Business Week's star media reporter and husband of our CEO was kidding, he said. But Fine's fellow members of a panel at the American Magazine Conference in Phoenix entitled "The Power of Magazine Journalism" were deadly serious — worried even — that blogs and other members of the daily media have infiltrated their ranks to the point where scoops no longer hold for monthly — even weekly — magazines.

James Bennet, editor of the Atlantic, said its recent profile of Hillary Clinton — a "hard interview" — took more than a year to report, during which the New York Times reported a juicy piece of the story — John McCain and Hillary doing shots, he said — well before the Atlantic's publication, forcing the magazine to debate if and how to credit the Times. "We knew about it months before," Bennet said.

Still, said Marie Brenner, a writer-at-large at Vanity Fair, only magazine can "chip away" at a story. "Is it the right thing to do to be worrying about blogs?"

Luck, or lack of, plays a role, of course. Bennet said its June Abu Musab Al-Zarqari cover story [above] went online a few hours before news of his death broke, which led to a mild bit of ridicule of its later publication in print, including some on this blog, but what Bennet said amounted to the most complete obituary on the former Al-Qaeda leader.

FishbowlNY will be blogging live this week from the American Magazine Conference — the annual pow-wow of high-powered magazine executives — at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. Check back often for our extended coverage.

FishbowlNY's AMC 2006 Coverage: