Jonah Lehrer is leaving his spot at Wired to join The New Yorker as a staff writer. Lehrer is a published author — How We Decide, Proust Was a Neuroscientist and Imagine — and his work has appeared in several publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Nature and Outside.

At Wired, Lehrer writes, “I’ll no longer be a contributing editor at Wired, where I’ve spent the last several years. I’m saddened by this, as I’m a huge fan of the magazine and website and I’ve tremendously enjoyed working with my editors at Wired.”

His blog, Frontal Cortex, is now housed at The New Yorker’s site.

TVNewser: Hard to believe 365 days have passed since CNBC mainstay Mark Haines passed away. Former colleagues reflected on their longtime friend.

SocialTimes: Yahoo is giving its visitors a new experience with Axis. The search engine takes you from desktop to tablet.

10,000 Words: Twitter is just short on art for telling a story in 140 characters or less. New Yorker is taking it to the next level, tweeting an entire, 8,500-word short story. That should make for interesting RTs!

The New Yorker is getting pocket sized. The New York Post reports that the magazine will be the first Condé Nast brand to launch an iPhone app, and it might be here as soon as early September.

For now, not much is known about the app. Scott Dadich, Vice President of Content Innovation at Condé, denied having a launch date in mind, and Pamela McCarthy, Deputy Editor at The New Yorker, didn’t give any details either. “There is reason to think that everything we offer on the iPad will also be offered on the iPhone,” she told the Post.

Either way, the app is on its way. Just remember: No one thinks New Yorker cartoons are funny, so showing them off while you’re out and about isn’t going to impress anyone.

Françoise Mouly has been The New Yorker’s Arts Editor for almost two decades, so she has seen her fair share of covers. In an interview with Salon, she explains the process for selecting the artwork and it’s well worth a read.

We love the Barry Blitt cover on the right, but Mouly says it was rejected because the Mentos and Diet Coke reference — when mixed exciting things happen — was deemed to obscure.

Here are a few other highlights from the Salon piece.

On what makes for a good cover:

What I’m really looking for are ideas that come from the artists on topics that will give us a sign of the era that we live in and, as a collection of images, will collect a picture of our time.

On why Blitt listens to Rush Limbaugh:

Read more

Next Issue, which has been described as “Netflix for magazines,” is a partnership between five major magazine publishers that aims to make reading magazines on your tablet easier by bundling together digital subscriptions for titles like Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Sports Illustrated.

In the pilot episode of mediabistroTV’s “App Slap,” we take the Next Issue app for a test drive.

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

The New Yorker is trying to give Newsweek/The Daily Beast a run for its money. Not by publishing creepy covers, but by having cooler celebrities at its White House Correspondents’ Dinner table. FishbowlNY has Newsweek/The Daily Beast in the lead as of now, but as WWD points out, The New Yorker’s table is going to be bursting with star power.

A quick rundown: Newsweek/The Daily Beast is going to have Viola Davis and J.R. Martinez, while The New Yorker is going to have Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the co-creators of “Portlandia,” and Jason Schwartzman and Aziz Ansari.

We’re still giving the edge to Newsweek/The Daily Beast, but the dinner isn’t until April 28, so there’s still time for another magazine to unseat the Tina Brown title.

However, if a glossy announces that they’re bringing the entire cast of the underrated show “Hard Time on Planet Earth” with them, then that’s a wrap; that magazine wins.

The ASME has been under a bit of fire, but it still had time to announce the 2012 Magazine of The Year Finalists. As usual, there’s not much surprise, as Time, The New Yorker, Esquire, New York and Popular Mechanics were all nominated.

We’re sure all the people at the magazines are happy, but Adam Moss of New York had the best reaction to the news. ”Well, everyone is very happy about it, of course,” Moss told WWD. “But we beat Popular Mechanics last week in the bowling league, so really, the Magazine of the Year thing is just gravy.”

The Magazine of The Year will be announced May 3, along with all the other Ellie finalists.

Nicholas Thompson has been named the new Editor of NewYorker.com. Politico reports that Thompson will succeed Blake Eskin, who has left to pursue other interests.

Thompson has been with The New Yorker since 2010 as a Senior Editor.

Thompson is also a Contributing Editor for Bloomberg TV and Co-Founder of The Atavist, a publishing house that produces nonfiction works for digital mediums.

With the Oscars now over, let’s continue the self-congratulatory awards news with The American Society of Magazine Editors’ Digital Ellies finalists. Leading the way with 10 nominations is Condé Nast. Golf Digest, GQ, The New Yorker and Wired were selected for doing great things in the digital realm.

Runner-up was Time Inc.with six nominations for Cooking Light, EW.com, People, Sports Illustrated and Time. The Washington Post Company held down third place with four nods for Foreign Policy and Slate.

Below is the full list of finalists. If you happen to work at one of these publications, pat yourself on the back and be sure to humblebrag about it on Twitter.

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It’s no secret that David Remnick, the Editor-in-Chief of The New Yorker, is a big Barack Obama fan, but it’s still fun to hear what he has to say about our commander in chief. Capital New York reports that Remnick and a panel of authors were discussing Obama’s tenure and Remnick had plenty to say.

The editor said that Obama’s achievements have been “remarkable,” defended the “fist-bump” New Yorker cover of Obama and his wife, and offered a realistic portrait of the president:

‘Barack Obama is radical in one way: he’s an African American who won the presidency. After that, he’s kind of a center-left, conventional Democratic Party rendering. I mean, he’s intellectually a lot more than that, he’s a lot more interesting. He’s certainly a lot more literary. There’s more dimensions to him as a personality both historically and personally. But, in terms of policy, in terms of the policy of the possible, in terms of the policy of his own ambitions, he is no radical.

Aside from praising Obama, Remnick opened up about his feelings toward Mitt Romney when someone asked about him. “In my life, I’ve never seen a vessel so empty of precisely what you’re asking about, which is principle,” said Remnick. Surely Obama will appreciate that.