Winner: Town & Country, Editor’s Letter, Pamela Fiori
Rarely does an editor’s letter become one of a magazine’s most anticipated features for readers, but Pamela Fiori’s monthly message is as much a part of Town & Country as its feature well.
This isn’t just the customary preview of an issue’s contents. Fiori elevates the format by making it more familiar—a chat with a good friend – just between you and me, ya know. Whether she is riffing on the refreshing return of the bare-armed fashionista or commenting on the response to the recession from the wealthy (“People may have money, but they are not stupid”), she is frank and refreshing.
Fiori takes a creative and personal approach to addressing her readers each month. In a recent letter she dug out her mother’s high school notebook (circa 1936) to recall what school accessories really cost during the Great Depression. She tells her readers that she doesn’t put too much stock in magazine reader surveys. They are long, boring and ultimately tell her little she didn’t already suspect. This level of intimacy and bold irreverence toward her own medium endears this editor to readers and lets them know she is on their side and sharing their experiences.
Fiori’s efforts are rewarded every month. Town & Country receives more reader response to the editor’s letter than they get from any other features in the magazine. Magazines may be aspirational, but editors need not be imperious.
Honorable Mentions
Advanstar Communications/Dermatology Times – “Watching Out for No. 1”: Dr. Elaine Siegfried, M.D. took a brave and necessary stand in arguing to her own colleagues that their self-interest, not patient care, is at the heart of the health care system and its escalating costs.
Haymarket Media, McKnight’s Long-Term Care News – “The Big Picture”: Three-time award-winner of the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors John O’Connor distinguished himself during this year of the healthcare debate. His balanced and extremely frank commentary about the reform debate urged all of us (industry, government and citizens) to grow up, face the costs and the issues at long last.
Entertainment Weekly – “Yep, He’s…Adam Lambert”: EW’s whip-smart columnist Mark Harris used the gossip surrounding American Idol star Lambert to expose the continuing American ambivalence over sexuality.
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