Michael Wolff is the author of many books, including most recently The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty. He also wrote a best-selling trilogy about the Trump White House: Fire and Fury, Siege, and Landslide. He has been a columnist for New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, and The Hollywood Reporter, twice winning a National Magazine Award.
The UnspunWhen the media decides it’s punishment time, no amount of spin-doctoring and TLC can shave the sentence. Especially when spin-doctoring an […]
The Power LunchAt Michael’s, the media elite watch each other watching each other.
You’ve Got SexOr rather, dear America Online, you had it. But as the suits at Time
Warner prudishly looked away, you squandered your lead as the nati […]
One Nation Under FoxEarnest politics makes for bad TV—which is why the scrappy, outsider, underdog approach
championed by Fox News has made it the new psych […]
The Price of PerfectionWhy would Citigroup’s Jack Grubman, and so many other Manhattan parents, work so hard and spend so much and pull so many strings to get their ch […]
Say NothingThanks to a gag order, I’m not allowed to tell you what the greatest media
minds of our times have
to say. (But here’s a hint: Even though it […]
Saving Private ArnettEx–CNN star Peter Arnett is heading to Iraq this week as a freelancer in hopes of one-upping CNN. But in the age of digitized battle, is t […]
Tina and SympathyYou were feeling sorry for Tina Brown because Talk died? Don’t. As a columnist, she’s found the best way yet to reward friends, punish en […]
War, SimplifiedWhile others agonize over whether attacking Iraq is just, Bush presses on with his Just Do It doctrine. Think of it as the new foreign policy of […]
I Love MarthaIf Martha Stewart gets sent away, I’ll miss not only her but her genius business model: a media empire built around the idea that Martha could b […]
Mouse, TrappedMichael Eisner’s greatest talent, we’re all suddenly realizing, is for self-preservation. In the
age of disposable corporate culture, he’s mad […]
Meet Barry BuffettSuddenly, it seems like the Universal Studios chieftain has more than a little in common with
the Oracle of Omaha: In his un-mogulness, he’s be […]
Class DismissedThe journalism school needed a dean, but Columbia’s new president called off the search –
because what the J-school really needs is a […]
The Market for TragedyFor some people, everything changed. For other people, nothing changed. Just ask the agents and distributors and other media types who determine […]
War GamesIt’s a brilliant piece of media manipulation that our ever-pending war on Iraq has made Bush look not indecisive but tempered. If the saber ratt […]
Apocalypse NowThe press keeps pretending that the tumult at the top of the big media conglomerates is just an unfortunate, fleeting chapter. Guess what? It’s […]
You Got NailedAOL Time Warner has pinned its existential crisis on the biggest, baddest fall guy since the dearly
departed Jerry Levin – but for Bob Pittman […]
Out of BusinessHow could the demise of the business culture – prompted by the ongoing spectacle of corporate humiliation – be a good thing? Ask the good old- […]
Homeland InsecurityWe can’t stand to be without a clear plot, so the media scrambles to construct a narrative for the shadowy, diffuse terror “network” we’re up ag […]
Manhattan EndingWoody Allen’s unfortunate little court case wasn’t just about the money. It was a public forum about the value, the very existence, of Woody All […]
The Andy ProblemWherein I huddle with candidate Cuomo and attempt to parse the personality issue:
Why he comes off as too ambitious, too intense. And why, in t […]
Facing the MusicRock stars and music-industry execs once ruled the earth, but now – in terms
of size and profit margins – the music industry is becoming the […]
Blaming BushAs the what-did-Dubya-know-and-when-did-he-know-it debate rages on, the White House finds itself confronting an implacable enemy: the human need […]
The OutcastsJFK Jr. memoirist Richard Blow and Bias hysteric Bernard Goldberg have been demonized by the media for breaking unspoken rules. How nice, […]
The Odd CoupleHis Rolling Stone is in trouble, but at least he’s got Bonnie Fuller working her black magic at Us Weekly. Now all Jann Wenner has […]
The Big FixSuddenly, the turn-of-the-millennium lust for media-world consolidation seems absurd (just
ask AOL Time Warner and Vivendi shareholders). Is it […]
The UnspunIt’s pretty clear that the Israelis and the Catholics just don’t get it: They’re both losing the media war. What they also don’t get is that thi […]
The New Old NewsWith the Journal’s new look, the Times’ new section, and the New York Sun’s exercise in journalistic nostalgia, newspaperin […]
The LiferWhat could possibly have made biographer Robert Caro devote nearly three decades (and
counting) to chronicling the life of LBJ? It’s all about […]
The Last AdmanAdvertising legend Jay Chiat has spent his life not only battling the rules – about media, about offices, about the culture itself – but decim […]
The Koppel ToppleDo not ask for whom the ticker scrolls, Ted. It scrolls for thee: Why Nightline’s troubles may presage a news-dinosaur extinction.
Peace PipeTom Friedman says he was merely the conduit for the Saudi peace plan, but the Times columnist has quietly, purposefully turned himself i […]
My Dinner With RupertIn an unlikely turn of events – and thanks to some shameless maneuvering to achieve (and protect) proximity – our Murdoch-deconstructing media […]
Spread ThinEnron’s Kenneth Lay and Global Crossing’s Gary Winnick weren’t just spreadsheet jockeys, they were the last great heroes of the self-delusional […]
By GeorgeClinton survivor George Stephanopoulos, the former Boy Wonder with the great hair,
is now a Legitimate News Guy (with great hair). And he may […]
Sumner SquallThe recent ridiculousness at Viacom – 78-year-old chairman Sumner Redstone attempting to push out his successor, Mel Karmazin – is just par fo […]
Enron OutrageWe’re all shocked – shocked! – by a certain energy company’s balance-sheet sleight of hand. What were they thinking?! We ask. Bu […]
Failure Is Hot!Talk, which saw itself as a great new vehicle of mythmaking, ended up becoming the embodiment of hype deflation. In an age of dashed expe […]
Paper BoyWunderkind Adam Moss was the handsome young glossy god, the guy who was supposed
to change the magazine world – and then he sought protective c […]
Mogul DreamsFor boys like EchoStar’s Charlie Ergen and Comcast’s Brian Roberts who want to grow up to be Rupert Murdoch, there’s only one endgame: Control d […]
You’ve Got Hate MailThe Times’ op-ed writers, in adding e-mail addresses to their columns, have unwittingly dared to rouse a rabid beast – and one with a lo […]
The MetamorphosisWe tell ourselves we’re different – less frivolous, less selfish – because the world’s a different place. But our obsession with the change […]
Saint GeorgeRallying around a wartime president is one thing. But why does Dubya remain entirely untouchable even as we question his lieutenants – and his […]
The Green PartyMike Bloomberg didn’t just buy himself the mayoralty, he transformed the way we
think about public servants – and rich guys. Donald Trump, are […]
The SequelThe fog of war comes to Rockaway Beach, Queens.
War LordThanks to his new tome about the clarifying power of war, journalism’s sternest father figure is fashionable once again. But do we really need h […]
The Ad ManThere was an elephant (megarich media potentate Mike Bloomberg) in the room. The news media ignored him. Now he’s the mayor.
Round TwoIn the acrid backwash of the mayoral race, Andrew Cuomo goes to Harlem to mend fences.
