Score one for the awards-are-meaningless crowd: the good folks at the American Society of Magazine Editors, having already decided that Men’s Health’s habitual cover-repurposing qualified it as a finalist for “general excellence” honors in the 2010 National Magazine Awards, has now deemed the magazine most excellent of all in the one million to two million circulation category. Men’s Health edged out Field & Stream, Teen Vogue, More, and, yes, The New Yorker for the win.
To read Gawker’s very entertaining mockery of the lazy cover work at Men’s Health, start here and work your way backwards. I’ll only add that it’s unclear which set of issues that magazine was actually honored for: ASME’s original announcement of the finalists lists the September, October, and December issues, while the press release announcing the results says it’s September, October, and November. I kind of hope it’s the latter, because the September and November issues feature identical “Strip Away Stress!” teasers on the front. (Well, nearly identical: the November issue drops the exclamation point.) The October issue, mixing things up, urges readers to “Strip Away Belly Fat.” That sort of shamelessness really does deserve an award.
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.