Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko will be honored with Adweek’s “Editor of the Year” superlative, which even special reports editor Tony Case admits is basically an award for talking about his sex life and waking up early enough to appear on the Today show.
More of what you missed at the AMC (American Magazine Conference) 2007: “By Monday afternoon, Men’s Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko was still blithely torturing the English language both by pushing the term “magabrands” (despite an early onstage warning from Advertising Age editor-in-chief Jonah Bloom that he was boycotting it) and overindulging in puns.”
Worse still? Although he got up for an a.m. tv spot, word has it he drank so many “magabrandies” (the signature drink) he missed his weekly chest-waxing appointment. [WWD]
Following a semi-disastrous group lunch at Borough Food & Drink [Ed: Jeffrey Chodorow’s kitschy new enterprise, and home to the worst roasted duck salad in all the land] your enterprising young Jossip editors were sitting at our desks, wishing we’d ordered the harder-to-ruin BLT sandwich while simultaneously trying to block out the crazy ramblings of our all-too-audible officemates and marveling about how today is the slowest, least eventful news day in the world.
And then, as luck would have it, we received the following email missive from the indefatigable Intern Wendy.
“I LOOOVE FoxNews.com,” she writes, in what we can only interpret as unbridled sincerity. “This is on their front page right now,” she adds, referring to a topless photo of Russian prez Vladamir Putin (semi-appropriately captioned, “Ravishing Russian: Vladimir Putin poses stripped to the waist, fishing rod in hand.”)
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Sometime Men’s Health editor and full-time Today show guest Dave Zinczenko is also a part-time blogger for Yahoo. Every now and again, we like to check in with the Z and see how’s he faring in the big bad world of the Internet. And in a double dose of awesome, he’s serving up a pair of posts about which secrets you should never tell your loved one. And which secrets you should.
In case you can’t wait for the click, no, none of them have to do with coming out. We said it was Zinc’s Yahoo blog, not Dan Peres’.
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• Could NBC’s properties be scoring all those Larry Birkhead exclusives because they have some sort of business relationship? Take that, The Insider.
• Nothing is more exhausting than being news executive everybody hates — except coming up with a catchy term like “media manifesto” that you hope everyone else will start using.
• Jon Friedman holds out his wang for Dave Zinczenko to touch it, fingers crossed that he will.
• So, like, Rosie O’Donnell is a big deal and stuff?
• Like most average working people, Matt Lauer had a bad day once.
• New Garden & Gun magazine takes one part Guns & Ammo, one part Home & Garden, and one part “out on a limb.”
• The entertainment “really, really sucked” at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
• Anything that will “take lowbrow culture seriously and treat highbrow culture frivolously” is alright by us.
• YouTube is very, very sorry that it accidentally-on-purpose deleted this clip of presidential candidate John McCain singing the impromptu ditty, “Bomb Iran.”
• John Edwards takes heat for his $400 haircut. When asked whether this constituted extreme vanity, an Edwards rep sniped, ‘Not everyone can carry off the low-maintenance pageboy lesbian look.”
• Chinese furniture manufacturing companies are accidentally racist. Related: Don Imus rumored to have “large” ownership in Chinese furniture manufacturing company.
• “Abs architect David Zinczenko will bring his expertise on love and relationships to The Oprah Winfrey Show.” So many punchlines, so little time.
• Dave Zinczenko and Kate White swap spit in Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan, leading to all sorts of fun body image issues.
• NYT’s new newsroom violates Jeff Jarvis’ prophecy. (The company’s tech support and payroll will still be handled in Norfolk.)
• Why won’t anyone pay attention to the nasty legal wrangling going on at Dealbreaker.com?
• Atoosa Rubenstein: Still a media darling.
• Lorne Michaels is the last to know what NBC is doing with his SNL.
• Who cares about ratings with those blue eyes of his? Not CNN, who’s said to be re-upping him for $50m over 5 years.
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When a guy is dumped, his first reaction is: I’ll show her. How he sometimes does it: With a couple pitchers and a night out with the guys. In fact, 26 percent of men say that the dumped party should get drunk with the guys after a break-up, according to a Men’s Health online survey. But those beer swillers are actually in the minority: 36 percent say a guy should look at his new ex, smile, and thank her. The thing is, both of those reactions are exactly the same thing-masks for their true feelings. They can’t deal with being hurt, or angry, or bummed. It’s not until after they get past their initial reaction that men actually mourn the loss of the relationship.
— Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko on his Yahoo blog, explaining what happens to a man when he splits with his lady
If you’ve seen Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko flirt with Lester Holt or Al Roker on the Today show – and why does it always seem like he’s talking to the dudes about girl topics? – then you’ll know that he’s quite the charmer.
Which might explain why serial dater (hey, it was her job) Julia Allison has become quite smitten with The Z. We’re told Dave and the now-former amNew York dating scribe have been seeing each other off and on for a few months, though “it’s not really a secret,” says a source. In fact, Zinc even tagged along to Julia’s appearance on FNC’s Red Eye a few weeks ago. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be doing much talking about their romance — as he wants to keep things quiet about his personal life. (Just ask BFF Rachel Sklar!)
Since we were prying into her personal life, we paid Julia the favor of asking for comment, to which she replied: “I really can???t comment except to say that I think Dave is fabulous and deserves every minute of Today show time he gets.”
The twosome are, meanwhile, dating other people; Julia had a fling with Heroes actor Milo Ventimiglia, we’re told. But don’t think any of that will get in the way of aspirations to be the next Candace Bushnell. Because they won’t.
No, really.
Besides loving WWD’s Stephanie Smith for calling Dave Zinczenko an “abs architect,” we love her for sending word the Men’s Health editor is bringing forth a women’s version of his Abs Diet franchise. Coming in May, The Abs Diet for Women is targeted at career women like Maria Bartiromo … and the stay-at-home mom fatties who get wet down there whenever he’s on the Today show.
While it’s impressive that Dave spat out the book without any help from corporate cousin Women’s Health, more impressive is his vast knowledge of female biology. And sixth grade prose.
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A far cry from the 6,000-plus comments he clocked when explaining why men cheat, Dave Zinczenko’s latest blog post for Yahoo – where he preaches to women about the intricacies of the male psyche – has only amassed a scant 30-something comments.
Perhaps it’s because the Men’s Health editor chose a far less sexy topic this time around – “Why Do Men Spend So Much Time at Their Jobs?” – or perhaps it’s because of lines like this:
The difference between work and home life is like the difference between a filled-to-capacity stadium and an empty practice field.
Silly Z: Like comedy, women don’t get sports references.
Ever since Men’s Health EIC Dave Zinczenko started blogging for Yahoo, we’ve never had a more compelling reason to switch to Google exclusively. Then we heard one of his posts clocked more than 6,000 comments, so we decided to check out the online trove of Zinc’s personal diary entries. Sure, he’s only got five items online compared to our 8,000, but this isn’t about comparing dick sizes, okay? (For the record, we hear it’s lean, and spectacular.)
But with headlines like “How Money Ruins Relationships,” “What’s the Difference Between Flirting and Cheating?,” and “The Lonely Heart’s Guide to the Holidays,” it’s clear the Z doesn’t know his female audience as well as he should. Six thousand comments notwithstanding, what women really want is to be told what to do and how to think. Just ask Rachel Sklar.
So as our belated Christmas gift to David, we’re offering a host of new topics for him to tackle in the New Year:
• “Not Only Is He Not That Into You, He Slept With Your Mother”
• “How Money Helps Relationships, Or At Least Those That Involve a Street Walker and a John”
• “Why Women Aren’t Funny, but Male-To-Female Transgendered Folks Make Milk Come Out of My Nose”
• “Sometimes It’s Okay to Cheat, Like If You Gained Weight or Refuse to Have Your Teeth Capped”
• “The Joys of Much Too Much: Go for the Big Life—The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You’ve Ever Wanted, And Then Get Hated On For Being Too Ambitious”
• “Every Relationship Should Have a ‘Celebrity List’ That Names A-Listers You’re Free to Sleep With; It Just So Happens My List Includes an Appendix with the B- Through D-List”
After Dave Zinczenko’s “Why Men Cheat” Yahoo blog post generated 6000-plus comments, the Men’s Health editor continues his “Teach These Cave Women About Men” tour with “What’s the Difference Between Flirting and Cheating?” — which he gets through with only a single book plug. And while Zinc goes through “Is it cheating?” bullet points like “Looking at another woman?,” “E-mailing an ex?,” and “Kissing another woman?,” let’s turn toward:
Flirting or Cheating? Going to a strip club?
The good news for those of you who are anti-exotic dancer: Half of men think that visiting a strip club is cheating. The other half? Going to a strip club is like going to a sporting event-there’s lots of entertainment, lots of excitement, and lots of interest in watching the most talented players in action. In the poll, many men said that they feel there’s no harm in once-in-a-while visits since there’s no emotional attachment and only temporary, artificial physical attraction. “Sometimes, to be blunt about it,” one man responded in the poll, “it’s just a bit of art appreciation, and it’s nice to see another woman naked.”
Meanwhile, what Zinczenko failed to mention was whether his continuous dining at the Waverly Inn constitutes cheating on Michael’s. We’re going to go with “No,” if he doesn’t enjoy it.
• HX puts on its latex glove, grabs the Crisco, and snaps up what’s left of independent gay media.
• David Zinczenko launches Men’s Health Kazakhstan – the Rodale title’s 36th international edition – by takin the new editor to see Borat.
• Joining fellow NYT scribe David Carr in the “this just in — from weeks ago” arena, Kit Seelye scrapes the mud off an old WSJ story.
• Outgoing USA Today reporters gets in a parting snub.
• The guide to being an insta-YouTube cewebrity newsman.
• Columbia: Decent j-school, bad neighbors.
• Did you wait in the rain for your Borat tix? Here’s who to blame.
This month’s Coaster Correspondence in Vanity Fair was among the best we’ve seen so far: Ed Coaster having a stroke and Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko helping him heal with an ab crunch routine. Brilliant stuff, and even Radar’s Jeff Bercovici managed to pick up on the humor, penning an item of his own on Monday detailing the “oh-so-inside dig at Zinczenko’s history with deceased GQ editor Art Cooper.” (As you’ll remember, it was Zinczenko who was lunching with Cooper when he died.) Bercovici opined that the VF spoof was Graydon’s attempt to see Zinczenko “brought low” after the MH editor, in an editor’s letter, blamed Cooper’s trainer for his death.
But when Eat The Press checked in with Bercovici to see if he even talked to Graydon about the item – which, to be sure, alleged a full-on feud between Camp Carter and Zinczenko – he comes up short. Nope, Jeff didn’t make a phone call to run his information past the VF editor. Which, normally, we’d be quite all right with — us being lazy bloggers and all. Except it wasn’t so long ago that Jeff placed a hateful call to Jossip regarding a supposed “exclusive” of Jeff’s that Keith Kelly had written about six months earlier. Bercovici’s biggest whine? That Jossip never called him to ask for comment.
Ah hah! So that’s why we’ve heard more than one media insider call the former WWD scribe “Jeff Berco-sleazy.”