The Enterprising Editor
Arguably America’s most high-profile editor, Tina Brown’s journalism career began in 1973, writing for the London Sunday Times, The New Statesman and The Sunday Telegraph. She became editor-in-chief of the near-extinct society magazine Tatler in 1979. With her irreverent, witty insider’s take on the merely well-heeled and the terribly well-bred she raised the magazine’s circulation dramatically. She brought the same unique mix of high culture, low culture, fashion, politics, fantasy and reality across the Atlantic when she became editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair in 1983. The magazine won 4 National Magazine Awards and Brown was named Advertising Age’s first Magazine Editor of the Year. In 1992, Tina took on the New Yorker, determined to revive its unique voice with irreverence and a literary approach. Her dramatic changes caused an equally dramatic turnaround for the magazine, whose circulation rose 28% during her tenure. Awards were as forthcoming – the New Yorker won no less than 10 National Magazine Awards under Brown’s leadership.
In 1992, Tina was the first magazine editor to be honored with the National Press Foundation’s Editor of the Year Award. In 1998, she co-founded Talk Media with Harvey and Bob Weinstein of Miramax, and launched Talk magazine. In 2008, she teamed with Barry Diller to launch The Daily Beast which went on to merge with the venerable Newsweek, with Tina editing both.
Awards don’t tell the tale of personality, though. Tina’s game-changing approach to magazine journalism has left an impact on titles across the publishing spectrum, including those she has never edited but which have modeled themselves on the blend of literary and lifestyle she pioneered.
Somewhere in this time she has also written three books including a celebrated Diana biography. For media-watchers, the question of what is media’s next big thing is often answered by asking: what will Tina do next?
