The LAT recaps the Graydon Carter GraydonGate™ non-scandal, with a couple of mentions of future projects the Vanity Fair editor may or may not participate in. But it all starts with The Curiously Symbolic Story of the Oscar-Shaped Shrubbery:
From the NYT Boldface Names:
BREAKING! The Vogue vs. Teen Vogue soccer match has been postponed:
We give the LA Times credit: their endless piece today really wants Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter to look dirty. Of course, it's not hard at all to make his ties to Hollywood look filthy. But it's never gonna stick — no matter how many Conde Nast researchers he's got working on his personal six-figure book project.
Part of my current magazine-phobia (for which I'm seeking treatment, don't be alarmed) is that I can't figure out what magazines are supposed to be read by which people these days. Fortunately, their advertisers will let us know, reports a spy:
I'm not sure where Mediabistro found all these incredibly flattering photographs of magazine editors for today's "Hot or Not" poll. We'd like to stick some Post-Its on the headshots, with warnings: "Secretly chunky!" "Total midget!" "Ridiculously gassy!" "Poorly hung!" "Total bitch!"
We hear that Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter got some heat from upstairs over his July issue. "WAY too much David Beckham," said the powers that be of the soccer/football/whatever-star-laden issue — probably right around the time that they got the million-dollar Annie Leibovitz photography bill. Well, next month's Ronald Reagan cover should be the flip side of the boring coin. We hear Mr. Reagan recently had some serious health problems? Perhaps VF will give us a timely update.
There's actually lots of gossip hidden away in the kiddie columns in the weekly tabloids. New York Post's Elisa Lipsky-Karasz's still suffers through last-minute edits, while Daily News-boy Ben Widdicombe kicks things up a notch in the competition. The full report:
· Comedian Richard Pryor doesn't seem too amenable to plans by former NYT film critic Elvis Mitchell to write a book about him. Pryor's book on himself, co-written with Jennifer Lee Pryor (his 6th and 8th wife), is hitting the publishers now. [NYP]
· Poor Dominick Dunne — the Vanity Fair writer's source-payment pseudo-scandal just won't die. (He's just not as teflon as his scandal-proof boss Graydon Carter, evidently.) Martha Jane Shelton says Dunne paid her to make shit up: he points to her and makes the universal sign for crazy. [WaPo]
· NYT public editor Dan Okrent is gunning for the paper's over-reliance on anonymous sources. It turns out that people unwilling to speak on the record might have agendas! Horror. [NYT]
The New York Times's Marianne Rohrlich seems to have gone ballistic on some nice little weblogger. Reportedly, Ms. Rohrlich, of the House and Home section, called the weblog Apartment Therapy and said "Did it occur to you that it is not right to just lift other people's work? Our legal department is going to be calling you!" We find it odd that Ms. Rohrlich doesn't use contractions when she talks, but hey, we're taking their word on it.
I got really homoerotically confused at the newstand this morning, until I realized it was gay pride month. (Yes, that's probably just a coincidence.) But anyway, happy gayest magazine covers ever, gays!
The new Conde Nast policy guide is out — a riveting read, really, like many of their fine magazines — and it gets all New York Times on everyone's ass. Their ethics guidelines are basically on par with the rules for gifts to the White House, like this bit from page six:
Now we're semi-sure that yesterday's ridiculous impending-terror email started with a young man at CNN. (Of course, you can never tell with these damn things — they spread like herpes at an all-girl's private school.) The NYPD claims the email is a virus, but we see that most of these were forwarded intentionally. We also hear that CNN boy is feeling the heat in the office. Of course, there's always another (far more sarcastic) explanation...
New York mag's Deborah Schoeneman, who writes the Intelligencer column, explains the tricks of the trade:
It's hot and fugly, and to us, that means moving less and having the interns put more ice in the drinks. For others, the heat is somehow a cue to play sports. Last night in Central Park, for no apparent sane reason, the New York Times played softball against the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair played against Details.
More from Monday's Howard Rubenstein PR party, in which Dr. Ruth puts today's whipper-snapper social-climbers to shame:
Guess what: people — normal, upwardly mobile, non-trailer-park-living urban-type people — actually like gossip and trash. Though gossip mags have always been associated with chunky women in line at the Piggly Wiggly in Wisconsin, we've always known the truth was different — and now we've got a little bit of proof.
