Last year I so brutally trashed Tina Brown’s Diana cash-in book that Time Out delightfully made me blogger of the week. So sweet of them. As some of you know, Tina (or Anit as I prefer to call her) has now resurrected herself with her news grab-bag site, the Daily Beast. I suppose she envied Arianna’s great success with her Huffington Post and thought: I want one! Gimme gimme gimme. That’s my Anit!
It’s too early to pass judgement though my initial feeling is it lacks oomph even if it kicked off by upsetting Jennifer Lopez by publishing her withdrawn comments about a nervous breakdown. I believe legal action is threatened. I might have expected this stunt of her old Vanity Fair and her defunct talk, but of her sober news aggregator? She may need to think through the purpose of this new vehicle for herself, her dinner companions (hello Andrew Neil!) and those whom she probably adores for their contacts, personal hygiene and adoption of secular passing novelties (hello Tyler Brûlé!).
However, while I deliberate on the Daily Beast and its future, one small piece of advice to Anit. Please, please get rid of that sodding byline on your “blog” that goes up and down the page as you scroll. Just when you think you’re free of Anit’s name, here it descends slowly into view like some parachuting stalker or paparazzo with no underwear. Not only is it distracting it’s pointless. Like any normal reader I usually look to see who has written the piece I am about to read. It saves time, I find. Anit actually has three bylines on the one page. One sits monolithically and hugely in black, like a movie title, above the body text. She is part of the story, in other words. It’s a Tina Turn. This sits below the second byline right at the top of the page. Then there’s her elevator byline to the left.
This is too too, as a spoof Oscar might have said. Please Anit. Think that you are addressing intelligent people. Anit is plainly many things but not a nitwit. So stop behaving like one.
And in a spirit of friendliness, here’s the link to the Daily Beast.
8 comments:
That was naughty. Very naughty. Although, as it happens, I'm just in the mood for a good enema...
The link is hilarious. Tina BROWN indeed....
The Daily Beast is Lord Copper's paper in the Evelyn Waugh novels. The poor darling is trying to be clever. Too cringe-making.
Very very funny madame. I give you this one.
Hasn't Tina retained ANY of her editing skills from the UK? The headlines in the Beast are so ostentatiously American - one today reads "Madonna, Guy Splitsville - hot dish from The Sun". Sorry?
Oh, Tina's always loved Americanisms, I'm afraid. I think her Beast needs a total re-think. Visually, it looks like an aerial shot of a motorway - all parallel lines running down. All it needs is a tow truck. Tina can write very well but her "blog" pieces are dull as ditch: I'm presuming she rushes them. She also needs to get herself some must-read writers. Andrew Neil is all very well but when he thinks he's back at the Economist few but some crucifixed vampires can compete with him for dryness.
Fundamentally it lacks a point which in this instance must be political. Fond of Anit as I am I have always thought the only party she belongs to is the one where she can schmooze.
Brilliantly done Arcati
Brown has set herself up between the Huffington Post and Drudge. Her Daily Beast might work better if it had a strong celebrity or social edge, this would play to her strengths.
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