ASME AWARDS 2026 ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT

NEW YORK (September 24, 2026)—The American Society of Magazine Editors in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism sponsored the National Magazine Awards for the 61st year in 2026. The 102 finalists and winners were honored at the ASME Editorial Conference at the People Inc. Event Center at Brookfield Place in New York City on Tuesday, May 19. Recipients of the ASME Award for Fiction, the ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration and the ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30 were also honored.

A complete list of the ASME Awards 2026 finalists and winners is posted at asme.media. Citations at asme.media include editorial credits and links to finalists and winners. URLs may link to digital versions of print entries. To view photographs of the awards presentation, visit instagram.com/asme1963. For more information about the ASME Awards, see the “About” page at nationalmagazineawards.org and asmeawards.org.

The ASME Awards 2026 call for entries was published on September 18, 2025. Eighteen National Magazine Awards and 12 Design, Photography and Illustration awards were included in the call for entries, as were the ASME Award for Fiction and the ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30.

The first deadline for entry was October 23, 2025. Entries were accepted until December 31. A total of 864 National Magazine Awards entries were submitted by 222 titles. Print entries numbered 313; digital entries, 440; and multiplatform entries, 111. Also submitted were 356 Design, Photography and Illustration entries; 15 ASME Award for Fiction entries; and 15 ASME NEXT Awards nominations.

The judging of the 61st annual National Magazine Awards was held in conjunction with the judging of the 9th annual ASME Award for Fiction; the 7th annual ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration; and the 11th annual ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30. Screening materials were distributed to judges in mid-December 2025. The judging was conducted on January 15 and 22, 2026.

Each entry was screened in advance of the judging by at least three judges. During the judging, each entry was evaluated by a judging group generally composed of 13 to 16 members. Judging groups chose five to seven finalists and then selected one of the finalists to be the award winner. The results of the judging of the National Magazine Awards were sanctioned by the National Magazine Awards Board. The results of the judging of the ASME Award for Fiction, the ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration and the ASME NEXT Awards were sanctioned by the ASME Board of Directors.

This year the ASME Awards were judged by 301 journalists and educators, of whom approximately 60 percent were women and 40 percent were men. Sixteen percent of the participants were first-time judges; 30 percent identified as BIPOC. Fourteen of the 24 judging groups met in person on the first of the two days of judging and on Zoom the second; 10 judging groups met on Zoom both days.

The judging of the 2026 ASME Awards was led by:

  • Richard Berke, Cofounder and Executive Editor, STAT
  • Sudip Bose, Editor, The American Scholar
  • Maile Carpenter, Editorial Director, Food Network Magazine, HGTV Magazine and The Pioneer Woman
  • Jessica Cruel, Editor in Chief, Allure
  • Richard Dorment, Editorial Director, Men's Health and Women's Health
  • Jonathan Dorn, Board Chair, RE:PUBLIC
  • Katie Drummond, Global Editorial Director, WIRED
  • Ben Goldberger, General Manager and Executive Director of Editorial Content, BBC
  • Patrick Gomez, Editor in Chief, Entertainment Weekly
  • Mark Jannot, Story Editor, Now Voyager
  • Clara Jeffery, Editor in Chief, Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting
  • Lauren Kern, Editor in Chief, Apple News
  • Amanda Kludt, Senior Editor, Newsroom Projects and Initiatives, The New York Times
  • Cindi Leive, Chief Executive Officer, The Meteor
  • Nathan Lump, Senior Vice President and Editor in Chief, National Geographic
  • Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor in Chief, Reason
  • Stephanie Mehta, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Content Officer, Inc. and Fast Company
  • Alison Overholt, Founder, Good People LLC; Professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
  • Swati Sharma, Publisher and Editor in Chief, Vox
  • Ivylise Simones, Creative Director, Slate
  • Nikhil Swaminathan, Chief Executive Officer, Grist
  • Duy Linh Tu, Professor, Columbia Journalism School
  • Julia Turner, Cofounder and Editor in Chief, L.A. Material
  • Charles Whitaker, Dean, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern University

The members of the 2026 National Magazine Awards Board, which include current and former officers of ASME and representatives of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, were:

  • Jelani Cobb, Dean and Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
  • Jonathan Dorn, Board Chair, RE:PUBLIC, and ASME Past President
  • Mark Jannot, Story Editor, Now Voyager, and ASME Past President
  • Clara Jeffery, Editor in Chief, Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ASME Past President
  • Amanda Kludt, Senior Editor, Projects and Initiatives, The New York Times, and ASME Past President
  • Cindi Leive, Chief Executive Officer, The Meteor, and ASME Past President
  • Stephanie Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, Mansueto Ventures, and ASME Secretary
  • Alison Overholt, Founder, Good People LLC, and ASME President
  • Nikhil Swaminathan, Chief Executive Officer, Grist, and ASME Vice President
  • Julia Turner, Cofounder and Editor in Chief, L.A. Material, and ASME Treasurer
  • Abi Wright, Executive Director, Professional Prizes, Columbia Journalism School
  • Sidney Holt, Executive Director, American Society of Magazine Editors, Ex Officio

The current members of the ASME Board of Directors are listed here. A complete list of this year’s judges is posted here and here.

ASME Awards 2026 Finalists

ASME announced the finalists for the National Magazine Awards on Thursday, February 26, 2026. The finalists for the ASME Award for Fiction and the ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration were announced at the same time. To read the press release, go here.

More than 70 media organizations were nominated for National Magazine Awards. Nineteen publications received multiple nominations, led by New York Magazine with nine and The New Yorker with five. The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, ProPublica, Texas Monthly and WIRED each got four nominations. Bloomberg News and National Geographic both got three nominations. Ten publications received two nominations. They were The Believer, Bloomberg Businessweek, GQ, The Guardian, Harper’s Magazine, Mother Jones, Philadelphia Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Vogue and Wirecutter.

The finalists also included Allure, The American Scholar, Anyway, Aperture, The Atavist, Bicycling, The Bitter Southerner, Bloomberg Markets, Business Insider, Bustle, CalMatters, Consumer Reports, CULTURED, The Cut, Eater, Embedded from NPR, ESPN Digital, The Examination, Food & Wine, Harper’s Bazaar, The Journal., MIT Technology Review, Mountain Gazette, New York Review of Architecture, New York Times Opinion, Orion, Pablo Torre Finds Out, Quanta, Racquet, Rolling Stone, Science News, The Spread, STAT, Teen Vogue, TIME, Today in Tabs, The Trace, Vanity Fair, The Verge, “We’re Doing the Wiz” for Radiotopia from PRX, World Literature Today and The Yale Review.

Nominated for partnerships with other media organizations were Epic Magazine with Mountain Gazette; Food & Environment Reporting Network with Texas Monthly; PRX with Science News; and Alianza Rebelde Investiga, Block Club Chicago, Cazadores de Fake News, FRONTLINE and The Texas Tribune, all with ProPublica.

The five finalists for the 2026 ASME Award for Fiction were The Drift, Elastic, The Georgia Review, The New Yorker and The Yale Review.

Thirty-two media organizations were finalists for ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration. Topping the list of finalists were The New York Times Magazine with eight nominations, New York with six and The Verge with four. GQ, National Geographic and The New Yorker each received three nominations. Receiving two nominations were The Atlantic, Bon Appétit, Garden & Gun, High Country News, Road & Track, Texas Monthly and W Magazine.

Also nominated for ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration were The Atavist, Bloomberg Businessweek, ELLE, Entertainment Weekly, Foreign Policy, New York Times Opinion, Poetry, ProPublica, Quanta, Rolling Stone, Saveur, Sierra, Summit Journal, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Teen Vogue, TIME, Travel + Leisure, Virtuoso, The Magazine, and WSJ. Magazine.

ASME Awards 2026 Winners

The winners of the ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration and the ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30 were announced on Thursday, April 9. Also announced were the finalists and winner of the ASME Readers’ Choice Award. To read the press release, go here. The winners of the National Magazine Awards and the ASME Award for Fiction were announced at the ASME Editorial Conference on May 19. To read the press release, go here.

Sixteen magazines and websites were honored with National Magazine Awards, including two publications that received two awards. Bloomberg News won the awards for Video and Newsletters; New York won the awards for Photography and General Excellence in the News, Sports and Entertainment category.

New York’s 2026 General Excellence award was the magazine’s seventh. The General Excellence winners also included T: The New York Times Style Magazine, which won its fourth General Excellence award, in the Service and Lifestyle category; Texas Monthly, which won its fifth General Excellence award, in the Special Interest category; and The Bitter Southerner, which won its first-ever National Magazine Award, in the Literature, Science and Politics category.

Winning the same awards for the second consecutive year were Food & Wine in Lifestyle Journalism and ProPublica in Public Interest. Among the first-time winners were The Believer in Columns and Essays; New York Review of Architecture in Reviews and Criticism; Pablo Torre Finds Out in Podcasting; and Wirecutter in Service Journalism. Honorees also included The Atavist in Reporting; The Atlantic in Single-Topic Issue; Harper’s Magazine in Feature Writing; The New Yorker in Profile Writing; and Rolling Stone in Design.

The ASME Award for Fiction was presented to The Yale Review. Also honored were the recipients of the ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30: Paula Aceves of New York Magazine; Isabella Cueto of STAT; Charlotte Klein of New York Magazine; Chris Panicker of GQ and Pitchfork; and Matteo Wong of The Atlantic.

The presentation of the National Magazine Awards was hosted by members of the ASME Board of Directors, including Alison Overholt, founder of Good People LLC and professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Sid Evans, editor in chief of Southern Living; Nikki Ogunnaike, editor in chief of Marie Claire; and Nikhil Swaminathan, chief executive officer of Grist.

Chief editors accepting awards on behalf of their publications were The Atavist’s Seyward Darby with writer Drew Philp; The Believer’s Daniel Gumbiner with writer Rafia Zakaria; The Bitter Southerner’s Kyle Tibbs Jones; Harper’s Magazine’s Christopher Carroll with writer Daniel Kolitz; New York’s David Haskell for General Excellence and with creative director Jody Quon for Photography; New York Review of Architecture’s Samuel Medina with deputy editor Chloe Wyma; Pablo Torre Finds Out’s Pablo Torre; Texas Monthly’s Ross McCammon; Wirecutter’s Ben Frumin with deputy editor Jason Chen; and The Yale Review’s Meghan O’Rourke.

Also accepting awards were The Atlantic executive editor Adrienne LaFrance; Bloomberg News executive editor Robert Blau with writer Jason Leopold for Newsletters and executive producer Kristin Powers with reporter Olivia Carville for Video; The New Yorker senior editor Nimal Eames-Scott with writer Ava Kofman; Food & Wine executive editor Karen Shimizu with writer Kim Cross; T: The New York Times Style Magazine deputy editor Kurt Soller with art director Carla Valdivia Nakatani; and ProPublica managing editor Ginger Thompson with writer Mica Rosenberg.

Honored during 2026 ASME Editorial Conference were the winners of the ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration and the ASME Readers’ Choice Award. The winners included The Atlantic for Best Still and Animated Illustrations; Bon Appétit for Best Service and Lifestyle Design; ELLE for Best Service and Lifestyle Photography; High Country News for Best Independent Magazine Covers; and The New York Times Magazine for Best Illustrated Stories and Best Entertainment and Celebrity Covers.

Winners of ASME Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration also included The New Yorker for Best Entertainment and Celebrity Photography; Road & Track for Best Service and Lifestyle Covers; Rolling Stone for Best Entertainment and Celebrity Design; TIME for Best News and Documentary Photography; and The Verge for Best News and Information Design.

The 10 finalists for the ASME Reader’s Choice Award included GQ, The Hollywood Reporter with four nominations, National Geographic with two nominations, New York, Teen Vogue and W Magazine. The winner of the ASME Readers’ Choice Award for the best magazine cover of the year was National Geographic for “The Tigers Who Changed Their Stripes.”

Submitted by Sidney Holt, Executive Director of ASME