The self-dubbed "Nora-ites"—whose ranks include writers and editors Eliot Kaplan, Jean Chatzky, Randall Lane, David Borgenicht, Stefan Fatsis, Joe Siegel, Lisa DePaulo, Miriam Around, and Sandee Brawarsky—created a mentorship prize in Magid's name in 2003.

Titled Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia, the book grew out of a lengthy Philadelphia magazine piece and was reviewed positively in The New York Times and The Boston Globe upon its release.

An outgrowth of his award-winning Philadelphia magazine piece "Less Than One Percent," prompted by his wife's serious adverse reaction to one pill of a new antibiotic, the book investigated prescription drug manufacturers, the safety of their products and FDA regulation (or lack thereof).

"[13] Fried's fifth book, titled Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West, was published in March 2010.

The book draws on newly discovered datebooks and letters of Fred Harvey and his son, Ford (who actually ran the company much longer than his father), which had been in family hands for decades.

In support of the book, Fried embarked upon a train tour along the old Santa Fe route from Chicago to Los Angeles, visiting many of the classic mid- and southwestern cities where Harvey establishments thrived from the late 19th century well into the 20th.

[18][19][20] The book has helped fuel a renaissance of interest in Harvey, the Harvey Girls and the company’s historic hotels, several of which have been in constant use (El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, La Fonda in Santa Fe) and others that have been restored (including La Posada in Winslow, AZ and, most recently, Castaneda Hotel in Las Vegas, NM) Since its publication, Fried has been invited to lecture at museums and universities across the country about the book.

His sixth book, co-authored with former Patrick J. Kennedy, was A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction, published in September, 2015.

It was an overnight New York Times bestseller, was featured on “60 Minutes” and included as appendices a complete political agenda for the future of American mental health and addiction care.

In its aftermath, Fried wrote a cover story for The Forward about how faith communities can help change the lives of people with mental illness and addiction, and their families.

In medicine ... [and] as a political thinker, he was brilliant.” The Philadelphia Inquirer said it was “superb” and “reminds us eloquently, abundantly, what a brilliant, original man Benjamin Rush was, and how his contributions to ... the United States continue to bless us all.” His eighth book, co-authored with Patrick J. Kennedy, is Profiles in Mental Health Courage was published in April 2024 by Dutton.

Fried's best-known[21] magazine piece is "Cradle to Grave", the April 1998 Philadelphia cover story that led the biggest maternal homicide case in history to be reopened and solved.

For his work on the Noe case, Fried became the first journalist to receive the Medal of Honor from the Vidocq Society, an elite international group of criminologists, pathologists and police investigators.

The first piece in the series, titled "Less than One Percent" (April 1993), chronicled his wife's adverse reaction to a single dose of Floxin and examined the FDA's regulatory process for prescription drugs.

It won a Health Journalism Gold Award and is generally credited with leveling the playing field in the contentious debate over false memory syndrome's validity.

[28] His Washington Post Magazine cover story "Creative Tension" (April 16, 1995) was the first major national profile of Johns Hopkins psychologist Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, and the first time she "came out" as having manic-depressive illness – the disease she had devoted her life to researching and treating (laying the groundwork for her bestselling memoir, An Unquiet Mind).