In Other News, Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead

Seen on Drudge: L.A. Times and N.Y. Times investigating Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter:

Both the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times are working on major stories about whether Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is using his close ties to Hollywood to benefit financially, the L.A. Weekly has learned.

With all due respect to Matt Drudge, I have to ask: this is news?

The Weekly has learned that last week, Cieply, while conducting one interview, claimed to have "six cases already" of Carter’s benefiting financially from his cozy relationship with Hollywood. Other sources say that one angle the LAT is pursuing is whether Carter benefits financially from who gets on the cover.

Of course he does! Again, why is this news to anybody?

The general consensus is that for some time, Vanity Fair’s coverage of Hollywood has changed dramatically, and not for the better. Sure, the celebrity cover stories have always been, and probably always will be, puff pieces. But at the start of Carter’s editorship, on June 30, 1992, and continuing until 2000, the magazine seemed intent on exhaustively reporting every twist and turn in the entertainment business.

. . .

But then came the February 2000 departure of deputy editor George Hodgman, who edited many of the toughest Hollywood articles. Kim Masters’ contract wasn’t renewed. Her apparent replacement, Ned Zeman, regularly writes entertainment-business articles with a decidedly positive spin to them and is now writing screenplays on the side. Today, the conventional wisdom is that VF won’t go after entertainment moguls, who often are Big Media moguls as well, as long as they keep their jobs.

And there's gambling going on at Rick's? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

But the real question for the LAT and NYT to consider is whether the VF editor’s kinship with Hollywood is worse than, say, fellow Conde Nast personality and Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s hand-in-glove relationship with the fashion industry.

I thought of this, too, and it's not only because I recently read The Devil Wears Prada (hey, they tell aspiring writers to read outside of their genre, and I figure featherweight chick-lit is about as far away from my genre as I can get...). It's exactly the same thing, and why does anybody outside the Big Media funhouse give a rat's ass about any of it?

Apparently, I cared enough to give it 100 words and fifteen minutes of my time.