A horrible thought just occurred to us: What happens to today's Media Christmas parties?!

Harper's has announced that 38-year-old Roger Hodge will be the heir to outgoing editor Lewis Lapham's throne. In 1996, Hodge joined the magazine as an intern (yes, a 29-year-old intern, but Harper's is "special" like that and wherever Hodge was during those first 29 years MATTERS NOT!); since then, has moved up the ranks to serve as deputy editor. Lapham is pleased with the decision, publisher John MacArthur is pleased, and we're sure Hodge's wife and two children are also pleased.

Without either William Shawn's New Yorker bang or William Whitworth's Atlantic whimper, Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's for nearly 30 years, announced today that he's stepping down. They have no successor yet, he'll still be writing for the magazine, and, certainly, he's had an amazing run that deserves to be commended.

• "Another decade, another lengthy Harper's state of the novel essay." [Media Mob]
• You'd better shatch up that DVD collection of every New Yorker issue ever while you still can, because someone might be having an electronic rights problem down the line. [Boston Globe]
• And speaking of The New Yorker, Ken Auletta's piece is all about how when a national chain owns your newspaper, you totally don't have to feel obligated to try very hard anymore. [E&P]
• Wolf Blitzer insists his name is real. His integrity, not so much. [Post-Gazette]

When it comes to the Jonathan Wunderkinds — successful novelists Franzen, Lethem, and Safran Foer — we tend to pick our battles. That is to say, we'll focus maybe on the work or media flurry surrounding one Jonathan at a time, lest we confuse our Illuminated Fortresses with our Twenty-Seventh Incredibly Loud Disappontments.

Not one but two reports arrived today on last night's big New Yorker vs. Harper's softball faceoff. The short version is this: The New Yorker folks won, 6-3, and one child played, though it was not Adam Gopnik's. Both reports after the jump.

We'd be remiss if we let the day go by without noting this: Harper's editor Lewis Lapham testified in fugitive director Roman Polanski's London libel trial against Vanity Fair yesterday, recounting under oath the anecdote at the center of the suit. The article in question was about Elaine's restaurant, on the Upper East Side, and it repeated Lapham's account of an August 1969 evening there that involved himself, Polanski, and a Scandinavian model Beatte Telle.

The April issue of Harper's has an excerpt from a rant by the head of the NYC Mayor's Action Center that made news a year or two ago: "Recently I took a new position. I was promoted to director of the Mayor's Action Center. That means I am responsible for overseeing practically any call, letter, fax, or email mad by griping, often whining, often stupid New Yorkers...Yesterday I personally took several calls from people with enough time to call up pitch a fit at the mayor for honoring the Bronx Little League team before anyone knew the pitcher was a ringer. One dumb fuck called to let me know all of Seattle (that's right, the whole city) was mad at the mayor...So I take painkillers, sleep a lot, and think about killing every citizen and employee of New York City every minute I'm awake."
Vredenburgh screed [Johnok]

New Yorker Editor David Remnick and Harper's Editor Lewis Lapham are fighting over who thought of running Picasso's anti-war painting, Guernica, on their cover first. Actually that's not true. Guernica-gate paraphrased: Lapham is claims that "Remnick copiedno fair!" and thinks, in fact, that the New Yorker may have planted spies. Remnick responds with a very telling, "We have the same cover? I didn't notice." Guess Mr. Remnick doesn't read Harper's.
G+J planning gala debut [Keith Kelly - Post]

Harper's Editor Lewis Lapham, when asked to give up smoking by Ralph Nader in exchange for $21,000 worth of Harper's subscriptions, refused on the basis that "I wouldn't want to sell out my principles or my belief in individual freedom for money." Translation: "$21,000 is a small price to pay for my two-pack-a-day habit."
Portrait: Lewis Lapham, Harper's Editor [Guardian via Romenesko]

Have they no decency? Quicker than Art Cooper's tears can dry, the media commentators are handicapping the race to succeed him as editor of GQ. Keith Kelly is offering odds.
· Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of British GQ: 2-to-1 favorite
· David Zinczenko of Men's Health, although he's taken himself out of the running: 5-to-1
· Michael Hirschorn, past editor of Spin: 10-to-1
· Kurt Andersen, resting at public radio: 35-to-1
· David Kamp, a VF editor: 35-to-1
· Maer Roshan, if Radar doesn't fix: 50-to-1
· Glenda Bailey of Harpers, because SALTYT thinks it's time a lad's mag had a woman editor.

Ex-HBO honcho Michael Fuchs has agreed to back Maer Roshan's new mag, Radar, after American Media, which owns The Sun and the National Enquirer, backed out. We're guessing this means Radar will be "Spy meets Vanity Fair meets Harper's with a pinch of the Enquirer thrown in for good taste."
Radar catches Fuchs [Keith Kelly - Post]