TONY OF ALL MEDIA

Magazines still matter, of course. If not, then why did three separate stories about magazine covers dominate today's news cycle? Vanity Fair kicked off things early this morning when it tweeted this eye-catching  cover of a pregnant Serena Williams, photographed by Annie Leibovitz: Vanity Fair has a way of making headlines with its covers. Remember two years ago when its Caitlyn Jenner unveiling became not just the year's most talked about magazine but the most buzzed-about media event period? That bombshell image, like the Serena cover, was announced quietly, with just a simple tweet, meaning that the most arresting and impactful images don't require a press conference to get attention or to become iconic. Speaking of icons (to me anyway), here's another, much-chatted-about cover  of the day — unexpectedly belonging to Delta's in-flight magazine: Bustle noted that social media just couldn't quit talking  about this cover featuring Canada's rid...

Time Inc. has announced it is moving Food & Wine's operations from New York to Birmingham, Alabama. The magazine's leadership stressed in media reports that this is really no big deal, since foodie culture exists everywhere — including, coincidentally, in places where it costs a fraction to run a media company (or any business) versus Manhattan. Hunter Lewis — the editor of Cooking Light who now takes over Food & Wine since its awesome and highly respected editor, Nilou Motamed, refused to relocate — told the Times : "You can create and do business in food anywhere now." Meanwhile,  Forbes proclaimed that the move is "more proof that the South now rules American dining," noting that Birmingham has joined the likes of New Orleans, Atlanta and Nashville as one of the South's "food cities." I do not argue those points, nor do I fault the financially struggling Time Inc. with doing whatever it can to salvage its business. Still, this de...

(Via ESPN, The Magazine)

(Via Elle)

I've done my share of magazine profiles on celebrities and otherwise brushed up against a few boldface names in my time, and Forbes's list of the highest-paid entertainers features a handful of so-called personalities who bring back personal memories — some fond, some bad, and one in particular I am about as wistful for as that unfortunate tummy issue I once experienced in the Cartagena airport toilets. So, let's play a little game of "Friend or Enemy?"... Which seemingly nice but actually quite awful, very rich and popular celeb says "no" to absolutely everything — every magazine cover, every magazine profile, every top-10 list, every event, everything — she is invited to be part of, even if promised everything short of being called god in print? Which leading man once graced underwear ads but who in person turned out to look like a homeless person, and a short one? Which pop star came by the house for Thanksgiving, pre-fame, and was so app...

In his column today, the Times's Jim Rutenberg makes some excellent points about how Russiagate is different from Watergate—its central point being that the rise of the right-wing media has made it all that more difficult for actual facts to rise to the top. He won't get any argument from me on that. But it bears remembering that back in the 70s, despite the creation of Fox News still being decades into the future, there was a very real effort afoot, especially early on, to discredit The Washington Post as it peeled back the layers of Nixon's stinky onion, a fact that is underscored in the late Kay Graham's excellent, Pulitzer-winning autobiography, Personal History. The book is 20 years old now, but this Trump mess and its echoing of Watergate inspired me to revisit as an early-summer read what remains one of the best-written memoirs of a public figure I ever read—and its passages on the paper's takedown of Nixon are especially riveting, timely, and often pres...