Magazine Hot List 2009: Editor's Note

As editor, Fast Company’s Robert Safian looks for stories with an element of fun, surprise and overcoming adversity. He need not look further than his own magazine. Fast Company was widely written off for dead when Gruner + Jahr put the onetime media darling on the block back in 2005. But Morningstar founder (and white knight) Joe Mansueto bankrolled a dramatic advertising and circulation turnaround. Key to that success was Safian, AdweekMedia’s Editor of the Year, who reestablished the business book as the authority on innovation while reviving a stodgy category.