Dear Jeffrey: Goldberg Begins Advice Column in The Atlantic

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By Matt Haber

October 13, 2008 | 3:51 p.m

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via blog.pentagram.com

For the last few months, The Atlantic's Web site has featured a call for readers to submit questions for a new advice columnist. James Bennet, the magazine's editor, has been mum about the writer his magazine had enlisted as its answer to Ask Amy.

A post on Pentagram's blog reveals all: The Atlantic's new advice column will be called "What's Your Problem?" and be written by Jeffrey Goldberg. (Pentagram link comes via Kottke.)

The first edition will run on the back page in the Pentagram-redesigned magazine in November, has a letter that reads:

I am the editor of a 151-year-old magazine. We are redesigning our publication in order to make it even more delightful and scintillating. But I'm stymied by our back page. It is important real estate, a place where readers expect to be enlightened and entertained. But I don't know how to fill it. Do you have any ideas for me?

Name Withheld

Washington, D.C.

Mr. Goldberg answers by poking some fun at his former publication: "Dear James, I would suggest holding a cartoon-caption-writing contest."