GQ Clowns Itself, Weakens (Then Deletes) Story Critical Of Incompetent Discovery CEO David Zaslav

Failures

from the the-streisand-effect-will-never-die dept

We’ve documented extensively how the AT&T—>Time Warner–>Warner Brothers Discovery mergers have been a gargantuan pointless mess, resulting in tens of thousands of layoffs, widespread animosity across Hollywood, the death or decay of numerous popular brands (from Mad Magazine to HBO), weird holes in streaming catalogs, and just a shittier, dumber product overall.

While the first half of the mess fell squarely on the shoulders of incompetent executives at AT&T, the second half of this parade of dysfunction has been largely the fault of Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who has come under particular fire for his (and cable industry mainstay John Malone’s) bumbling attempts to make CNN more friendly to Republican interests.

GQ recently commissioned freelance film critic Jason Bailey to write about Zaslav’s disastrous tenure. But after an unnamed Zaslav ally complained to GQ editors, they started retroactively pulling punches and “softening” the article’s overall tone post publication:

Archived versions of the original and edited versions of the article show significant changes that had the effect of softening its tone. A line calling Zaslav “the most hated man in Hollywood” was deleted. The “Succession” comparison was removed, as was a segment where Bailey called the reality shows that Zaslav oversaw while running Discovery “reality slop.”

The final paragraphs of the original article compared Zaslav to the pitiless businessman played by Richard Gere in “Pretty Woman,” with Bailey writing that the executive is “only good at breaking things.”

Bailey wasn’t pleased with the extensive wimpy rewrite of his article, so he asked GQ editors to pull his byline. GQ editors responded by pulling the article offline entirely, resulting in the entire mess (and article) enjoying the Streisand Effect. As a result both the piece — and GQ’s cowardice — is seeing significantly more attention than ever before.

Editors only pull a story offline completely if there’s some very major problems with a story. Even then, you’ll often leave an editorial note. That wasn’t the case.

Additional reporting has since indicated that the guy who made that call, GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch, has a movie project underway at Warner Bros Discovery that they’re slated to both produce and direct; an obvious conflict of interest. GQ owner Condé Nast is in turn owned by Advance Publications, which has an ownership stake in Warner Bros Discovery.

We’ve noted repeatedly how mainstream media coverage of the whole AT&T/Time Warner/Discovery mess routinely tends to either downplay or ignore the destructive pointlessness of media consolidation and giant mergers. It also tends to downplay or ignore how the blistering incompetence of violently overpaid high level executives is regularly at the real heart of the problem.

When the endless chaos in U.S. media is covered, it’s usually blamed on ambiguous externalities. Brutal cost cutting is portrayed as savvy and necessary cold calculus. Often ignored is the untold billions wasted on pointless merger debt, executive compensation, or executive mistakes. Employees or customers get to pay the bill in the form of layoffs and higher costs, while executives fail upward to the next disaster.

With the kind of editorial “courage” displayed by GQ (which has a significantly bigger legal budget than numerous tiny news outlets routinely threatened by agitated billionaires), it’s not hard to see how this billionaire-coddling dynamic cements itself institutionally.

The entire saga perfectly exemplifies how media consolidation is often idiotic, and most of the “savvy deal-making” executives at the heart of these efforts are only remarkable in how unremarkable they are. These aren’t leaders or visionaries; they’re more interested in slash-and-burning, short term tax breaks, resume building, and protecting power than building a quality, lasting product.

Letting media consolidate at the hands of said incompetent billionaires poses a direct threat to healthy journalism and Democracy itself. Journalism that speaks truth to power is an obvious threat to men like Malone and Zaslav, so instead we get doused in feckless pseudo-journalistic simulacrum at a moment in history where courageous, quality journalism is more important than ever.

Filed Under: cnn, david zaslav, fail upwards, gq, jason bailey, journalism, media, media consolidation, mergers, streisand effect
Companies: advance publications, warner brothers discovery