The Envelope, Please

"I'd give the Lamont Cranston Ellie to William Langeweische of The Atlantic, for striking fear in the hearts of National Magazine Award-obsessed editors at other magazines every time one of his stories is published. And I'd give the Michael Jackson Ellie to Gruner + Jahr, for making the rest of us—in an industry known for its excesses—look good by comparison."
—Evan Smith, Texas Monthly editor-in-chief. Texas Monthly is nominated for two National Magazine Awards this year, including one for General Excellence. It won a General Excellence award last year.

"A banged up Ellie, smeared with 10W30, to Grassroots Motorsports, the bitchinest car magazine on the newsstand—with instructions to modify it into an Oscar, an Emmy, or even a Pulitzer Prize if they so choose."
—Jack Shafer, Slate.com "Press Box" columnist. Slate won the General Excellence Online award last year and is nominated for it again this year.

"I'd probably give a special Ellie to Publishers Weekly—yes, Publishers Weekly. I've read PW cover-to-cover for 20 years. Hot, it's not. But comprehensive, it always is. Mind-boggling number of book reviews. Covers the book biz as if it were a neighborhood of old friends. Tells you what you want to know—and more about overseas markets than you'd read even if you were stranded on an island and it washed up in a bottle."
—Paul Colford, New York Daily News media columnist

"I think Details should get an Investigative Reporting Ellie for daring to explore the mysterious link between homosexuals and people of Asian descent. Now if they could only tell me how to distinguish between Mexicans and Jews."
—Michael Colton, Modern Humorist cofounder and Best Week Ever talking head

"To the now-departed Drill, for giving the magazine, which was intended for a military audience, a name and a slogan—"For men who serve"—that produced a t-shirt which became a cult classic—but not among the intended audience."
—David Carr, New York Times media reporter

"Award: Best Cover. I'd give it to Edge, a U.K. games magazine, which has the grooviest spot-varnished covers around. Minimalist, iconic, and often anime-influenced, they're probably a failure on the newsstand and I can't figure out how they can afford the production costs for subscribers. But each month I get a thrill just opening the polybag—and a reminder of what magazines can do."
—Chris Anderson, Wired editor-in-chief. Wired is nominated for two National Magazine Awards this year, including one for General Excellence.

"I would give a special award to the now-defunct Rosie magazine for Best Lawsuit—especially because the actual lawsuit didn't result in an award for either side."
—Andy Borowitz, smart-guy humorist and New Yorker contributor

"I'd give an award for General Excellence in the category of Prototypes, Embryonic Schemes, and Magazines-I-Wish-Existed to Lawrence Wechsler's Omnivore: A Journal of Writing & Visual Culture. The first issue was published last year (in association with The New York Institute of the Humanities at NYU), with the intention of raising a very modest sum to publish biannually or quarterly."
—Kurt Andersen, man-of-letters-about-town, editorial director and chairman of Benetton's Colors, and host of public radio's Studio 360

"I would award the Dan Brewster Chocolate Fudge Award for Most Fudged Circulation Numbers to Rosie magazine. (Judge's note: This is an increasingly competitive category). However, instead of a Calder elephant, it's an enormous chocolate elephant that, disappointingly, is hollow inside."
—David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men's Health. Men's Health is nominated for the Personal Service award this year.

"The Fewest Words Award to Lucky magazine."
—Tina Brown, author, columnist, and host of CNBC's Topic A

"As in any beauty competition, sooner or later the queen will be dethroned. Perhaps those early nude pictures of New Yorker editor David Remnick will finally surface. (Who knew he was as hairy as Vanessa Williams?) So let us recognize our Miss Congeniality: Former New York editor Caroline Miller. She is represented in the awards with three excellent columns by her media critic Michael Wolff—some of the few in which that pampered kitty cat didn't waste his wordcount lapping the milk out of Martha Stewart's Birkin bag. While we assume Ms. Miller is living out her fairly tasty severance on a sunny isle, we miss her discretion, her mental foxiness, and her sense of egalitarianism. Should Ms. Miller not be available to fulfill her duties (introducing new carb-free desserts in the Conde Nast cafeteria, stomping roaches at Michael's), her dark doppelganger, the un-nominated Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter—not incidentally, the new leash-holder of the Wolff—may serve in her stead."
—Choire Sicha, Gawker editor

"Maxim will be my choice. The award will be for the magazine that proved all media pundits wrong and was able to find a 2.5 million men who do not think about anything but women, beer, sports, and stuff."
—Samir Husni, "Mr. Magazine"

"I would give an Ellie to Vanity Fair for having once had an article—probably three or four years ago—about "Miranda," a strange woman who had provocative phone relationships with famous powerful men who had never met her. It was one of those articles that made you stop and think, 'Huh, that's what's going on out there,' which is what I think they should all do. Anyway, if magazines can't keep finding unusual subjects such as Miranda, then they should all just be giving us updates about her now and then."
—Bruce Eric Kaplan, hipster idol, New Yorker cartoonist, and producer and writer for HBO's Six Feet Under

"I would institute the National Magazine Special Community Service Award for the Prevention of Literacy. This award recognizes exemplary service in implementing our profession's prevailing ideal: That magazines should be written and edited for people who do not like to read. Because this is the inaugural award, we've got to give it to Lucky (but don't get complacent, guys! you've got competition!). In honor of the recipient, a library at a selected public school will be destroyed."
—James Poniewozik, Time magazine media columnist. Time is nominated for three National Magazine Awards this year, including General Excellence.

Jill Singer is the deputy editor of mediabistro.com.