() New York society clutched their pearls when Vanity Fair, the esteemed Condé Nast magazine, put New York mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani on its “cover” earlier this month.

Several well-heeled New Yorkers emailed, called and texted me to proclaim their disbelief that a local socialist would be so prominently featured in a national magazine. Some even thought the assignment must be a holdover from former editor, Radhika Jones.

But, I’m told, while the story was indeed a cover it was a “digital” cover, and it was directly assigned by the new editor Mark Guiducci.

Guiducci, who also attempted to get Melania Trump on the cover and is in the process of courting Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, is “interested in interesting stories and (Mamdani) is the zeitgeist right now.”

Zohran Mamdani featured in Vanity Fair’s print edition

However, he may have been a digital “cover” which is basically a photo shoot for an exclusive feature story and will get a cover tagline in the November issue. Mamdani will be relegated to the inside of the print magazine, which a famous woman is set to grace the print cover hitting stands next week.

The magazine, in an attempt to boost numbers, creates digital covers if they have an exclusive interesting story that is of the moment and can get online traction. It’s also a way to get a story out before it becomes obsolete with a lengthy print production schedule.

But the actual print covers are reserved for the weighty stars.

For example, Jennifer Aniston graced the September print cover while Elle and Dakota Fanning were on the October cover (the same month, Mamdani had a “digital” cover). 

Zohran Mamdani’s new Oct. 7 statement causes uproar

Mamdani created a furor this week when he released a statement on the anniversary of Oct. 7, noting Hamas had committed an “horrific war crime” then devoted three paragraphs to blaming Israel for a “genocide.”

The Atlantic writer David Frum posted Mamdani’s statement regarding October 7 on X, noting: “This is a genuinely useful statement. The chilly formulaic language about the 10/7 atrocity … the intense angry passion of the denunciation of Israel’s self-defense … together they arrestingly reveal what the author cares about and what/who he does not care about.”

But for those upset over Vanity Fair’s coverage of the young politician, a source close to the magazine said, “Read the piece, not just the (tagline). It is skeptical of him it is definitely not a puff piece.”

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