Categories: OLD Media Moves

Finke: Portfolio is CEO porn

Critic Nikki Finke, writing on her Deadline Hollywood Daily blog, has a critique of the first issue of Conde Nast Portfolio, and it’s not flattering.

Nikki Finke Finke wrote, “My suspicion all along about Conde Nast’s new glossy business magazine Portfolio was that it would be like Playboy or Penthouse only filled with CEO Porn, a monthly excuse to airbrush business tycoons and infotainment moguls and their various accolytes.

“At least those who aren’t already in trouble or indicted or in jail at which point it’s OK to go tough on them. Well, I wasn’t wrong. The premiere issue hits NYC newstands tomorrow (and nationwide April 24th. But the magazine’s PR sought me out ‘exclusively’ today to give me the klieg lighted showbiz article: ‘The Kid Pays For The Picture’ by senior writer Amy Wallace about Relativity Media’s Ryan Kavanaugh, ‘who despite a lack of credentials, has helped rustle up almost half of the $8 billion Wall Street has poured into Hollywood over the past three years. Now some people are wondering: Is he a genius or a hustler?’ Uh, guess which impression you’ll have after reading it…

“And Portfolio‘s big movie finance scoop? That some chumps in Hollywood lost money because of Kavanaugh, but now that’s all forgiven because Kavanaugh’s company recently signed a deal with Citigroup and Sony Pictures to pour $1.2 billion into 45 films that will give him both fees and an ownership stake in the movies themselves.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.