With a couple of notable exceptions (think In Touch's disastrous Virginia Tech cover) the tabloids tend to steer clear of anything even resembling actual news. Instead, they manage to fabricate loosely sourced (and often contradictory) vignettes about the supposed secret lives of prominent public figures largely irrelevant celebrity has-beens.
And so it stands to reason that, when given the chance to sink their collective chompers into a legitimate celebrity scandal, the glossies would (metaphorically) jump at the chance. Which is why we were kinda surprised to see that out of the five covers, only one (Us Weekly, natch) was devoted to famous-person Owen Wilson's shocking true-life struggle with drugs and depression.
But why? How? And, more importantly, why?
When pondering the "Mystery Of The Missing Owen Wilson Covers," we came up with a couple of equally implausible theories. Our inexpert and largely incomplete analysis, after the jump.
"Ok, so Janice Min is making $1.5 million a year. [Ed: Potentially $2.5 million, with bonuses.] And she's supposedly moving a million copies a week on the newsstand. Meanwhile, In Touch is kicking its ass with some 200k more issues sold every week, and what do you think [In Touch EIC Richard] Spencer is earning? Not even close to that."
How else to explain the nearly identical Us Weekly and Life & Style covers than to assume it was the Bauer pub who stole Janice Min's idea?
Rumor-counters L&S EIC Mark Pasetsky: "There is no truth to this story whatsoever. I had no concept of what they were working on." Retorts Us: "Everything about Life & Style's cover story is a poor imitation."
Demands the peanut gallery slash Britney's kids: "Help us!" [P6]
Keith Kelly owes Stephanie Smith a stiff drink. After following Janice Min's contract negotiations like Julia Allison does a chance to be photographed, the WWD lass got beat on the final outcome — just a day after wondering what the hell was going on. The Post-It reports Janice's re-upped deal with Jann Wenner includes a $1.5 million base, plus "a guaranteed circulation bonus of $500,000 and possibly other bonuses totaling $500,000, bringing the total package to $2.5 million." That certainly bests Bonnie Fuller's deal, even though Us Weekly's recent struggles have been all but private. Perhaps the negotiations got back on track in Janice's favor, suggests Keith, when Jann got wind of Richard Desmond wooing her for the OK! gig — and rightly so. That Richard is as fond of writing large cheques as, well, Julia Allison is of photo ops.
Guess who's up to her old tricks? Straight off a week of losing sales numbers, Janice Min is back in Us Weekly with perennial favorite feature "Fake News." She's squared her attention entirely at Bauer's In Touch and Life & Style and their supposedly harsh coverage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which those magazines have "broken up the pair 14 times in the past 2 years."
Perhaps this is the best way Janice can differentiate herself from, oh, say, Life & Style — who ran the same Britney-kids-cry-for-help cover this week.
We're wondering what Jann Wenner's reaction was when he found out last week's Us Weekly – the Jason Priestley cover – moved only 700,000 copies, or fewer than Star, Life & Style, and even OK!. Says one industry source: "This is the first time this has ever happened."
The breakdown from last week's issues:
People, ~1.5 million (Lindsay)
In Touch, ~1.45 million (Brad & Angelina split)
Life & Style, ~850k (Angelina & Brad)
OK!, ~800k (Britney meltdown)
Star, ~710k (Nicole & Joel)
Us Weekly, ~700k (Jason Priestley, sexy dads)
At this point, someone might want to sign whatever contract is lying around.
Update: Perhaps Janice isn't to blame for the Jason Priestley cover. An industry veteran tells us Jann Wenner is BFFs with Jason (which explains how Us landed his first post-race-car-crash interview), and last week's issue with Priestley on the cover is likely a "Wenner Special."
"When will Janice Min sign a new deal with Wenner Media?" wonders WWD, along with the rest of the media world. "It's been a month since the Us Weekly editor in chief's contract expired, but for those familiar with Jann Wenner's negotiating tactics, the delay isn't that surprising."
Translation: Jann Wenner is way too busy vacationing to think of doing something radical like actually step foot in the office between the months of June and September, and Janice Min has been heretofore unsuccessful in finding a new boss who is both (a) less crazy than Jann Wenner, and (b) still crazy enough to offer her $1.5 million to "edit" a trashy celebrity weekly.
Are celebrities making a mockery of rehabilitation programs by appearing not to take the treatment seriously? Addiction experts and CNN seem to think so!
"It is making a mockery of rehabs," agrees Harris Stratyner, a psychologist with Caron, a nonprofit addiction treatment organization.
Sure, that's one boring medical expert's opinion, but what do the completely unqualified (and clearly biased) celebrity weekly news editors have to say about all of this?
Fortunately, our favorite ubiquitous fake-newsbuster Janice Min was on hand to offer mock sympathy and provide the obligatory "it's heartwrenching, but great for sales!" perspective.
Janice Min may have put vendetta against "fake news" outlets on hold, but that hasn't stopped our eagle-eyed tipsters from beating her at her own game.
Allow us to kindly direct you to page 37 of the current (July 23rd) issue of Us Weekly, entitled "Hot Pics: Valentino's Fete In Rome."
"Sienna Miller sported a gown in the designer's signature red on July 6," writes Us. Then, next to the smaller photo, a caption reads "Presto change-o! The same night, Miller modeled a totally different look."
"Totally different," writes our tipster. "Because it isn't Sienna
Miller! It's Daphne Guinness!"
And while the fashionista/beer heiress presumably isn't what Janice had in mind by "different," unfortunately it's a little too late to "presto change-o!" that caption.
On Friday afternoon, Slate featured a byline we're used to seeing only in Us Weekly's editor's letter. It was that of Janice Min, and she wanted to explain why her celeb weekly went Paris-free in this week's issue. It was a great marketing coup; she turned an obvious PR play into an opportunity to explain why it wasn't just an obvious PR play, making the PR play more obvious.
Still with us? CONTINUED »
We told you last week that there's an unprecedented $1.5 million offer on the table for Janice Min's renewal contract. We also told you she has yet to officially accept it.
And despite today being Min's last official day as Us' Editor In Chief, apparently nothing's changed.
DOWN TO THE WIRE: Jann Wenner certainly likes to cut things close — today is the last working day of Us Weekly editor in chief Janice Min's contract. As of Thursday night, Min and Wenner Media had not yet reached an agreement, although negotiations continue.
According to "sources close to both Min and Wenner," it's expected that Min will renew her deal with the company. However, we're not so sure. After all, just earlier this week, Min broke her promise to ban Paris Hilton and provide us with "100% Liar Free" copy.
Which beg the question: who's lying now?
While the Chicago Tribune's Nara Schoenberg takes a stab at examining the state of the magazine industry – first mistake: giving Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni any consideration – it's the quotes from top editors that make the piece worth reading. There's Rolling Stone managing editors Will Dana on trends ("you can't be bland and you can't suck"), The Week's EIC Bill Falk also on trends ("shorter stories"), and this one from Us Weekly's Janice Min about influential editors: "One of the most influential editors - and I'm not just saying this because I work for him - is [Rolling Stone founder] Jann Wenner."
On an absolutely unrelated note: How are those contract negotiations going?
"Us Weekly doesn't deliberately blacklist retailers; we don't blacklist anyone from the magazine," Janice Min told ABC's Nightline last October, in a segment discussing L.A. boutique Kitson's allegations that Us Weekly had banned them from the tabloid. (We also appeared in the show.) "The magazine is really a representation of who is hot, who's buzz worthy, who are women interested in this week."
So what, then, could explain the current "Paris-free" issue? "We don't have one single mention in the entire issue," Janice tells Keith Kelly.
Sounds like a blacklist of someone who is hot, someone who is buzz worthy, and someone women are interested in this week.
In the wake of tense negotiations (or lack thereof) between Jann Wenner and Us Weekly EIC Janice Min, staffers have expressed mixed feelings about the possibility of their top girl departing. "Everyone definitely wants her to stay," one Us vet tells us. "It would be a huge loss if she left. Everyone loves her." Chimes in another: "She can't go … [the magazine] would fall apart."
But at least two long-time Us staffers who spoke to us are ready for a regime change.
When your contract's up with Jann Wenner, history would indicate that you're pretty much screwed. After years of practice, Wenner's got the cutthroat routine down pat, from skipping meetings with you in favor of long weekends at Fire Island, to waiting until the last possible second to enter into "salary negotiations," to ultimately lowballing you with not-insignificant pay cut, the tacit implication being "final offer, take it or leave it."
But this time, Jann "Ebineezer" Wenner's evidently had a change of heart. And word on the street has it that he's reached deep into his seersucker suit pockets and come up with an impressive $1.2 million renewal contract for US Weekly EIC Janice Min.
Even more surprising? She might not take it.
We're not exactly sure how Us Weekly's web operations work. Sure, we may notice when UsMagazine.com makes minor changes to its web masthead, but from there on out, we pretty much assume online director and high-cheekboned Ken Baker spends the day figuring out how to plug his appearances on Ryan Seacrest's radio show.
Lucky us, then, when we got our hands on a Wednesday email chain between Baker, EIC Janice Min, and GMA transplant, former Daily News editor, and No. 2 Colleen Curtis about what makes a good web hed. (Exciting topic, we know.)
Except we weren't the only ones to get the email: The note was also sent out to former Us staffers, some of who now have jobs at competing magazines and haven't worked at Wenner in years.
The internal email arrived, inexplicably, in the inboxes of Nick White and Chris Coats (both now at People), Mia Sulpor (at Variety since February), and Jenny Sundel of People and In Style. And there was also someone else in the CC field: tim@vegas.com. That would be Timothy McDarrah, the former Us Hot Stuff editor who's not so much at Vegas.com as he is in jail for six years for trying to get with a 13-year-old girl.
So what's Ken & Co. up to, bringing all these ex-staffers into the conversation? Um … we haven't a clue.
The emails, post-jump-thingy. CONTINUED »
X17 is widely known as the go-to paparazzi agency for all-things Britney Spears. It's no secret that Britney's camp is in regular contact with the aggressive photogs, which seem to chronicle her every thong bikini and hair extensions fix.
But things have recently soured between X17 and Britney, says a paparazzi insider — which means Britney's re-signed rep Leslie Sloane Zelnik has been hitting the tabloid turf trying to convince the weeklies not to buy the agency's pictures of Britney with son Jayden (among the clearest and only shots of her second son), that were taken on private property, says a source.
And while some tabloids have backed off, we hear Us Weekly went rushed the gate — and is said to have gone to press with tomorrow's issue with those very photos in a Britney-bashing (cover?) story.
Meanwhile, Janice Min's rush to publish the photos has a second agenda: beating OK!. The photos of Britney and Jayden were sold to the Northern & Shell tabloid by Spears under the pretenses of an exclusive. But with X17's shots, Us will effectively destroy OK!'s scoop.
Whatever fills the pages beside another "Fake News" spread is fine by us.
We flipped through this new issue of Us Weekly once this afternoon, and it caught us off guard. We couldn't tell what it was, though, but after our third page-by-page skim, it was clear. CONTINUED »
What's even more embarrassing than wearing a thong bikini on the beach and getting snapped by photographers?
Answer: Copping a holier than thou attitude with all the other celebrity weeklies, and then triumphantly mistaking Penelope Cruz for her non-famous younger sister.
Oops.
Though, in Janice Min's defense, she's not the first person to get the Cruz sisters mixed up.* She's just the first one to do it after getting all uppity and self-righteous about her trashy, factually incorrect and "it's a lawsuit waiting to happen" tabloid.
*According to her Wikipedia entry, Cruz has "a younger brother, Eduardo, a singer, and a younger sister, Monica, who closely resembles her: a similarity exploited for some Spanish TV ads."
Us Weekly's blues won't be ending anytime soon. While Star rages back against Us – and Us continues digging its own hole with its "Fake News" feature – the magazine is also raking its own coals in other new and exciting ways.
Take, for instance, this week's Hot Stuff section, where a full-page engagement story on The Hills' Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt includes an inset shot of what's supposedly the ring she's wearing. "Montag’s ring (she wore it May 24) is studded with diamond chips," reads the caption.
Except Spencer says it's a farce. "US has a picture of the wrong ring," he tells a tattler. "That’s not the engagement ring I bought Heidi. No one has a picture of the ring yet.” Meanwhile, Katie Ciarlo, an employee at Ice Accessories where Spencer bought the ring, also says Us has it wrong: "The picture US Weekly printed showed was the wrong ring. That is not the ring that Spencer bought Heidi."
What was that about other tabloids printing "Fake News?"
But wait, there's more. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
