The Scoop
Five months into his tenure, and as Vanity Fair’s coverage of one of the great royal scandals of a generation reached its apex, editor Mark Guiducci had a message for his staff: Leave Prince Andrew’s children out of it.
The scandal in question was Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which last week cost him his royal title. In September, Vanity Fair wrote a story detailing new revelations around his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson’s correspondence with the disgraced financier. The draft of the story also mentioned Andrew’s adult daughters, known as Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie — who happen to be friends with Guiducci.
Guiducci, who was brought in from Vogue in part for his glittering social ties, wanted to know if it was relevant to include the women in a piece about their father. In the end, the magazine only mentioned the princesses in passing.
Managing celebrity relationships while courting access has long been a challenging task for glossy magazines, and as celebrities increasingly circumvent journalists via social media, traditional publications like Vanity Fair that have traded in big-name access have found themselves at a disadvantage. While Vanity Fair continues to publish original journalism under Guiducci, the royal tip-toeing offers a glimpse at how the magazine — where Tina Brown stoked America’s royal obsession in the 1980s — has begun to take a more deferential relationship to celebrities in its day-to-day churn of online content.
In another change, the publication’s editors have asked journalists on staff to regularly consult parent company Condé Nast’s talent department before reaching out for comment on some stories. In September, the magazine ran a piece about Rihanna and rapper A$AP Rocky’s third baby, and noted that the duo didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Guiducci asked for the line to be changed to “reps for Rihanna and Rocky did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment, their hands perhaps full with their three kids,” believing the line sounded less harsh, and asked why the journalist who wrote the story hadn’t consulted the company’s talent department before reaching out.
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Vanity Fair has struggled since at least the 2008 financial crisis, a period that former editor Graydon Carter wrote earlier this year “brutalized” the magazine industry. It has endured several rounds of cuts, and much finger-pointing over its slipping revenue, readership, and relevance. Guiducci has arrived with a theory on how to revive it: cut down on low-effort churn, and instead lean into splashy journalism centered around a few key themes, including Hollywood, Washington, and AI.
The balancing act of wooing celebrities for big covers and exclusives while still writing about them without their permission is just one of many challenges Guiducci has had to tackle as he settles into his job.
Traffic is down at the magazine’s website. Many of the talented journalists Guiducci initially sought to hire have found the freedom (and in some cases money) of independent journalism more alluring than going in-house; many of the journalists he sought out earlier this year politely declined his overtures. The latest company-wide layoffs and the departure of some mid-level staff have made it hard to get basic production work done. Vanity Fair bumped back its internal deadline a week for the November issue, Guiducci’s first, because the pages were not ready in time.
Other changes are moving more swiftly.
One of Guiducci’s first moves was overhauling the magazine’s Hollywood staff, such as by jettisoning some of the publication’s movie critics. He has replaced them with a team of younger names like Aidan McLaughlin, Lindsey Underwood, and Olivia Nuzzi, a political journalist-turned-West Coast editor who is on contract with the publication. Vanity Fair plans on publishing an excerpt from Nuzzi’s upcoming book this month, Semafor has learned — a memoir that will reportedly address her relationship with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And Guiducci is trying to revive a certain old-time magazine swagger around the 25th floor of Condé Nast’s offices at One World Trade Center. He has arrived to work in sharp suits and put in some time on the media event circuit. He’s mused that staffers should take their vacation time when he is out of the office, so they could maximize their time working in-person together. He’s discussed having staff sign NDAs around big sensitive stories to ensure their contents don’t leak to the press or rivals before they publish.
The new editor is also giving the magazine a facelift, redesigning its logo and drawing visual inspiration from its archives. And he told staff that the magazine will soon be printed on thicker paper — a consolation for moving from 12 print editions a year to eight (though the total number of pages across the magazine every year will remain the same).
Max’s view
Recruiting and traffic woes aren’t totally unique to Vanity Fair, but they demonstrate how difficult the road will be for a prestigious yet aging publication to recapture at least some of its previous glamour.
As Semafor previously reported, many inside the magazine were excited by Guiducci’s arrival, believing the old Vanity Fair was moving too slowly, had fallen too far outside the zeitgeist, and had lost some of its sheen. Buzz and status are crucial to publications that trade on prestige, but creating them takes risk. Guiducci has proven he’s willing to take some; replacing popular critics and bringing on a journalist marked by controversy are bold moves. He also isn’t the first Vanity Fair editor to be questioned, even by his own staff, for his perceived coziness with celebrities.
But whether Vanity Fair can strike a balance between meaningful journalism that reveals the inner workings of power — while also convincing the powerful to pose for its covers and attend its Hollywood events — remains an open question.
Perhaps even the idea of an upscale magazine in the mold of Vanity Fair is simply less meaningful in a contemporary media landscape where celebrities constantly churn out their own content and popular culture is fragmented across a landscape of mid-sized creators.
There was schadenfreude at One World Trade last week when Carter sold his publication Air Mail for $16 million, primarily in stock, to the gossipy digital new startup Puck — a disappointing exit for a publication that had positioned itself as the digital evolution of Vanity Fair for a new age. Carter hadn’t managed to build a profitable business with his attempt to recapture Vanity Fair’s old spirit (and luxury advertising base).
Air Mail’s fate shows that even the masters of the old form faced major headwinds when trying to navigate the new media landscape.