Clay Felker, co-creator of New York Magazine and a pioneer of New Journalism, died in his home today at age 82. What a bore -- a magazine mogul and controversial journalist who died in his home, rather than in the middle of the city he so famously depicted.

As an editor, Felker made magazines and journalism that contended with the burgeoning business of broadcast news. After New York Magazine, Felker created New West, and worked with The Village Voice, Esquire, and Manhattan Inc. He invented the "gossip" magazine, which promptly overtook general interest magazines in the style of Life and the New Yorker. You can see his influence in US Weekly, People, and in every magazine that centers itself around the events, characters, and culture of a particular city.

But, if those seem like acheivements only for superficial Amercian culture, than you should look to his involvement in New Journalism, a style of reporting that used literary elements such as telling a story in scenes and using quotations in full. Felker made New York Magazine the center of New Journalism, with the likes of Tom Wolfe, Richard Reeves, Elizabeth Crow and others on his writing staff or in the bylines. Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Hunter S. Thompson all owe Felker a great deal for his creation and support of the movement. RIP.

- Joshua Fishbein