From a Tiny Island in Maine, He Serves Up Fresh Media Gossip
The New York Times
Rusty Foster could never live in New York. But his hit newsletter, Today in Tabs, is an enduring obsession of the city’s media class.
In a time when the headlines are dominated by wars and a divisive presidential campaign, the magazine-world rivalry between The Atlantic and The New Yorker doesn’t amount to much.
So you might have missed it when, on April 2, The Atlantic beat The New Yorker in three big categories at the 2024 National Magazine Awards.
But to Rusty Foster, who chronicles the media industry and internet culture in his daily newsletter, Today in Tabs, The Atlantic’s victory was big news.
Shortly after the awards ceremony, which took place at Terminal 5 in Manhattan, Mr. Foster tapped out a fanciful report for his audience of media obsessives. Under the headline “Shutout at the TK Corral,” he wrote that David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, “solemnly folded up and ate each of his prepared speeches as he watched The Atlantic win every category.”
Mr. Foster then turned his attention to Anna Wintour, the editorial director of Condé Nast, the publishing giant that owns The New Yorker, Vogue and other publications, writing that she “donned an emergency second pair of sunglasses” in reaction to the company’s poor showing.
A surprising thing about Today in Tabs — which has a knowing, satirical tone that has made it an enduring hit among media insiders — is that Mr. Foster writes it from the bucolic setting of Peaks Island, Maine, which is where he was when the National Magazines Awards ceremony took place.
