Spring Break
The Daily OrangeNew Yorker editor reflects on political coverage
By Barbara Jackson
Posted: 10/15/08, 12:31 AM EST Section: News
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"When you are writing, it's you and your thing. And when you're the editor, it's the work of others," said Remnick, editor of The New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
"One's a wife and one's a mistress, but never having had the latter, it's hard to distinguish the difference in relationships. But there is one," he joked.
Remnick has written more than 100 pieces for The New Yorker, and as an editor, he has led the magazine to win 24 National Magazine Awards. He spoke in Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium Tuesday after dedicating the newly renovated Bill Glavin magazine lab in Newhouse 1.
Instead of giving a speech, Remnick spent the hour answering questions from Syracuse University students, faculty and staff. The podium sat unused on the side of the stage while Remnick and Lorraine Branham, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, sat center stage.
"This is a very rare occasion," Branham said. "Very few people get to sit down and have a conversation with David Remnick."
Among the audience was Donald Newhouse, owner of Advance Publications, which owns The New Yorker.
Remnick, editor of The New Yorker for 10 years, answered questions with humor and poise.
One of the questions from the audience was about the controversial July 21 New Yorker cover of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.
The cover portrayed Obama as a terrorist and unpatriotic, while Michelle was shown as a modern-day black panther.
"Around July during the Obama campaign, there was a persistence of racism in some parts of the United States," Remnick explained. "What we wanted to do in this one image was throw all the - excuse me - bullshit into one image."
Remnick said he believed The New Yorker's readers would understand the intent of the cover.
"It was my feeling that the New Yorker readership was smart enough and clued in enough to figure out what we were doing," he said of the Obama cover. "We were not branding him or charging him with this. We were, however, attempting to rip this image out of the psyche of Americans who believed this."
Remnick went on to discuss the election race and the position the magazine has taken to endorse Obama. The New Yorker is a magazine that covers each candidate fairly, he said, but those who read the endorsement know how the editors feel about the race.
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