination to Joey Sweeney and Ruth Carpenter in the “Reviews and Criticism” category.

National Magazine Awards: Finalists [Magazine.org]
Why we put a gun on our cover [Phillymag]
Feb. 26, 2007: Hipsters Now Popular Enough To Shill $30K Cars