'Daily News' Proprietor Exactly As Exciting As 'Daily News'
If you're of the opinion that wealthy people are innately fascinating because of their wealth, Nick Paumgarten's 13-page New Yorker profile of Daily News proprietor and real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman is a helpful corrective. That thing is a Lunesta in tiny type. We're not even inclined to blame Paumgarten on this one: Zuckerman may be the most boring billionaire in the world, which is particularly surprising considering he's essentially self-made, and his Canadian Jew background alone should at least provide some spark of interest. But guess what? He's full of himself, he brags about his influence in the political sphere, he talks a lot, he used to bang Gloria Steinem, and, uh, that's it. It's telling that Zuckerman only seems interesting in the pages of the New York Post, which has a vested interest in making its rival look bad. In fact, the only amusing anecdote to come out of the story sounds like something you'd read in the Post.
A good Mort story, of the kind not told, or even remembered by Mort himself, has [former U.S. News & World Report editor Roger] Rosenblatt and Zuckerman on their way to Washington on Zuckerman's private jet, to announce Rosenblatt's resignation to the staff of U.S. News. The plane hits turbulence, and Rosenblatt and Zuckerman go flying out of their seats. Zuckerman turns to Rosenblatt and says, 'Did you see what just happened to me?'
And that's it. We can understand why Ken Auletta passed on this assignment.
