Saturday, November 15, 2003

Is Bonnie Fuller Getting a Bum Rap?

Wow. The media is snarky. Whether you are a writer for a newspaper, or a radio DJ, or an editor of a glossy, one thing can be said with certainty: you, madame or sir, are in a snarky business. And there is no better way to see the snark fly than if your career is advancing at Mach 10. Then all the playa hatas come out and hate on you. So you say: don't negetate ... congratulate. Or something along those lines.

Anyhoo: Bonnie Fuller's career is in overdrive. However you may feel about Fuller, it is good to see her dump Jann Wenner, on his ass. My factchecker friend Tracy always said that Wenner's enterprises -- Rolling Stone in particular -- are not very girl friendly, but that's another story altogether.

Bonnie Fuller drew great media ire for the fact that she was going from US Weekly, a glossy, to American media with -- gasp! -- tabloids! There was something, oh, I don't know, louche about the whole enterprise, you know? One wanted to take a shower after reading that Our Bonnie was going the way of The Pecker at American Media. No, not our Bonnie ... she's one of us ... the New York Media Elite!

But Bonnie, who is famous for overworking her employees, is making quite a go at it, what with all the pilfered editors and the new NY offices of American media and what not.

Already controversy has erupted over running the picture of Kobe Bryant's accuser. Of course, the media went after Fuller like a pit bull. The problem is, Bonnie Fuller did not approve or disapprove of the publication of the picture: it was an editorial decision made by Jeffrey Rodack the Managing Editor of The Globe. Rodack wrote an interesting (and very oily) piece for Poynter defending his decision nto run the picture, and The Corsair blasted him for it (See Archive, November 5, The Corsair).

So I don''t see what the fuss is about Bonnie Fuller and all that "selling out her sisterhood" chitchat. The only thing I see Fuller as guilty of is overworking her poor employees: hey, Bonnie, some of your editors and writers and factcheckers have lives that do not involve the Lexis Nexis, my little pomegranate!

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