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
With its revamped website and Graydon Carter's video introductions to each new issue, Vanity Fair clearly considers itself a major player in the Internet leagues. That VF grasps so desperately at each new meme, however, isn't a publishing industry triumph; it's a sad little whimper from inside Conde Nast, where they've been unable to trade up their celebrity currency for online relevance.
And then came "How the Web Was Won," the lengthy "oral history" of the Internet, which debuted online as the biggest piece of link bait yet. (You know how us Internet types like to link to things that talk about our own kind.) And with it, a Web 2.0 sidebar: "Blogoptican," which throws a few dozen Internet titles – many of them not even blogs – on a matrix, measuring them vertically between news and opinion, and horizontally between scurrilous and honest.
That Jossip appears toward the scurrilous pole is not so much an honor, but an expectation; of course we'd end up there.
And then there are the celebrity gossip titles, which generously populate the list, and go a little something like this: CONTINUED »
On that never-ending Vanity Fair article on Bill Clinton: "Just as I argued that we should not let what’s right with Purdum (his “nicest guy” and “ex-New York Timesman” cred) distract us from talking about what’s wrong with his Clinton article (namely that, as Jay Rosen wrote in explaining why it doesn’t meet OffTheBus’s standards for publication, “it supports damaging allegations with unnamed sources”), let’s not let how we feel about Show Girls, for example, (or the fact that Gershon made the above statements while on Regis and Kelly to Regis-substitute Mario Lopez) overshadow the valid questions that Gershon raises about Purdum’s piece." [CJR]
After Bill Clinton and Angelina Jolie, Vanity Fair has at least one more enterprising story up its sleeve: The history of the Internet. "How the Web Was Won" is a blowjob piece to the web's pioneers — not that they aren't deserving of respect, but this article is pure link bait.
Why now? Because 50 years ago, the U.S. government set up ARPA, the precursor to the thing you use today to receive email forwards from your mother and find one-off sex partners. So it's very milestone-y.
And already, the critics are lashing about: CONTINUED »
After, presumably, watching (or hearing about) Todd Purdum's CNN appearance, where he defending against allegations his article on Bill Clinton "insinuated" anything, VF editor Graydon Carter finally got around to weighing in on the controversy: "The responses from the former president and his camp are very saddening in their own ways. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking." [NYO]
It's just like when we learned Graydon was smoking again. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking.
Gina Gershon is lying in the same bed as Bill Clinton. But not in the way you think!
In fact, if you were thinking that way, then you'll understand the whole reason Gershon is complaining about Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article in the same way Clinton was: Because she claims the insinutations made about her – that she enjoyed the romantic company of the ex-president – aren't true. So she's got her mouth-off-y lawyers at Lavely & Singer demanding VF issue a retraction for a story … that just keeps on giving. CONTINUED »
Vanity Fair yesterday trotted out Todd Purdum, the author of the 10,000-word Bill Clinton piece "The Comeback Id" article," on CNN's The Situation Room, where Wolf Blitzer read passages from the Clinton camp's lengthy response, and Purdum had a chance to defend himself against accusations that he penned what amounts to an egregiously long gossip column.
Below, we're going to quote a few big chunks from his CNN interview. But one general theme is clear: Purdum's defense against the ex-president's rebuttal is that he doesn't insinuate anything about Clinton; he simply is reporting some of the concerns about people who know Clinton.
Know what that sounds like? Jossip's entire M.O.
We don't always care about the facts of a story; we care whether insiders are pushing one gossip tidbit or another, because the mere presence of somebody's agenda is, to us, newsworthy. If whatever piece of information a source is pushing turns out to be true, fantastic — but the inner workings of the gossip industry is what always gets our attention.
Vanity Fair, however, does not stoop to this "low," as some might describe it. The magazine aims to be an upstanding, above-the-fray news source. But it's very arguable that Purdum's story did nothing but stir the gossip mill, push insiders' agendas, and make for very interesting inside baseball commentary. And it will sell magazine's for Graydon Carter and Conde Nast. But it will not help brand the magazine's reputation in authenticity.
True, reporters need not "insinuate" anything. The facts of the matter should do that. But basing your entire pitch on, say, doctors who have never treated Clinton is like a celebrity tabloid, well, doing the exact same thing.
And with that, Purdum's defense: CONTINUED »
God bless those embed reporters. Some are armed with handheld video cameras. Others? Audio recorders. Which made for this fine clip of Bill Clinton responding to Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article — which he sort of already did with that lengthy-ass letter. But now Clinton is saying things like: "[Purdum is] sleazy. He's a really dishonest reporter. And one of our guys talked to him . . . And I haven't read [the article]. But he told me there's five or six just blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy. [...] Let me tell ya– he's one of the guys — he's one of the guys that propagated all those lies about Whitewater to Kenneth Starr. He's just a dishonest guy– can't help it."
And that's when he brought up David Granger. CONTINUED »
J.C., Clinton!
After Vanity Fair's long expose – a writearound, in fact, given that Bill Clinton refused to participate – in the July issue, which is getting more play thanks to the voluptuous Angelina Jolie gracing the cover, the ex-president's camp appears to have copy/pasted from its defense playbook, countering the article and the magazine that has a "penchant for libel."
Todd Purdum's article arrives just in time, because at some point this week, wife Hillary will be an after-thought as Barack Obama champions toward November, and our focus, genuinely, jumps to Obama vs McCain.
So while the public can still be relied upon for its interest in the Clintons, VF hits with "The Comeback Id," which opens with a not-so-kind portrayal of Clinton and his skeevy friends, like Ron Burkle, owner of the plane "Air Fuck One," and Steve Bing, whose favorite pastime is litigation. (Though there is this line: "In fairness, it should be said that Clinton’s entourage that weekend also included his daughter, Chelsea, and her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, and no one who was there has adduced the slightest evidence that Clinton’s behavior was anything other than proper.")
The article, all nearly 10,000 words of it, which jumps around from his presidency and his scandals to his new sources of income and his role in his wife's campaign, can be summed up in this way: "What’s the matter with him?" CONTINUED »
In the movie version of Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Graydon Carter isn't the pompous blowhard he's depicted as in media reports. He's the pompous blowhard who discards bad fashion. [P6]
When not issuing belly laughs and chortles at the Waverly, Graydon Carter is turning on his charm for this new thing called web video. He's using it to plug the new issue of Miley Cyrus porn Vanity Fair, the June issue, and you can tell he's making his best effort at comedy. Giving us a tour of June's pages, Carter also reminds us of those timid NY1 anchors doing "In The Papers." Video here.
ELLEgirl (Or is it elleGIRL? Keep forgetting!) is that Hachette Filipacchi tween mag that killed its print version but, in a bout of separation anxiety, insisted on keeping the dot-com alive. It's also the website that's asking you to vote for the next Miley Cyrus, that human Disney brand.
Because it's a PG site, the poll actually asks you to pick among "12 teens who have what it takes to be the next It Girl," including Haley Joel Osment's sister Emily (left), iCarly's Miranda Cosgrove, and Missy Elliot music video breakdancer Alyson Stoner (right, from back then).
But what they're really asking is: Which rising tween starlet is going to be the next to skank it up for a magazine? It's going to be a tough call if you haven't read J-14 lately.
Important magazine people have important things to say about unimportant Miley Cyrus scandal. The New Yorker's David Remnick: "I think it's sanctimonious nonsense." [NYM]
"Hitwise reports today that VanityFair.com traffic spiked by a factor of 20, that searches for the Leibovitz photos doubled the searches for Lindsay Lohan's for-real topless pics in New York Magazine. Hitwise Director of Research Heather Dougherty says 98% of Vanity Fair's traffic was comprised of visitors who had never visited the site before." Just wait till you see the newsstand numbers. [WPN]
Editorial Director
