James Bennet

What's the statute of limitations on being a young talent to watch? Next week, former prodigy Adam Moss, 48, will use New York magazine to anoint the newest Wunderkindergarten class of editors. According to sources with knowledge of the project, the photo spread, with accompanying text by Carl Swanson, will include The New Republic's Franklin Foer (age 31), The Atlantic's James Bennet (39), Harper's Roger Hodge (38), and the Paris Review's Philip Gourevitch (44).

--Gabriel Sherman

The piece that Judith Miller is working on for the Atlantic appears to be a profile of Libya's Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to sources familiar with the magazine or with Miller's activities. Earlier this week, Miller told the Media Mob she had recently returned from the Middle East.

According to one source, Miller's Atlantic piece was assigned months ago, before the March 1 appointment of James Bennet to be editor. It is unclear whether Bennet, who was the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief while Miller was reporting on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the paper, plans to run the piece. Bennet declined to comment yesterday on Miller's reporting assignment. --Gabriel Sherman

A source at the Atlantic confirms that former New York Times reporter/journalistic privilege test case Judith Miller is working on a piece for the magazine. The possibility of Miller's return to writing was first reported yesterday by Gawker. According to the Atlantic source, Miller is working on a reported piece--and not a first-person account of her crisis at the Times, like Howell Raines' 20,000-odd word Atlantic piece of May 2004.

Newly appointed Atlantic editor James Bennet does not yet have a working phone line. Reached by phone, Miller declined to comment on her Atlantic assignment. "I just got back from the Middle East," she said. "I can’t talk right now."

--Gabriel Sherman