Tina Brown

It's possible that she's hard on herself in private, but in public Tina Brown has never been one for self-doubt. A precocious magazine editor who breathed new life into the fusty Tatler (at age 25), Vanity Fair (at 30) and the venerable New Yorker (at 38), Brown's success was notable for many things, among them the envy it inspired and her prodigious talent for self-promotion. And then came Talk, the magazine, book and entertainment venture that was supposed to secure her place in the cultural firmament, starting with the scandalously decadent launch party she threw at the foot of the Statue of Liberty in August 1999.

Re "Newsweek to discontinue print edition at year's end," Business, Oct. 19 Sadly enough, nothing lasts forever. Despite Newsweek's nearly 80 years in print, since the takeover by editor Tina Brown and her magazine makeover, I've watched the publication progress into a downward spiral. What's been most disappointing to me were the stories that read more like gossip instead of being genuinely newsworthy. Oddly enough, just days ago, I made a decision not to renew my subscription after 26 years of reading the magazine.

There is so much undiluted undisguised assurance in the room where Tina Brown works that "power seating" is unnecessary--the editor in chief of Vanity Fair works on a table she designed in the shape of an apostrophe. So it really doesn't matter who sits where. Because Tina Brown is sitting at the figurative head of the table, anyway. The Times of London calls her the highest-profile editor in New York. But Tina Brown is after more than Faux Glitz.

KEN BRECHER LIBRARY FOUNDATION OF LOS ANGELES PRESIDENT What should the 21st century library look like? That's the question Ken Brecher has been asking; it propelled him to visit more than 60 of the 73 branches of the Los Angeles Public Library in his first 10 months as president of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. The foundation raises money to support the programs of the city's libraries, a critical role as the libraries have fallen victim to recent city budget cuts.

Magazines reflect and inform the culture like no other medium, and Vanity Fair has influenced magazines like no other publication of late. So Tina Brown, the editor-in-chief who made Vanity Fair what it is, is a natural profile subject. "Queen Tina," in the May issue of Spy, is different from most recent portraits of Brown, though--more like the profiles writers did before Vanity Fair's pull-those-punches approach became pervasive.

The earthquake that shook the brie-ridden world of the cultural elite this month was the announcement that Vanity Fair Editor Tina Brown would be hopping over to the New Yorker. Words such as venerable are usually used to describe the New Yorker, just as flashy usually goes with the mag Brown leaves behind. Social Climes heard that the reaction around the Vanity Fair office in New York was primarily in the how-does-this-affect- moi range.

In a major publishing shake-up, Tina Brown, editor of Vanity Fair, will relinquish her post and take over the venerable but troubled New Yorker this fall, it was announced Tuesday. Robert Gottlieb, current editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, said he was stepping down because of "conceptual differences" over the magazine's future with S.I. (Si) Newhouse, the media tycoon whose family owns both publications.

Throughout snootier Manhattan nooks, the familiar sound of the New Yorker magazine plopping through mail slots this week has been followed by another distinct refrain: Aaaarrrggghh! The new issue, after all, marks the premiere of Tina Brown as editor of America's most prestigious journal and, it has been suggested, the long-dreaded arrival of cultural Armageddon. Right? Well. . . .

She has been lionized and demonized, hailed as the most brilliant editor on either side of the Atlantic and denounced--usually off the record or in stage whispers--as a frosty perfectionist with a rare talent for self-promotion. Yet few would deny that, wherever she has gone, Tina Brown has made the clubby, inbred world of magazine publishing a more colorful, unpredictable place.

On a good day, and allowing for traffic, the trip between Hackensack, N.J., and the plush midtown Manhattan offices of Conde Nast Publications takes about 15 minutes. For Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown the journey was more like 10 years, a series of British magazines and newspapers, a string of honors and awards, a miracle-worker transformation of Britain's flagging Tatler, two well-received books, a high-profile courtship and marriage and a sequined G-string.

It's a familiar story: A seemingly mismatched pair falls for each other and ties the knot while some look on hopefully and others hold their breath. The merger of Newsweek magazine and the Daily Beast website, announced Friday, is a classic May-December marriage. Newsweek, 77 years old and recently purchased for a dollar by audio pioneer Sidney Harman, gets an infusion of energy and immediacy from the 2-year-old Beast and its irrepressible editor and co-founder, Tina Brown. The Daily Beast, part of media mogul Barry Diller's InterActive Corp.

It's possible that she's hard on herself in private, but in public Tina Brown has never been one for self-doubt. A precocious magazine editor who breathed new life into the fusty Tatler (at age 25), Vanity Fair (at 30) and the venerable New Yorker (at 38), Brown's success was notable for many things, among them the envy it inspired and her prodigious talent for self-promotion. And then came Talk, the magazine, book and entertainment venture that was supposed to secure her place in the cultural firmament, starting with the scandalously decadent launch party she threw at the foot of the Statue of Liberty in August 1999.

In a recent interview designed to gin up interest in her new webzine, the Daily Beast, Tina Brown -- former editor of such buzz-infused publications as Vanity Fair and the New Yorker -- offered a keen precis on the Gospel of Buzz. Her interlocutor asked Brown how she dealt with the nasty jabs and vicious smears and mean-spirited quips that have come flying her way over the years, as her employment fortunes rose and fell and rose.

It wasn't so long ago that Tina Brown and Bonnie Fuller were busy transforming entire magazine genres. They lived on opposite ends of the taste spectrum -- Brown edited Vanity Fair and the New Yorker; Fuller revamped Glamour, then reinvented the celebrity gossip concept at Us Weekly and later Star -- but the two had a similar formula: a willingness to throw out the old model, a feel for where the culture was heading and a forward-driving tenacity that...

It was a balmy summer evening, but Tina Brown kept her jacket on all through the launch party held at Spago on Tuesday for her new tell-all biography of Princess Diana, "The Diana Chronicles. "This isn't very glamorous, I'm afraid," she said, lifting her sleeve to reveal the cast on her left arm. "What happened?" asked Warren Beatty. He reached for the injured hand and inspected it with the exaggerated tenderness of a silent film star until Brown pulled away, laughing girlishly.

FRIDAY MOVIES Baa, baa, bad sheep Hordes of genetically engineered mutton are transformed into ravenous, flesh-eating killers in the New Zealand horror-comedy "Black Sheep," which takes a gentle poke at the Kiwi national identity. Jonathan King directs. "Black Sheep," unrated, opens Friday in selected theaters. CABARET She needs no truth lasso Wonder Woman doing a cabaret act? What will she do if you don't applaud? Toss you out the door?

No matter that Nancy Reagan just said no. Tout Hollywood just said yes. Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown pulled together an eclectic, star-filled A-list party Thursday night at Culver Studios to drum up support for Phoenix House, the substance-abuse program headed by Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal. Phoenix House used to have a strong cheerleader in the former First Lady until she yanked her support.

A friend from New York writes: "Perhaps you heard about the earthquake. We mean our Big One, the major shock that forced New York magazine mavens to double their lunchtime martini intake: Tina Brown, the noted glitz addict and editor of Vanity Fair, is becoming, God help us, editor of the New Yorker. "Frankly, we're concerned. Like everyone else, we have a certain fondness for the New Yorker.

I just finished reading Tina Brown's new book, "The Diana Chronicles," and I think I'm going to the chiropractor now. I read every whiplash chapter and came away rubbing my cervical vertebrae. This book is the closest I'll ever get to knowing Diana, the late Princess of Wales: a woman mesmerizing and charming one moment, manipulative and calculating the next ... all affection and confiding phone calls one week, and the next, the coldest, best-dressed shoulder in England.

On Jan. 27, its second day on the air, CNBC's new "Dennis Miller Show" had a potentially nice boost lined up: A live-via-satellite visit from none other than Tim Russert, host of NBC News' "Meet the Press," talking about that night's New Hampshire primary results. The popular Russert had agreed to squeeze Miller into his tight schedule of election updates on NBC and MSNBC. At the appointed hour, he slid into his seat in the makeshift Bedford, N.H.