Four days before she announced the closing of her CNBC show, Tina Brown and I met for Lunch at Michael's where she talked about the difficult task of continuing her weekly CNBC program, Topic A with Tina Brown; writing her weekly Washington Post column; being a parent (with husband Sir Harry Evans) of two children (14 and 18); and writing her book Remembering Diana on the legacy of the Princess of Wales. Research for the book, which was acquired by Doubleday for $2 million, will require Tina to commute regularly between her native England and New York, where she has lived for the past twenty years.
Creative People Are Draining Out of New York
She's clearly enthusiastic about her book and is looking forward to spending more time in London. "London feels more creative today than New York," she shared
with me over lunch. "Something like the Tribeca Film Festival is great and brings out the energy of New York but the creative action is moving out of New York. We're
seeing the results of the mergers of the 1990s playing out in the culture. Money people are finally driving art out of the business. Media gatekeepers," she believes, "need to become more focused on creativity as an
economic force. They need to encourage a real boutique atmosphere that supports creativity. Creative people are going underground; pulling up the castle doors; draining out of the city. We haven't had a crazy creative entrepreneur
with a vision, like Ted Turner, in the media business for years." Tina is passionate about the challenges resulting from the "tremendous upheaval in our culture with
people trying to figure out how they can be creative and smart and yet get around the numbers culture. Creative people feel they have to figure out ways to be creative in the middle of a major upheaval."
Getting the "Big Get"
Tina admitted she loved doing her CNBC show although audiences were comparatively small. "It allowed me to shed light on interesting stories that don't get light elsewhere and that's what I've always done. She acknowledged the
frustrations of a low production budget for Topic A, a small "but fabulous and extremely talented" five-person support staff, and limited availability of studio and editing time for the weekly hour. "Even though I couldn't always
get the 'big get' of the week, we had great guests -- Tony Blair, John McCain, George Clooney, Annette Benning, Les Moonves -- backed up by other interesting and intelligent people and a format that allowed guests to have a voice. TV requires 'names' but sometimes 'names' are the least interesting guests. The
'big get'- especially if it's a politician - is often saying boilerplate stuff and is not interesting. I'm more interested in content and useful information, and we had a
core group of loyal viewers who really appreciated what we did each week. We got tremendous feedback and I think we did bring something different and intelligent to television. The final episode of Topic A will air on
May 29, although Tina told me in a follow-up conversation that she expects to return to television. "I'm sure I'll come back. I'm not abandoning TV," she told me.
Panic in the News Business
I observed that Tina focused primarily on content related issues while her Topic A guests would often focus instead on business and marketing topics, and Tina
agreed "people keep focusing on the numbers and they are making 'branding' a cult. When is thinking and nitty-gritty old-fashioned creative work going to re-emerge? It's
time to re-focus on the non-selling part of the business. The outlets for creativity are shrinking."
Tina believes there is "panic" on the news side of the television business and "the networks are running for their lives," although she commends network TV dramas (her favorite current show is "24") and Fox News, which "has a clear identity and flair."
Sleepy Time for Magazines
"It's also a sleepy time for magazines as a force in the culture," says the soft-spoken publishing veteran. "You don't see magazine companies starting new edgy magazines. The magazines that are doing well are more
marketing tools, like Lucky. You don't see magazine editorial making waves. It's the same reason," she observes, "that Broadway is full of Hollywood actors at the moment. They can't get the roles they want in films. Theater and book
publishing are the last homes for edgy content."
Noting there are few outlets in television or magazines for long-form journalism other than Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Tina commented "you have no place to write if you're a good writer and want to write long form narrative. There's no such thing as prestige success in America; just commercial success. There's plenty of photo work if you're a celebrity photographer, but few outlets for serious photo journalism. In television, it's a shame there isn't something like the BBC here. PBS is too timid and has had a loss of creative freedom. " On Topic A, she points out, "I could give historian Thomas Cahill ten-minutes to talk about the Pope rather than the thirty-seconds the news networks gave him, but it still isn't enough. Audiences are hungry for more serious journalism," she argues, noting the success of the Penn Literary Festival for International Writers where "the house was packed for every activity."
Table Hopping at Michael's
Our table was a favorite stop for several table-hoppers at Michael's including Hearst's Cathy Black, Peter Price, Jane Pauley, Esquire's
Kevin O'Malley, Bobby Friedman, Gerry Byrne, Bill McGorry, Jake Weisbach of Miramax Books, and producer/novelist
Holly Peterson holding a launch copy of WWDScoop. Much of our lunch conversation was about the Cream reunion at Albert Hall ("the Brits are more excited about Cream than the election"); Spamalot and Monty Python (we're both
fans); our shared rock 'n roll passions (Steve Winwood, Traffic, Dylan, classic rock); her Vital Voices Global Partnership voluntary work; Tina's children and two cats; and her favorite current movies (The Great Wonderful, Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven).
Tina is a creative icon whose star burned bright as a writer for New Statesman and as a 25-year old editor for the U.K.'s Tatler. She came to the U.S. in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair, where she pioneered quality celebrity journalism, became a publishing phenom and achieved her own degree of celebrity. After eight years at Vanity Fair Tina made a surprising move to The New Yorker, continuing to develop a cult-like group of writers who were given free reign to author lengthy journalistic pieces on diverse subjects. "I've always had the sensibility to shed light on interesting stuff that doesn't get visibility elsewhere," she says. "I miss matching writers to stories and I miss the narrative."
Talk Magazine
After leaving The New Yorker, she launched Talk magazine with publisher Ron Galotti and lead investor Miramax, headed by Harvey and Bob
Weinstein. "It was a hairy experience," Tina laughs. "I learned to choose who you go into business with and to do more due diligence." She also noted that business realities overwhelm editorial logic. "It's much better to start quietly,
do something like an out-of-town tryout for six issues, and have slow growth. But you need to hype the magazine with advertisers to get them interested. We were hoisted on our own expectations."
Ironically, she points out, the book company that quietly emerged from her venture with Miramax has been very successful with several best sellers and critically acclaimed books. Tina still feels "tremendous loyalty" to The New Yorker; believes Atlantic Monthly "is doing a good job and getting more buzz;" and enjoys The New Republic , which she reads online. She also recommends The Sun, a New York City weekly newspaper that "has really interesting stories and pays attention to culture." She's a loyal reader of articles written by Andrew Sullivan, Sidney Blumenthal, Adam Gopnik, Rick Hertzberg and Ken Auletta, among several others. Her favorite TV commentators are Chris Matthews ("terrific"), Tim Russert, John McLaughlin ("fascinated by his technique"), Keith Olberman ("droll, honest and low-key") and Greta Van Susteren.
The common characteristics among her favorites are their commitment to quality content, their focus on interesting stories, their insights on culture, and their creativity. Tina might someday return to magazine editing and promises to return to television, but it will be on her terms with a determination to let down the castle bridge and open the gates to talented creative people, giving them the opportunity to tell their stories in narrative form. "I have a literary obsession," she admits. "I miss long-form narrative story telling. This upheaval in the culture may last five years and there needs to be outlets for creative people."