Zeitgeist Genius Tina Brown on Meghan Markle, Vanity Fair and Whether We Still Need Editors

Comments · 115

• AN

  @anngarnsey3622 · 1 year ago

  My mother always said manners are there to make others comfortable.

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• PA

  @paulaallen4106 · 1 year ago

  I miss Tina Brown very much. She can take any magazine and make it fun and interesting.

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• SU

  @sudarshanarangachary4196 · 1 year ago

  Tina Brown is so on point re the uncouth culture and a true antipathy for any thing learned, well considered, well argued perspective. It is truly sad that we have morphed into this. There is very little appreciation for a well considered and well  executed piece of writing or movie or book or magazine… we seem to have no time for it. Everything has to be in 140 character bites or short video format. This has nothing to do with generational shifts but more of a shift to transactional connection with the world.

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• DI

  @DianeWolff-w3w · 1 year ago (edited)

  Here's another comment, Tina. I write history and I am a China specialist. I could not get New York editors to do a story about an Asian culture, like Shogun. Until Shogun hit. Then suddenly, the previous prejudice of editors which was that Asian history is exotic, became global history, which means that the editorial perspective has to include the globe. The new platforms for serialized storytelling allowed me to experiment with great material that I had researched to see if audiences liked it. In this case, I was testing the material for ninth grade and up, companion texts for classes in global history, where most students have their first encounter with Asia. I could eliminate the gatekeeper who was making, in my opinion, a faulty judgement, and go straight to the reader. I had been encouraged in this by an eminent scholar who wanted books to excite students about history. The important thing was to create something that stuck close to the sources.

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• KA

  @KathleenSmith-w2t · 1 year ago

  I agree.  I am seeing a lack of dignity by shopping with people wearing their pajamas and slippers.

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• CA

  @cavaliermama56 · 1 year ago

  I miss glossy magazines so much.  Nobody was better than Tina Brown at Vanity Fair.

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• KI

  @kirahastings9900 · 1 year ago

  Enjoyed this interview immensely.  A longtime subscriber to Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, I've read both Tina's and Graydon's memoirs and enjoyed them immensely.  Like them, I miss the heyday of the magazine format and the investigative journalism that Vanity Fair did with such flair under the above-mentioned editors.  I don't find substacks a substitute for that.  And as you have discussed, information is so scattered that it's almost impossible to get a true picture of the situation.  There is also an economic drawback.  Where once a year's subscription to a magazine got you 12 months of focused information, consumers are now faced with a myriad of paywalls, which few can afford.

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• EL

  @Elizabeth-yg2mg · 1 year ago

  I miss Vanity Fair when Tina Brown was editor.  It was juicy.

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• LI

  @lily_m3538 · 1 year ago

  Great program. Subscribed. Love the newsletter.

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• CO

  @cornelia9778 · 1 year ago

  I loved Vanity Fair since it introduced me to lots of issues and people that I knew nothing about and would never have known about without Vanity Fair. I don’t have time nor do I want to delve into issues. Good magazines provide good overviews of relevant issues mixed with some gossip. Love them.

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• JO

  @joanholg15 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Vanity Fair was at its best, imo, when Tina Brown was editor. I’m a decades long VF subscriber - it’s great fun to read - but the last couple of years it’s been an online subscription only.

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• AN

  @annabanana-i6n · 1 year ago

  Enjoyed this chat, thank you. <br>Subscribed ☑️

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