which Condé Nast feature should you read??
Fire up those mechanical pencils kiddos ‘cause we’ve got a lil compare & contrast exercise on our hands in the form of two meaty Condé Nast features: The Transformation of Condé Nast from The New Republic (damn, K, you’ve been busyyy) published last week, and What’s Left of Condé Nast from NY Mag’s Intelligencer, which went up yesterday.
TNR’s piece is shorter and more ~ rage against the elitism that was always there ~ while NY Mag’s is a more detailed (and Anna Wintour-heavy) accounting of recent Condé happenings and lore, but both are extremely dishy on those hallowed “lol wut are expenses” expense account days and illustrated with some v. fun caricatures (NY Mag’s are a lil weird but they have an org chart!!).
Here’s how else they stack up:
Read The Transformation of Condé Nast (New Republic) for:
An overview of the actual guy, Condé Montrose Nast, and how he founded his entire media empire with the literal purpose of sharpening class divisions and serving as a vehicle of elitism:
As Nast said in 1915: “The publisher, the editor, the advertising manager and the circulation man must conspire not only to get all their readers from one particular class to which the magazine is dedicated, but rigorously to exclude all others.” (Emphasis in the original.)
Good tidbits about Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair days and Ruth Reichl’s time at Gourmet
A fun fact that explains how we originally got British and French editions of Vogue (because WWI blockades??)
And this enormously good metaphor on how class publications, oop, sorry, lifestyle magazines got themselves into this shitsuation: “It’s as if beautiful flowers lost the ability to attract bees because we invented robots to put pollen on them instead.”
If nothing else, just read the very first and last paragraphs. Trust us.
And read What’s Left of Condé Nast (NY Mag) for:
A much more detailed chronicling of the Si Newhouse years, the slow slide into panic/reality once digital media got real, Anna Wintour’s expanded reign on the entire company, and some hilarious hearsay (“Some staffers joked that Self had become ‘Sweaty Vogue.”)
Incredible stats such as the fact that Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, and Vanity Fair currently bring in more than 60 percent of Condé’s total revenue!!!
One (1) amazing comparison of Condé to Hearst as a states’ rights organization vs. a federal system which, honestly, made getting an entire poly sci minor worth it for me personally
One (1) anecdote that hints deeply at why Jim Nelson left GQ last year
Allll the details you’d ever want to know about Condé’s video operations, which are apparently its last hope??
The ineffable sensation that we must protect Radhika at all costs.
Oh, and this fun quote: “One executive said openly to me, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, but let’s ride this out, keep our salaries for another couple years, and then, if it falls apart, fuck it.’”
🙃