Still more breaking news at The Huffington Report! An eminence no less celebrated than Tina Brown has popped her little head in to offer her wisdom to the nascent blog's many readers. Apparently this piece was originally intended for Radar but, well, one can't wait forever, can one? As a former editor, Brown is well aware of the ability of skilled professionals to clean up an essay, even one that consists mainly of bulleted points formatted to look like a deeply thought-out list, and the original draft she turned in bears some slight but noticeable differences from the final project. After the jump, we present Tina's first pass at the piece.

This image was lost some time after publication.


My book deadline looms (one has no idea how remarkably time-consuming it is to stretch the words Pretty girl dies in car crash into a full-length tome) so I had to kiss goodbye to my merry little CNBC show Topic A last week. And by kiss goodbye, I'm referring to that terrifying scene in Francis' Godfather, Part II, where Al kisses the late John Cazale, one of the finest actors in the last century. (I played the Fredo role in this case.) I'll miss chewing out the assistants over the sorry state of the chicken salad in the green rooms on Friday (how hard is it to request low-calorie mayonnaise? Idiots.) with that strange ravenousness that descends after taping a show. Especially as I was usually sharing it with the most entertaining people I could bully to come out to Englewood Cliffs at 830 a.m. in gridlocked traffic. But in contrast with my ratings, which started as a flat line and never showed any signs of rising, I also had a huge hunger to be vertical for a while. You can take the girl out of print but you cant take print out of the girl. Which is something I'm going to remind myself over and over when they remainder my Diana book.

Ten Things I learned at Topic A.

1) No matter what the subject - Nazis, popes, events of world import - most viewers were more interested in my hair. It's an unorthodox choice, but one with which I heartily concur.

2) Insincere smiles are strangely hard to do even after years of practice at cocktail parties. This is why I gurned and grimaced like a third-rate actor auditioning for the victim role in a Milgram experiment. Just be happy that I knew which camera to look at most times.

3) The most common excuse for guests not being asked to come on show was I am taping my own show at that time. Realized I no longer know anyone who doesn't have own talk show. Realized further that come May 29th, at least Harry will know someone without a show.

4) [CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SLUG IN SOME SORT OF A is the new B LINE HERE? I DON'T HAVE ALL BLOODY DAY TO COME UP WITH THESE THINGS, YOU KNOW.]!

5) Foreign names, unless they belong to someone extremely well-off or famous, are rather difficult for me to pronounce.

6) You cannot say the words George Clooney and Englewood Cliffs in the same breath. Other words you cannot say in the same breath, so long as I am in the room: Washed-up, failed vanity project, and embarrassing obsession with celebrity.

7) Jim Kramer makes just as much noise off air as on. Mad Money would be even more of a success if he'd let go of his subdued persona. You should have heard the fart he ripped in the green room before we taped. Thunderous!

8) The better a writer is on the page the worse he or she is likely to be on the air. This is why Lloyd Grove remains my all-time favorite guest.

9) Make up rooms at cable stations are the TV version of Glengarry Glen Ross. There's a lot of swearing, rivalry, and at the end, the most sympathetic character loses her (oops, I mean his) his job. It's all a bit tragic, really.

10) Topic A had one of the most professional and dedicated staffs I have ever worked with, even though they were clearly new to the concept of television as a medium for entertainment. Hiring alert: Molly Conroy. Ron Fried, Sarah Horne, Rich Flynn, Miriam Reinharth. Sara Leeder and Alexandra MacCallum will put up with anything, up to and including Abu-Ghraib-style discipline , and my dynamo producer Kathy O'Hearn is simply superb. (My wondrous assistant Kara Simonetti stays with me. That's the beauty of these seven-year apprentice contracts: there's no escape.) Before I go on air forever more I shall hear O'Hearn say, Teeth! Teeth! Show me some teeth! And then, of course, I'll flash that terrifying rictus that was supposed to resemble a grin.

Thanks to all of you, gang. And lets have fun pretending we're not running out the clock on the last few shows.

Posted at 02:05 PM | permalink
AB
Ten Things I learned at Topic A. [The Huffington Post]