On the left-hand side of The New Yorker website is a series of sections: Goings-On, In This Issue, Cartoon Caption Contest, and so forth. Pretty standard stuff. Then comes a section called Awards:
AWARDS
Lawrence Wright has won a Pulitzer Prize for his book “The Looming Tower.” Read “The Master Plan”; watch an excerpt from “My Trip to Al-Qaeda.”
The New Yorker has been nominated for a Webby Award for Best Copy/Writing. Vote for us at webbyawards.com.
The New Yorker received nine nominations for the National Magazine Awards. View a list of finalists and read nominated articles.
I wouldn’t be so casual about such great accomplishments. Such things — at least for most of us — are more noteworthy and wonderful than what’s In This Issue.
Speaking of missteps, I mentioned a few days ago how New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof put in his blog a letter from a University of North Carolina student that was more interesting and insightful than anything in the NY Times in a long time. If someone wrote a letter like that to me, I would have begged her to allow me to use her full name so that she would get credit for her brilliant comment. I would have responded to it, not just printed it. I would have gotten other people’s reactions to it. I would have gone on and on about it.
Maybe I should have titled this post Too Little Emphasis on Success to go with Too Much Emphasis on Failure.
Addendum: Kristof has now posted the student’s full name: Loren Berlin.