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George was a glossy politics-as-lifestyle monthly magazine founded by John F. Kennedy, Jr. and publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in New York City in September, 1995. Its tagline was "Not Just Politics as Usual." The debut issue featured a cover which received a great deal of attention for its photograph of Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington . ''George'' departed from the format of traditional political publications, whose audience was made up primarily of people in or around the political world. The general template for ''George'' was similar to magazines such as '' Esquire '' or '' Vanity Fair ''. The consistent underlying theme was to marry the themes of celebrity and media with the subject of politics in such a way that the general public would find political news and discourse about politics more interesting to read. When it first appeared, ''George'' attracted great interest, and for a brief period had the largest circulation of any political magazine in the nation, partly due to the celebrity status of Kennedy, but it soon began losing money. Kennedy later complained that the magazine was not taken seriously in the publishing world. ''George'' earned infamy in the conspiracy cyberculture, when an article slated to run in the October 1998 "Conspiracy Issue" on the top conspiracy writers was killed at the last minute by George editors. Titled "Princes of Paranoia," it would've highlighted writers and websites that were popular in the field of conspiracy theory and given their work exposure to a wider audience. After Kennedy's untimely death in a plane crash in 1999, Frank Lalli become editor-in-chief. In 2001, ''George'' was terminated by Hachette Filipacchi due to disappointing advertising revenues. Critics called ''George'' "the political magazine for people who don't understand politics", assailing it for "stripping any and all discussion of political issues from its coverage of politics". In a feature in its final issue, '' Spy Magazine '' asserted that the magazine's premise was flawed; there was no real convergence of politics and celebrity lifestyles. On October 11 , 2005 , Harvard University , via their Kennedy School Of Government , held a panel discussion entitled "Not Just Politics as Usual", which commemorated the tenth anniversary of the magazine's launch. The panel was moderated by Tom Brokaw and featured appearances by other journalists. NOTABLE CONTRIBUTORS EXTERNAL LINK |