Vanity Fair, Fortune switch roles

Eric Starkman, a public relations professional, writes that Vanity Fair magazine and Fortune magazine appear to have switched roles with the hard-hitting business coverage appearing in the former about Yahoo’s CEO.

Starkman writes, “I can’t do justice summarizing McLean’s prodigious reporting in this space, but suffice to say that McLean shatters many myths, including that Mayer’s departure was a major loss for Google. McLean reveals that many of the accomplishments that have been attributed solely to Mayer during her time at Google were more a team effort.  Indeed, her star had been losing its luster there when she left for Yahoo! (a point underscored by McLean’s reporting that there was no shortage of people who actually cheered Mayer’s departure). It’s noteworthy that code-writing Google engineers didn’t follow her out the door despite the fact that Mayer is an engineer; the only Google recruit was a PR person, who, quite tellingly, was Mayer’s first Yahoo! hire. McLean also suggests that if Mayer hadn’t given Dan Loeb a sweetheart deal to go away, the savvy investor quite possibly might have fired her.

“Reporting excellence aside, McLean’s article is also notable for where it appears. Vanity Fair, a glossy monthly better known for its stories on the lives and scandals of the glitterati among Hollywood, Washington, Wall Street and the like, has emerged as a bastion for more thoughtful and insightful explanatory business journalism.  The magazine has published a slew of impressively provocative business features, including Sarah Ellison’s reporting on Rupert Murdoch’s empire (here, here, and here, among others) and her profile on CNN host Piers Morgan, Michael Lewis’ story about Goldman Sachs’ seemingly undo influence with federal prosecutors, and William Cohan’s less-than-flattering profile of investor Dan Loeb.

“McLean wrote for Fortune magazine a few years back. At the time, standard-setting expository and investigative journalism was the magazine’s raison d’être. As I predicted, however, the magazine didn’t fare well under the stewardship of Laura Lang, who was forced out last year, and is no longer the leader of the pack, partially due to a top talent exodus. In addition to the departure of Hank Gilman, a highly respected managing editor known to favor hard-hitting stories, the magazine also lost James Bandler, a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter who was responsible for some of Fortune’s most noteworthy features (see here).”

Read more here.