Graydon Carter has such a hard on right now, as Vanity Fair releases its most Vanity Fair-esque piece to date on the defrauded, jet-setting Raffaello Follieri. What makes the seven-page article so perfectly VF, with its mix of celebrity and scandal and a dash of eau de creep? CONTINUED »
No stranger to photographing youthful actors without any clothes on, Annie Leibovitz hits September's Vogue with a nude Daniel Radcliffe.
The Harry Potter star is, thankfully, a legal 19-years-old, compared to scandal-plagued Miley Cyrus' 15. Blame Radcliffe's upcoming Broadway turn in Equus for Leibovitz's turn with bestiality themes.
And for resurrecting an old favorite: CONTINUED »
After the Democratic National Convention, Google and Vanity Fair will team up for a joint invite-only party. Google wants in because it's trying to push its suite of web tools on to the political savvy. Vanity Fair wants in because it can get stars like Ben Affleck to show up to play Rock Band while giving Graydon Carter new editor's letter material.
Even the Waverly Inn, Graydon Carter's restaurant, is falling on hard times: They can't even afford the phone! Kidding, kidding. It's part of the Wavery's insidery charm to not have a public phone number, because it is above mere mortal dining establishments. And eateries that are technically not open needn't keep a landline. Like destitute New Yorkers.
But when people have started tightening their belt at an establishment that serves fifty-five dollar mac and cheese, it portends doom for all of New York's glitter-and-shitter-ati. CONTINUED »
Graydon Carter, who has arguably done more to destroy the creativity of New York City and turn it into a playground for the rich than any other magazine editor, is now embarking on "Campaign New York," Vanity Fair's excuse to charge American Express a huge sponsorship fee while it "celebrates" culture, art, and style. According to the website's copy, Campaign New York is "a dazzling two-week-long series of events that leverage the very best of what Vanity Fair has to offer against the dramatic backdrop of one of the world’s most exciting venues: New York City." What this actually means, however, is that from Sept. 15-26, you'll have a chance to shop with VF's advertisers. And since AmEx is picking up the tab, of course there must be exclusive offers for cardmembers, right? Yes! Like this one: "Exclusively for Cardmembers, a concierge will be at the V.F. Café @ Nespresso—the official destination for all things Campaign New York. Just show your American Express card to get the latest information on the 12-day event, as well as access to exciting additional extras, such as Vanity Fair gift bags and special offerings from V.F.'s sponsors." That's right: Just pay a $450 annual fee and your American Express card entitles you to a pamphlet and free gift with purchase.
Back during the Republican primary race, John McCain's Straight Talk Express was a mobile campaign vehicle sporting a horeshoe shaped couch in the rear that let reporters hobnob with McCain in a friendly, informal environment. Now that McCain has ditched the bus for a plane of his own, he's subjected to silly FAA laws that prohibit that sort of seating arrangement, less the aircraft suffer turbulence and send a Washington Post reporter flying. One might think that McCain's camp, then, would do anything they can to make the press feel as comfortable as possible aboard Straight Talk Air. Perhaps that was the plan — there is a custom-made couch in the press section of the cabin. But it goes unused, as does most of the flying time where reporters could be peppering the candidate with questions.
In fact, the idea that McCain is enjoying an open relationship with reporters like he once did couldn't be further from the truth. CONTINUED »
Is anyone else a little uncomfortable with Vanity Fair scribe Maureen Orth taking to this morning's Today show to update everyone on the status of her family's mourning over husband Tim Russert's death, while also plugging her article about France's first lady of gossip Carla Bruni. Or maybe the booking was supposed to work the other way around?
On the plus side, Orth's Today appearance is one signal NBC still values its relationship with the late Russert's wife, and gives Vanity Fair reason to keep Orth around, despite them losing The Russert Guarantee that Orth would get booked on NBC's shows.
With Simon Pegg as Sidney (Toby) Young and Jeff Bridges as Clayton (Graydon) Carter, How to Lose Alienate People will bring to life the author's mildly fictionalized account of working as the Vanity Fair editor's assistant in the Big Apple. Herewith, the movie's trailer, which is worth watching if only because Kirsten Dunst appears in it, and you do not immediately want to hit her.
Just imagine what Miley Cyrus could've done for Vanity Fair's September issue. After all, the racy pics of the 15-year-old shining beacon of the American economy in the June issue have landed Graydon Carter his best-selling issue of the year. A very respectable 435,000 units moved on the newsstand. And she wasn't even on the cover.
With the numbers in hand, we can finally analyze what this issue became: An exercise in publicity.
It's likely Carter and photographer Annie Liebowitz didn't know they were sitting on circulation gold; they just thought they had secured pop culture's biggest rising star for a photo spread in the well. Instead, once the photos hit, they were met with cries of exploitation, which forced the Cyrus camp to claim the girl was taken advantage of, while Carter and Liebowitz stood by their decision.
When it came to media coverage, the story wasn't just relegated to insider media coverage — there was the celebrity factor too, which meant Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood were weighing in, splashing the magazine's cover (of Bobby Kennedy) and the Cyrus pictures in an endless loop of free VF advertising. The magazine racked up countless millions of image exposures — as 915 letters and a 20X traffic spike on the website — and left the confines of anything Conde Nast publicity could control.
And when it comes to the numbers, it was to their benefit.
But not every magazine can capitalize on continuous drum beating about a controversy inside their pages. And that includes a Conde Nast cousin. CONTINUED »
Vanity Fair's scandalous photos of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus in its June issue generated the largest outpouring of reader mail the magazine has ever seen. Some 915 notices arrived at the magazine weighing in on the pictorial, pushing the response from Jennifer Aniston's cover to second place (only half as many people bothered to write in about her). But if you consider all the discussion about these pics, 915 letters is actually quite a low number — the number of comments plastered across the Internet about the ordeal probably number in the hundreds of thousands. But those people know how to use computers and email, and do not have to rely on the 17th century hobby of scrawling ink across parchment to have their voices heard.
This summer's Photoshop Media Wars has, so far, gone like this:
• In the beginning of the month, Fox News' Fox & Friends Photoshopped pictures of New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe after their late June "hit job" piece on FNC, which described how CNN and MSNBC were closing the ratings gap. Link
• Upset over the criticism aimed at FNC — you know, because there was no mention that the photos were altered — Bill O'Reilly last week called out the Times for its own Photoshopping of him back when it reviewed his book. Link
• Vanity Fair decided to get in on the fun, yesterday releasing its own gallery of Fox News personalities Photoshopped all caricature-y. Link
And now, Fox News adds the fourth chapter: Going after Graydon Carter with the "Photoshopped" photo you see here. CONTINUED »
VanityFair.com, the website of the magazine that's gone from bad to unreadable in just a few short years, is usually best at reposting content from Graydon Carter's print pages that is sometimes worth blockquoting. Today, it is every left-y's homepage, with the posting of a whole gallery of Photoshopped Fox News figures. This photo spread arrives, of course, after FNC manipulated two pics, of New York Times media reporter Jacques Steinberg and television editor Steven Reddicliffe, and later had Bill O'Reilly say they were merely caricatures, not intended to be passed off as the real thing to audiences. Well, then it's appropriate O'Reilly himself kicks off the inanity, followed by some of his friends. Alas, because Fox News head Roger Ailes is not an on-air personality, there is no Bar Mitzvah caricaturist rendition to bring out his neck rolls.
An interesting thing is happening inside the walls of 4 Times Square, and we like to call it cannibalism. Times two.
The first act of cannibalism is taking place between Vanity Fair and Portfolio, the anemic Conde Nast business magazine that wouldn't mind putting an A-lister on its cover — say, Will Smith? — and dissecting his Hollywood profit margins. Except doing so would infringe upon VF's territory, eating up Graydon Carter's editorial base.
And the second act of cannibalism?
That would be when Graydon Carter wields his power inside Tinseltown to keep Joanne Lipman and her charges from ever locking down an A-list cover. CONTINUED »
James Wolcott, the media and culture "expert" who, rather than be hired away by a university looking for somebody to produce immutable soundbites about things like media and culture, scribbles a column for Vanity Fair, takes on the "next wave" of Hollywood (see: Gossip Girl) in this way: CONTINUED »
Well, this is unsettling:
Miley Cyrus‘ pics in Vanity Fair may have been scandalous, but she should look on the bright side, because now she has a whole new crop of admirers! Only problem is, they’re felons.
Miley has received thousands of love letters from prison inmates since the magazine hit newsstands
Editorial Director
