Media Power Couples List Is Hopelessly Damned
Oh look, another opportunity for media people to do what they love best: Talk about themselves and start shit on Twitter, this time in the context of the New York Observer's "New York Media Power Couples" list.
We are pleased to announce that the Observer—New York's foremost source of bizarrely curated power lists—isn't really sending teddy bears to everyone on the list, which is a relief, because the bear marked "Leslie Bennetts & Jeremy Gerard, Married" would have gotten them punched: Bennetts and Gerard divorced last year. (He wrote an article about it.) Meanwhile, Cristina Cuomo's name is spelled wrong; Alexis Bryan works at Lucky now, not Elle; Richard Blakeley's name is spelled wrong and no longer works at Gawker; Philip Gourevitch's name is spelled wrong; and are we sure James Surowiecki and Meghan O'Rourke are "married," again? Last we heard they were divorced, too.
Luckily, the Observer is happy to issue hasty revisions: Following Twitter criticism that the list was exceedingly white, the Observer just added exactly one black power couple, "Danyel Smith & Eliot Wilson, Married," who are now on the front page. They got that strategy from the layouts of college brochures.
"We asked for additions on Twitter and they were the first suggestion," Observer editor-in-chief (and Gawker founding editor) Elizabeth Spiers explained by email.
Meanwhile, my boyfriend and I are breaking up, out of spite. Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng—who are not on the list—are breaking up too, out of shame. There's always next years "Power Couples Who No Longer Have Sex But Are Too Addicted to Power Couple Status to Break Up" list. Spiers says the Observer will publish a Media Power Couples "addendum" tomorrow. [Observer, Murdoch/Deng image via Getty]
Update: One divorced couple removed from the list, another no longer listed as "married." But we thought of a new problem: Ezra Klein and Annie Lowrey can't be a "New York Media Power Couple" because they live in D.C.