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Timothy Noah and Marjorie Williams

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Let me count the ways

By Timothy Noah
Posted Wednesday, July 8, 1998, at 2:58 PM ET

Well, I guess Nigeria will have to wait.

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Before we launch into a discussion of the events at the New Yorker, though, I think we owe our readers a map of our various conflicts of interest, which point in directions too numerous and contradictory to make any sense of.

Tina Brown, the departing editor of the New Yorker, hired you at Vanity Fair. Her husband, Harold Evans, is my penultimate boss. The general state of affairs at Conde Nast is the subject of an article in the current issue of Fortune. That piece is written by our friend Joseph Nocera, and Peter Elkind (who I've met only once or twice, I'm relieved to report). I tried to get it off the web, but it isn't posted yet. Perhaps I should complain to the big cheese at Pathfinder, Dan Okrent, who 1.) Worked with your late father at Viking Press many years ago; 2.) Later hired you at Harcourt Brace; 3.) Even later hired me to write a Washington column for New England Monthly.

Among those whose names are being bruited about as possible successors are your boss at Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter; Charles "Chip" McGrath, editor of the New York Times book review and a former editor at the New Yorker (who was once William Shawn's designated successor); and Michael Kinsley, editor of this online publication, and a former boss of mine at the New Republic. Others whose names will likely come up are David Remnick, a New Yorker staff writer with whom you once worked on the Washington Post Style section; and James Fallows, who was my boss until about a week ago.

Now I must rest. I'll fax you the Fortune mag piece.

Gingerly,

Tim

PS I have never met Chip McGrath in my life

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