What is a journalist's job? Talk to people; read stuff; write about it. It's why many doubt that it's actually a real job. But there's a bit of a conundrum when the people one talks to can themselves write. Unless the journalist really adds something, might as well just go straight to the source, on the information superhighway. Or, in the case of Samir Husni, the self-proclaimed "Mr. Magazine" to his eponymous website, which he proclaims the "real information superhighway" (emphasis, and apparent lack of irony, in the original).

Samir Husni I once was blind, but now I see

Nonetheless, many (one hesitates to say "most") of the articles in the mainstream media about the commercial aspects of magazines end up quoting Husni (a Professor of Journalism at the University of Mississippi) (emphasis ours) saying obvious and/or ridiculous shit. To wit: the New York Times has an article about the fact that GQ had stars from the Dukes of Hazzard on its cover two months in a row. Pointless enough already (though I must say, following Jessica Simpson with Johnny Knoxville doesn't strike me as the best commercial strategy for a magazine targeted at heterosexual men). But the Times, digging under the surface, called on Husni, who told the Times that "the two covers were indicative of a strategy of creating and feeding addiction in readers."

The article goes on to say that Tom Brady is scheduled to be the next cover subject for GQ. So, first, the gent's quarterly gets its readers all addicted to the Dukes of Hazzard, but then changes the subject—what use the strategy of addiction then? Husni also tells us that magazines are now like Reese's Pieces. This, friends, is why I think journalism school is close to pointless.

That said, Mr Husni's roundup of new magazines is pretty amusing. Especially, say, Young Believers in Christ, or Beach Houses. But it's amusing because of the magazines, not because of the adman copy he writes alongside them. To pretend this guy is a serious academic is an insult to scholarship; to quote him often is an insult to journalism.

Gelf isn't GQ; we are short on pictures of beautiful women. And we're not the New York Times. But, this post inaguarates the Gelf Promise (TM). No articles of media criticism involving Samir Husni. Unless we are making fun of him.

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