CJR newsletter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nA celebrity is, by definition, considered one either because they have a disposition toward media coverage, or because they get media coverage as a consequence of their known work or behavior. A magazine provides proof of status\u2014still\u2014at a certain stratosphere of fame, and in turn exhibits its own relevance by bestowing attention. The phrase \u201csymbiotic relationship\u201d doesn\u2019t even begin to cover it. This is textbook codependency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are some assumptions I\u2019ve encountered, and occasionally held myself, as I\u2019ve worked on celebrity profiles over the years. One is the idea that the magazine profile is hollow, without much substance or urgency. Most people are familiar with the concept of media training, and anyone paying attention to pop culture can see that there are certain rules a celebrity is expected to follow that often amount to tepid or tightly controlled writing about them. (Celebrity profiles \u201ccannot be the search for information, since there is little information in them,\u201d as Elizabeth Hardwick wrote in 1986. \u201cTo know the sanitized items, in almost infinite repetition, about the famous indicates an overwhelming appetite.\u201d) Zach Baron\u2014the senior special-projects editor at GQ<\/em>, who has written dozens of cover stories since joining, in 2013\u2014described \u201ca kind of baseline adversarial idea, which is that celebrities are not fundamentally serious.\u201d When he was starting out, he recalled, \u201cyou\u2019d go and talk to someone and come back, and your editor would almost be like, Who won?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nAnother assumption is routineness: celebrities show their homes in shelter magazines, their makeup routines in beauty magazines; they visit a suitably chic and conveniently located restaurant to talk over lunch. Sometimes there\u2019s a little gimmick\u2014maybe going to an amusement park, or a ceramics class, or a bar with a ghost story. The pressure to accommodate a celebrity of a certain level of fame or influence in exchange for access can encourage compromise. An editor told me that if a certain pop star offered to sneeze on their publication\u2019s Instagram account, they would accept. Which leads to another assumption: that any value a magazine profile might have once had as the sole source of access to a celebrity has plummeted now that they\u2019re all posting on social media themselves. Baron feels differently. \u201cI\u2019m interested in the empathy of this work,\u201d he told me. \u201cHow people think, how they see the world and figure out what their art is. They\u2019re just a human in the world, doing their thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At Cond\u00e9 Nast, there\u2019s a centralized team, referred to as \u201cthe talent group,\u201d that is exclusively dedicated to the task of coordinating celebrity-profile logistics across the company. Publicists will talk to the talent group with the expectation that all possible publications relevant to their client will be approached, rather than one magazine in particular; in turn, the publications selected will suggest how their title would uniquely feature the celebrity. (\u201cI personally don\u2019t love that format,\u201d an editor at Cond\u00e9 Nast told me. \u201cI think it puts way too much power in the publicist\u2019s hands to decide how they want to position their talent. I think the bookers are so careful with these relationships, and are always good cop. I play bad cop a little bit, like, I\u2019m not going to send questions ahead of time<\/em>.\u201d) There can also be aftershocks: a few years ago, GQ<\/em> (a Cond\u00e9 outlet) published a piece critical of David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery; WBD quickly raised objections and, within hours, the story was removed from the internet.<\/p>\nSimilar arrangements exist elsewhere, and lead to ethical quandaries. An editor who has experience assigning profiles of celebrities by writers, as well as interviews between celebrities, told me that he estimates that publicists request to have certain topics stay off-limits before the interview, or for an on-the-record answer to be removed after the interview, maybe 70 percent of the time. A couple of situations have involved signing a nondisclosure agreement. Sometimes, for an on-record response that this editor would consider a conversation highlight, he would just tell them that, with apologies, there is no change he can make on their behalf. Other times, it is something so uninteresting, the publicist\u2019s attention to it comes as a surprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One particularly intriguing conundrum happened during last year\u2019s Hollywood awards season. A celebrity was talking candidly about her four children, and no one blinked. After the interview, a publicist called an editor to say that only two of those children are publicly known, and asked for the answer to be updated to be about the celebrity and her two <\/em>children. \u201cIt\u2019s strange, because you wonder about the celebrity\u2019s motivation for keeping two of their four children secret,\u201d the editor told me. \u201cBut it\u2019s also like, if that\u2019s going to do damage to you, then it\u2019s truly not advantageous to us to publish it. So, sure, we can leave that out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nIn another recent instance, Vanity Fair<\/em> produced a video featuring Chloe Fineman, the Saturday Night Live<\/em> cast member, and, upon hearing the objection of an SNL publicist, cut some distasteful details about the time she was working as a camp counselor and, as she said, \u201cpantsed a boy\u201d\u2014specifically, that the child was six and his \u201clittle ding-a-ling was out.\u201d (A spokesperson for SNL didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment; Vanity Fair<\/em> had nothing to add.)<\/p>\n\n
Sign up for CJR\u2019s<\/span> daily email<\/nobr><\/span><\/center><\/div>\n<\/div>\nAn editor at a lifestyle magazine told me that she\u2019ll often find herself pitched celebrity stories that are, in fact, ways for a celebrity to promote a brand that they either own or have a sponsorship deal with. A publicist will say the celebrity will only answer questions about <\/em>x product,<\/em> and the editor will then need to reply, explaining that journalism is not the same as branded content.<\/p>\nSupplementary interviews may be common in celebrity profiles, but they come with their own form of negotiation. Baron told me that his approach varies quite a bit, and he\u2019ll even occasionally do an entire profile without including one. While Baron was reporting a piece on James Cameron, the film director, Cameron told him that he had dived a submarine into the deepest part of the ocean. \u201cHe sort of dismissively mentioned that this other guy claims that he<\/em> went deeper, but he couldn\u2019t have,\u201d Baron recalled. \u201cSo I called the other guy. It\u2019s not really what you do in celebrity profiles, but I was just like, \u2018Hey man, James Cameron says that he\u2019s been deeper in the ocean than you have.<\/em>\u2019\u201d And this guy was like, \u2019Well, I disagree with James Cameron, but I really liked Titanic<\/em>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nI know a freelance writer for whom celebrity profiles and cover stories provide a major part of her income. She is in a position to accept assignments from a wide range of culture, fashion, and lifestyle magazine, and the list of names in her portfolio is decidedly A-list. The pressure to maintain a good relationship with celebrity publicists is as much strategic as it is basic etiquette. \u201cIt\u2019s usually two or three of the same companies,\u201d she told me. The consolidation seen in media, publishing, and film, among other industries, happens with publicists too; there are a few agencies that have the dominant market share of celebrity clients, and so a certain amount of repetition is perhaps to be expected in all aspects of this coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For that reason, she is as polite as possible but maintains strict boundaries: \u201cAnything that has to do with editorial, I\u2019m like, \u2018I answer to the editor.\u2019\u201d Sometimes a publicist will, subtly or otherwise, do their best to determine the direction of the story. \u201cWhat they love to do is call you the day of the interview, or text literally hours before, like, Hey, can we hop on a call<\/em>? Without saying what it is. But I already know from experience. I can imagine that a young journalist would be like, Oh, I guess I have to speak to this publicist<\/em>, but I\u2019ll say: anything to do with the interview, they need to speak to the editor.\u201d Others will attempt to sidestep unpleasant questions that may not relate directly to their client\u2014such as when news breaks about a former collaborator being in trouble, or rumors that the client has been removed from a job.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI understand that it\u2019s easier, probably, for them to just try to hit up the writer and say, Hey, please don\u2019t talk about this<\/em>. I try to find some way of saying, \u2019I\u2019m asking the questions people want to know, and the person can always decline to answer.\u2019 Why are they trying to control me, the journalist, and what I do? Why not tell their client?\u201d<\/p>\nEven once the interview ends and seems to have gone well, there\u2019s a chance of esprit de l\u2019escalier. <\/em>After interviewing a particular celebrity, the freelancer felt they had a totally reasonable conversation about the limits of what the celebrity could and couldn\u2019t say on the record, neither pushing to comment nor ignoring a necessary question. Days later, the publicist called the editor to say that her client found the interview \u201cpersonal\u201d and was \u201cupset,\u201d trying to make sure that the story didn\u2019t include whatever might have been embarrassing. \u201cI think the publicist was trying to influence me, in some way, and they were basically able to read the story before it was published, which I\u2019ve never dealt with. It\u2019s a salty taste.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nI have experienced some of this in my own work as an editor or writer for different fashion and culture or lifestyle magazines. There are things I know that can\u2019t be printed, only hinted at: I know which famous man has a fear of an animal species usually considered cute. I knew when a supposedly single famous woman got secretly married to another celebrity. I have sometimes suspected that I have lost access to assignments because I lacked a certain profile, or because I exhibited certain political opinions. Most publicists use vague terms, such as telling the editor that they don\u2019t believe I\u2019m a good culture fit. Only one publicist has ever said I couldn\u2019t interview their client because of my views on Israel\u2019s genocide on Palestine\u2014and then emailed back a week later to say that, on second thought, I could take the assignment, as long as I promised not to mention Palestine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I do care very much about the ethics of writing, and believe that our standards must stay so high that they never risk slipping too low, but when it comes to celebrity profiles, the people we are interviewing don\u2019t hold the nuclear codes. I spoke with an editor in chief at a culture magazine who comes from a news and politics background, and who has found, in his current job, a new form of engagement with subjects as \u201cthe talent.\u201d He is expected to direct and lead celebrity covers as well as manage coverage encompassing pop culture, politics, and news; he is also responsible for making sure that the stories featured in the magazine circulate digitally and socially, often requiring video as well as photography. \u201cWe\u2019re paying for a stylist and hair and makeup; we\u2019re asking them to be on location for a certain amount of time,\u201d he said. \u201dIt\u2019s more demanding than just calling to ask a few questions and get a quote.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some editors told me that they\u2019re given either an implied or explicit directive to work with certain celebrities, but the real metric of success is, still and for the foreseeable future, the elusive \u201cclick.\u201d What will make someone open the link? \u201cCelebrity stories get more clicks,\u201d the editor from the lifestyle magazine told me. \u201cWith all the changes to Google and general struggles in social media, we\u2019re all looking for a way to break through. The celebrity profile is still a pretty surefire way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s harder to make \u2019moments\u2019 in modern culture, when everyone has Instagram,\u201d Baron said. \u201cThere is something different about the cover of GQ<\/em> or the cover of Vanity Fair<\/em> that compels people to look. And also, a lot of very talented, artistic people work on this\u2014incredible photographers, stylists, hopefully paired with a great journalist. There is a quality and expertise brought to this stuff that even very famous people can\u2019t do on their own. Beyonc\u00e9 has to employ a lot, a lot, a lot <\/em>of people to do her own state-run media.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI always say that I think everyone is a magazine now,\u201d an editor for a pop culture\u2013 and news-driven magazine told me. \u201cEveryone on Instagram feels like they are their own magazine, and they at least think they know how to do what we\u2019re doing. So if you\u2019re going to ask for people to invest in you as a publication, and you\u2019re going to ask them to respect you more than a TikTok account, you have to offer them something greater.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n