Perusing Vanity Fair’s ‘New Establishment’ list

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Vanity Fair’s much-anticipated ‘New Establishment 2009’ list is out and on it are Kathy Freston for her ‘cruelty-free fashion’ and Kelly Ripa for her ‘effortless dressing that’s chic and modern.’

Oh wait, that’s from the magazine’s ‘2009 International Best-Dressed’ list, which is in the same issue. Easy mistake to make.

Seriously though, not a whole lot of surprises in this year’s list. As usual, it’s been out just a few days and it’s already out of date. Disney CEO Bob Iger is at No. 32, which is four slots behind director Judd Apatow. We’re pretty sure that in the annals of history, the deal to buy Marvel will have a more lasting effect than ‘Funny People,’ but anyway. Even higher is CAA’s Bryan Lourd, who clocked in at 24. Really? At a time when agencies are consolidating and the consensus is that their days of dominance are on the wane, Lourd is more powerful than just about every big media mogul out there other than Rupert Murdoch?

Among the newcomers to the list are pay-TV kings Richard Plepler of HBO (no mention of his perpetual tan) and Showtime President Matt Blank, who the magazine incorrectly says has reported to CBS CEO Leslie Moonves for ‘more than a decade,’ when it’s really been about five years (darn those fact checkers!). Rounding out the top 100 is Lauren Zalaznick, who runs NBC Universal’s Bravo and Oxygen cable networks. Zalaznick is credited with championing the VH1 show ‘Pop-Up Video’ when she was at that cable network, which Vanity Fair says ‘helped pioneer a meta-commentary perspective that today’s media consumers take for granted.’ Hmmm, not sure I’d want to brag about that.

The list is pretty puffy too. Oprah Winfrey is ranked 38, up five slots from a year ago. Not mentioned anywhere is all the turmoil at her cable network, which is going through executives the way George Steinbrenner used to go through managers. OWN, which is a partnership with Discovery Communications, has already pushed its launch date twice and industry insiders are betting it will be pushed again.

All these lists should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. The idea of having creative types and executive types ranked together in the first place is a little bit of apples and oranges. Furthermore, the people putting these lists together get harassed nonstop. Often it’s a case of he (or she) who has the whiniest publicist wins. When I was at Entertainment Weekly and we were doing the ‘Power’ list, we would be barraged by people not only lobbying for their executive but also lobbying against rivals. It makes for two months of torture and aggravation and the occasional box of chocolates.

But the pictures usually look nice.

-- Joe Flint