Word: kosner
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Kennedy and Berman worked their way through the New York media circuit, exploiting the desire of media heavies to meet J.F.K. Jr., picking the brains of people who knew magazines. One of their sessions took place in the offices of Ed Kosner, then editor of Esquire. "It was very vague," Kosner says. "He asked a lot of questions. I couldn't tell from that conversation what the magazine was going to be about. He just came over to schmooze, and he was great...
...three novellas contained in the real David Leavitt's new book, Arkansas (Houghton Mifflin; 198 pages; $23). Sure enough, in a vertiginous display of life imitating art imitating life, those words, plus some sexually explicit terms that follow, got the real Leavitt in trouble all over again. Edward Kosner, editor in chief of Esquire, abruptly canceled the scheduled appearance of The Term Paper Artist in the April issue, causing the magazine's fiction editor to resign in high dudgeon and fueling literary gossip for weeks...
...Esquire kill Leavitt's story? Kosner has insisted that the decision was simply a matter of editorial judgment (or rejudgment, since the magazine purchased rights to print The Term Paper Artist last fall). Other sources, including Will Blythe, the fiction editor who quit, charge that the story was yanked because publisher Valerie Salembier feared its explicit homosexual content, including a proposed man-to-man tryst in the back of a Jeep, would offend advertisers, particularly of automobiles. Through her representatives at the magazine, Salembier has denied saying any such thing...
...Kosner, a graduate of New York's City College, became editor in 1975, after twelve years at the magazine. He learned of his dismissal only the afternoon before, during a stormy, 2½-hour meeting with Graham and Newsweek President Peter Derow. He was described as shocked, but associates said that he may have missed subtle signals of Graham's displeasure. Under Kosner's predecessor, Osborn Elliott, now dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, Newsweek was briefly known on Madison Avenue as a "hot book" because of improved editorial vitality and attendant advertising...
...Kosner's position was further eroded by a costly, aesthetically wrenching design change instituted earlier this year, and by a new computer system that has caused production problems. Though even those who disliked Kosner admired his drive and intelligence, his biting humor and autocratic style were said to have irked many subordinates. Said one: "He ran a one-man show...