Try as they might, the American Magazine Media Conference could not avoid wading into political waters — even when there are no political leaders stopping by.
The conference was once a favorite stop for leading political speakers.
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, (then-Sen.) Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and former President Bill Clinton each stopped in over the years. But that was when the confab was a multi-day affair held in warmer climes.
Now it’s a one-day event with no golf, tennis, road races — or temperatures in the 70s.
This year, it was held on Feb. 8 at the Conrad Hotel in Downtown Manhattan.
Film director Ron Howard was the closest thing to a real celebrity this year, In an interview with New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick, a clip from the director’s movie based on the famous 1977 interview of Richard Nixon by cerebral British talk-show host David Frost was played.
The clip featured a segment in which Nixon tells an astonished Frost, regarding illegal acts and national security, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
The line drew titters from the audience.
A second minor political moment occurred when the American Society of Magazine Editors voted Time’s “Total Meltdown” cover, featuring a likeness of Trump, as the cover of the year.
The cover drawing was by creative director D.W. Pine and artist Edel Rodriguez.
Despite the fact that Trump recovered from the meltdown and took the election, the cover still won because the judges decided that “Total Meltdown” delivered real facts about a real moment in American history and “deserved real recognition as the best cover of the year.”
Time Editor Nancy Gibbs said of Trump, “[H] e has come after us, he has come after us all, he has come after the very principles of truth and accountability, and we intend to cover and uncover and capture all of this, to speak to everyone, to listen to everyone, because what we do is useful and valuable and sometimes dangerous.”
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