What Has Happened to Vanity Fair?
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It isn’t often that a publication turns against its audience, but that’s what seems to have happened in the 16 months since Radhika Jones succeeded Graydon Carter as editor of
Vanity Fair
. The former editorial director of the
New York Times
books department has been hailed as a breath of fresh air since Carter’s imperial quarter-century reign came to an end.
“We live in a moment of profound transformation, inclusive, progressive and with much challenging of the status quo, thank goodness,” Anna Wintour, Jones’ boss at Conde Nast,
told
the
Los Angeles Times
. “Radhika has wholeheartedly embraced that.” The question is whether Jones has injected the magazine with new relevancy or squeezed all the joy out of it.
Reading the old
Vanity Fair
was like taking a trip through a gilded world. The prose was lush, confident, often smug. Its pages had a buzzy elegance, an Upper East Side cocktail party filled with literary stars, movie idols, and political icons past and present. The denizens of that world
were glamorous, if often troubled. On your left were Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Princess Di – the eternal stars of the magazine – alongside Ron and Nancy, Liz and Dick, Bogie and Bacall. To the right were Brooke Astor and her swindling son, Robert Durst, Bernie Madoff, O.J. Simpson. Straight ahead were Bill and Hillary, Barack and Michelle, Woody and Mia, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Brad and Angelina.
And then the music stopped. The king was dethroned and his courtiers routed by the people, clamoring for authenticity and relevancy. The monuments came crashing down. The statues were decapitated.
When the dust settled, not only was our guilty pleasure gone, but the magazine was pronouncing
us
guilty. Vanquished were Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney. They were replaced by unsmiling young cover stars we elders had never heard of, and familiar faces we recognized but who seemed stripped of their glamour.
There was a reordering of power
; Carter’s covers were a bastion of white privilege, and Jones’ first cover star was Lena Waithe,
a black lesbian. Yet diversity should be joyful; the new
Vanity Fair
was anything but.
On one cover, Michelle Williams sat
unsmiling
and cross-legged on a stool, looking like an employee demanding a raise. Laura Dern looked resentful. What did we do?
We aren't really sure. But The High Sparrow has spoken:
Vanity Fair
must atone for its sins, and so must its readers.
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We awoke yesterday to a sight that had us wondering if this all hadn’t been a bad dream. There on
Vanity Fair’s
cover was Beto O’Rourke, standing with his Black Labrador beside a pickup truck on a dirt road, looking like a model in a Ralph Lauren ad. Inside the magazine, he ruminated
at length
to Joe Hagan about running for president.
Within hours of its publication, O’Rourke announced his candidacy, sending the media into a frenzy. Radhika Jones scored a triumph, publishing a cover so striking and newsworthy it may go down as one of
Vanity Fair's
most iconic.
It was a reminder of the endless possibilities that monthly publications hold for gifted editors, for each issue begins as a blank slate. Jones clearly has the talent to produce an extraordinary magazine.
Vanity Fair
can shine once again, even in its newly inclusive, progressive incarnation, if she can just part company with the idea that glamour is a dirty word.
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Who Needs a Website When You have Twitter?
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What if you had a great story, but nowhere to publish it?
As reporters at New York’s new nonprofit online news organization,
The City
, await its official launch, they’ve posted
a few stories
on nymag.com. But far more have appeared in rat-tat-tat form on social media, particularly Twitter.
I
t’s also where Smith got ahead of a major Housing Authority announcement with
details
of the landmark monitoring agreement between the feds and the city.
The City
’s graphics folks summarized the deal in a
chart
posted on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Twitter is also where
Ese Olumhense revealed that Bronx Housing Court was trying desperately to stem
overcrowding
– with photos showing cases being heard in the hallways – and where reporter Rosa Goldensohn posted a
late night report
spotlighting heat and power outages at the federal jail in Brooklyn.
Finally, imagine being a New York City newsperson with nowhere to publish as the Amazon story broke last month. That would have hurt. But
The City
again used Twitter not only for the breaking news, but to explain the
opposition
, outline the
impact
of the broken deal and capture reaction from various
players
.
So when will the site go live?
The
Post
’s Keith Kelly
took a swipe at them
on Wednesday, with vague suggestions of troubles and delays.
The City
's editor Jere Hester was cagey, telling
Communications Breakdown
only “soon.”
We’re in no rush – we’re on social media.
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Cheating Parents Mania – The Best of the Best
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There’s an old tabloid adage: “The rich are unhappy, too.” It was never as true as in this week’s epic story of moms, dads and coaches being arrested in a sprawling college admissions scandal.
The Post
gave it eight pages plus the wood (
BUYER LEARNING
. Meh.) Our favorites:
--
The Daily Beast
zeroed in on
one villain
, Isabelle Henriques, one of only three students charged, who unwisely bragged about how she cheated her way into Georgetown. Her parents allegedly flew a proctor in to sit with her during her SAT, and she received a score of 1900 out of 2400, a 320-point improvement. Her diploma, not surprisingly, is in jeopardy.
--
The Daily News
focused on Marcia and Gregory Abbott. He’s a 68-year-old food packaging mogul with a place in Manhattan who allegedly spent $32,000 to get his daughter into Duke, and who showed about the level of class you’d expect when he told a reporter to
“Get out of my f---ing face”
outside court.
--
New York
magazine's
The Cut
broke out
the most bizarre details
from the scandal. One mom photoshopped her non-athletic child into action sports scenes. Another gave a proctor a sample of her son’s handwriting so he could mimic it on the SAT, but warned “
he
has not great writing
.” Another
worried that college athletes would notice that her son was a “misfit.” Thanks, moms!
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Quotable:
Special de Blasio for President Edition
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Bill de Blasio’s presidential ambitions:
“F---ing insane”
--
former aide (“laughing”).
“He can’t get off the ground because nobody likes the guy” --
former City Hall aide.
“There's a little bit of self-righteousness about him”
–
political consultant Phil Singer
“Idiotic”
--
friend of the mayor.
“The only reason why he wouldn’t be mentioned with Garcetti or Buttigieg … is because the opinion-makers, the Gang of 500, have never seen a good story written about him”
-- de Blasio
political adviser Peter Ragone.
“I really appreciate everyone’s views, but I don’t know they can see things the way Chirlane and I see them”
--
Bill de Blasio.
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Here and There
Comings and Goings in Media and Communications
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Adrienne LaFrance
becomes executive editor of
The Atlantic
, as
Swati Sharma
and
Sarah Yager
become managing editors…
Kirtzman Strategies alum
Liz Baker
joins the communications team at Success Academy...
Eddie Borges
joins Columbia University's Justice Lab as a communications strategy consultant…
Eugene Resnick
is now a senior press officer for New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer.
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Have a career announcement for Here and There? A Quotable quote?
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Kirtzman Strategies is a strategic communications and public affairs firm that works with public officials, nonprofits, companies, tech startups and education organizations.
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