Tina Brown Is 'Done With' Hype; Pigs Fly
To say that Tina Brown is more fond of hype than any other major magazine editor is not necessarily to say anything bad about her; it's just to point out that she is Tina Brown—the editor who pathologically loves to celebrate celebrity. The editor whose Talk magazine launch party defined an entire era of media excess! It's worked for her. But suddenly, she's shy and retiring?
Jeremy Peters says that Newsweek has helped Tina discover her humble side:
"We're sort of done with that," Ms. Brown said in an interview from Newsweek's spare, sterile new office space near Wall Street, insisting that the kind of A-list soirée that helped define her tenures as editor of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and then Talk would have no place at her current home, where humility and frugality are the rule.
Funny, because while the doomed launch of Talk would have benefited from less hype, the relaunch of Newsweek would probably benefit from more hype. Anyone talking about Newsweek, at all, ever, can only help! (Which reminds us, anyone who's seen the magazine's new design, please email me. Anonymity guaranteed.)
Ah, redesigns. They sure are perilous.
