Interesting article from lainey and I am surprised she is even scrutinising their choices considering she has been very pro-Sussex. Yesterday someone said that US weekly has been under going changes , they were right . Lainey explains the changes happening ⬇️
“This summer, though, a major editorial change happened after Dan Wakeford become editor-in-chief of US weekly ( he was the one who wrote that people article where Meghan’s five friends spoke exclusively to people magazine) After starting his career on the more tabloidy side of entertainment reporting, Dan Wakeford was editor-in-chief at PEOPLE and worked on the editorial team at Entertainment Weekly. Which means he should have good contacts in the business. In addition to Dan Wakeford, former Us Weekly writers and reporters from during the magazine’s better days have returned to the publication, like Brody Brown and Justin Ravitz who co-reported this new Us Weekly story about Harry and Meghan.”
It’s understandable that they’d want to address that negative piece in The Hollywood Reporter by placing a more positive counterresponse in another publication. But… GB News and now Us Weekly are not on the same level as The Hollywood Reporter. Us Weekly eventually, over time, will get to the place it’s striving for, with more accurate reporting and exclusives and breaking stories, but right now, in media circles, that shift hasn’t happened yet. And that’s why people in media circles are head-scratching this move by Harry and Meghan. Why did they counter The Hollywood Reporter with… Us Weekly? The Hollywood Reporter to Us Weekly would be like being on a game show and your opponent using their phone-a-friend to call Christiane Amanpour and you decide to hit up Piers Morgan. Like being on Lip Sync Battle and you just watched your competitor bring out Beyoncé as your guest and you decide to match up with Katy Perry.
It's especially weird considering it’s not like there wouldn’t be other options available to Harry and Meghan, right? That’s the question that people in media that I’ve talked to are asking. Why wouldn’t they take this exclusive to, say, PEOPLE. Or Vanity Fair. Or Puck. Other publications that are more on the level with The Hollywood Reporter? Was Us Weekly their first choice? Think of how a publicist would operate, and publicists SHOULD know this game. If you’re clapping back at THR, do you call your contacts at PEOPLE/Vanity Fair/Variety/The Wrap/Puck etc? Or do you call Us Weekly? If Us Weekly wasn’t the first choice, how far down the line would Us Weekly have been…? What does it mean that this exclusive landed at Us Weekly and NOT elsewhere?
Posted by IndividualComplete59
2 Comments
I am posting this bcoz a lot of people were confused why their staff went to US weekly out of all media outlets. It’s bcoz Dan Wakeford (who was their source at people) has become the editor in chief of US weekly
This is a weird take. Not only do they have to defend themselves against hit pieces that depend more on tropes and people with known grievances but they have to defend how they choose to defend themselves.
Will the criticism over absolutely anything and everything they do ever cease??