Evening Standard: What the Polanski libel verdict means for Vanity Fair
By David Rowan
AS GRAYDON Carter and his new wife flew back to New York last night - first class, naturally - their post-wedding party at St James's Palace was not the only memory to accompany them. For the guests mixing in the Ambassadors' Court - among them Bella Freud and Anjelica Huston - the filmmaker Roman Polanski had become the unintended focus of attention. At one stage, Carter himself even declared: "I love Roman."
Physically, of course, Polanski remained in Paris, from where his videolink evidence had dragged Carter's magazine, Vanity Fair, to a libel defeat which may cost Condé Nast £1.5 million. Yet the unspoken question among the guests was how far the verdict would damage Carter himself - an editor whose empire, built on "people, personalities, power and politics", reflects more than anything his own forceful personality.
The Vanity Fair article in question, published in July 2002, had falsely claimed that Polanski had set out to seduce an attractive model in a restaurant on the way to his wife's funeral 33 years earlier. In court, the magazine accepted that it had mistaken the encounter's timing, as well as the woman's nationality. Although its source, the editor Lewis Lapham, recalled that Polanski had touched the woman's leg and promised: "I can put you in the movies", it could not prove this to the jury's satisfaction. Nor did it even call evidence from the woman, Beatte Telle, who last weekend stated in The Mail on Sunday that Polanski neither touched nor spoke to her.
Carter, 56, a Canadian college dropout who replaced Tina Brown as editor in 1992, has undoubtedly made a commercial success of Vanity Fair. It is now Condé Nast's most profitable title - US advertising revenue last year was $253 million, its best ever, while circulation remains buoyant at 1,181,000 in the US and 93,000 in the UK. Editorially, too, its scoops punch their weight, most recently the July issue's revelation that Mark Felt was Watergate's "Deep Throat".
As an editor, Carter has charmed A-list celebrities with energetic flattery and compulsive networking, with Robert De Niro, Tom Ford and Martin Scorsese among the guests when he made Anna Scott, a British PR almost 20 years his junior, his third wife in Connecticut last May. His second wife, with whom he has four children, left him five years ago amid rumours of his infidelity. To New York's more cynical media gossips, Carter's error has been to believe that he, too, is a celebrity who can make his own rules - controversially taking payments for suggesting film ideas to his Hollywood friends, and using Vanity Fair's staff to help write his book, What We've Lost, and organise his wedding.
Carter has a reputation for sailing close to the wind, often embarrassing Condé Nast in the process. Last winter, for instance, he commissioned a detailed investigation by Michael Wolff on the scandal surrounding Kimberly Quinn, whose husband Stephen is publisher of Vanity Fair's sister title, British Vogue. The article has not yet appeared. Carter's power is such that his judgment is rarely questioned openly within the company, and Si Newhouse, its owner, has so far indulged his occasional awkward appearances in the gossip columns. Last Friday's courtroom humiliation, however, may prove more difficult for Newhouse to understand if questions are asked about Carter's determination not to settle out of court when he knew his hand was weak.
"Internally, the blame will fall on the head of the 'research department', what we'd call the fact-checkers," believes Toby Young, the former Vanity Fair writer whose falling-out with Carter won him a book contract. That department, some 20 strong, failed to contact Beatte Telle before the 2002 article appeared. For all the magazine's "amour propre" about its accuracy, the internal system has evident flaws, Young says. "If a 'fact' has appeared in a British newspaper and you can provide a copy, I discoveredit would be considered well and truly checked. So if I wanted to include some dubious 'fact' in a Vanity Fair piece, I'd first of all work it into a piece in a British paper."
In fact, the erroneous paragraph in question emanated from Lewis Lapham, now editor of Harper's, a highbrow New York magazine, whose memory of the encounter with Polanski appears to have failed him when quoted by Vanity Fair's reporter. The magazine also relied on the recollection of Telle's dining partner, Edward Perlberg.
WERE 33-year-old memories, reported second-hand, strong enough evidence on which to base a defence? "The article was relying on the two people who were there," David Hooper, Vanity Fair's solicitor, points out. "If you need to rely on first-hand accounts, many books or newspaper articles could never be written."
There is some dispute as to whether Polanski was offered a chance to respond before the accusation was printed. According to Vanity Fair, the relevant section was faxed twice to Polanski's agent over three days after a phone call was made to confirm the number. He did not respond. It has fax return sheets to back this up. Polanski's team says it did not receive the piece.
"If an agent chooses not to comment, the understanding in America is that the person concerned does not want to comment," says Hooper. "Polanski couldn't conceivably bring an action under US law. What's so unsatisfactory is this was an article about a man who had not set foot in this country for 27 years, an entirely American story, in a magazine the bulk of whose circulation is in the US. Yet he managed to bring it into English jurisdiction where it's judged by different standards. As Graydon Carter said, it's an outrageous state of affairs."
The magazine is also aggrieved that Polanski was able to give evidence by videolink from Paris. This made cross-examination more difficult, Hooper says, and meant that the jury could not see his face after he had completed his evidence. It was "morally outrageous" that evidence should be heard in this way. Hooper is also concerned that foreign litigants will be encouraged to "forum shop" and bring London libel actions from overseas.
Yet for all its moral outrage, Vanity Fair did make some fundamental errors of fact which undermined its case. "We conceded two years ago that the meeting must have taken place after the funeral, not before," says Henry Porter, its London editor. "We're happy to admit our errors - and mistaking [Telle's] nationality is honestly not that bad a mistake. But we are absolutely certain [the conversation] happened a matter of weeks afterwards."
So why did the magazine refuse to settle before the matter reached court? "We fight all our cases if we're sure of them, and we trust our witnesses," Porter says. "We didn't 'insist' that this go to court, but offered to publish a letter by Mr Polanski. He wanted it to go to court. And if you believe you're right, you have to fight."
Other commentators have taken a far more critical line against Carter's failure to back down. Duncan Campbell, in yesterday's Guardian, denounced his presumption "to peddle inaccurate gossip [to provide] tittle-tattle for the entertainment of the latte-drinking classes". Henry Porter's response to Campbell is succinct: "What a pompous ass. What possible business is it of his to lecture us about whether we should be in court when he didn't even bother to turn up?"
Temperatures evidently remain high at Condé Nast. The question now is how far the Polanski case will have damaged Vanity Fair's reputation - and with it that of the star editor who has come to define an era of celebrity journalism.
(Evening Standard, July 27 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
AS GRAYDON Carter and his new wife flew back to New York last night - first class, naturally - their post-wedding party at St James's Palace was not the only memory to accompany them. For the guests mixing in the Ambassadors' Court - among them Bella Freud and Anjelica Huston - the filmmaker Roman Polanski had become the unintended focus of attention. At one stage, Carter himself even declared: "I love Roman."
Physically, of course, Polanski remained in Paris, from where his videolink evidence had dragged Carter's magazine, Vanity Fair, to a libel defeat which may cost Condé Nast £1.5 million. Yet the unspoken question among the guests was how far the verdict would damage Carter himself - an editor whose empire, built on "people, personalities, power and politics", reflects more than anything his own forceful personality.
The Vanity Fair article in question, published in July 2002, had falsely claimed that Polanski had set out to seduce an attractive model in a restaurant on the way to his wife's funeral 33 years earlier. In court, the magazine accepted that it had mistaken the encounter's timing, as well as the woman's nationality. Although its source, the editor Lewis Lapham, recalled that Polanski had touched the woman's leg and promised: "I can put you in the movies", it could not prove this to the jury's satisfaction. Nor did it even call evidence from the woman, Beatte Telle, who last weekend stated in The Mail on Sunday that Polanski neither touched nor spoke to her.
Carter, 56, a Canadian college dropout who replaced Tina Brown as editor in 1992, has undoubtedly made a commercial success of Vanity Fair. It is now Condé Nast's most profitable title - US advertising revenue last year was $253 million, its best ever, while circulation remains buoyant at 1,181,000 in the US and 93,000 in the UK. Editorially, too, its scoops punch their weight, most recently the July issue's revelation that Mark Felt was Watergate's "Deep Throat".
As an editor, Carter has charmed A-list celebrities with energetic flattery and compulsive networking, with Robert De Niro, Tom Ford and Martin Scorsese among the guests when he made Anna Scott, a British PR almost 20 years his junior, his third wife in Connecticut last May. His second wife, with whom he has four children, left him five years ago amid rumours of his infidelity. To New York's more cynical media gossips, Carter's error has been to believe that he, too, is a celebrity who can make his own rules - controversially taking payments for suggesting film ideas to his Hollywood friends, and using Vanity Fair's staff to help write his book, What We've Lost, and organise his wedding.
Carter has a reputation for sailing close to the wind, often embarrassing Condé Nast in the process. Last winter, for instance, he commissioned a detailed investigation by Michael Wolff on the scandal surrounding Kimberly Quinn, whose husband Stephen is publisher of Vanity Fair's sister title, British Vogue. The article has not yet appeared. Carter's power is such that his judgment is rarely questioned openly within the company, and Si Newhouse, its owner, has so far indulged his occasional awkward appearances in the gossip columns. Last Friday's courtroom humiliation, however, may prove more difficult for Newhouse to understand if questions are asked about Carter's determination not to settle out of court when he knew his hand was weak.
"Internally, the blame will fall on the head of the 'research department', what we'd call the fact-checkers," believes Toby Young, the former Vanity Fair writer whose falling-out with Carter won him a book contract. That department, some 20 strong, failed to contact Beatte Telle before the 2002 article appeared. For all the magazine's "amour propre" about its accuracy, the internal system has evident flaws, Young says. "If a 'fact' has appeared in a British newspaper and you can provide a copy, I discoveredit would be considered well and truly checked. So if I wanted to include some dubious 'fact' in a Vanity Fair piece, I'd first of all work it into a piece in a British paper."
In fact, the erroneous paragraph in question emanated from Lewis Lapham, now editor of Harper's, a highbrow New York magazine, whose memory of the encounter with Polanski appears to have failed him when quoted by Vanity Fair's reporter. The magazine also relied on the recollection of Telle's dining partner, Edward Perlberg.
WERE 33-year-old memories, reported second-hand, strong enough evidence on which to base a defence? "The article was relying on the two people who were there," David Hooper, Vanity Fair's solicitor, points out. "If you need to rely on first-hand accounts, many books or newspaper articles could never be written."
There is some dispute as to whether Polanski was offered a chance to respond before the accusation was printed. According to Vanity Fair, the relevant section was faxed twice to Polanski's agent over three days after a phone call was made to confirm the number. He did not respond. It has fax return sheets to back this up. Polanski's team says it did not receive the piece.
"If an agent chooses not to comment, the understanding in America is that the person concerned does not want to comment," says Hooper. "Polanski couldn't conceivably bring an action under US law. What's so unsatisfactory is this was an article about a man who had not set foot in this country for 27 years, an entirely American story, in a magazine the bulk of whose circulation is in the US. Yet he managed to bring it into English jurisdiction where it's judged by different standards. As Graydon Carter said, it's an outrageous state of affairs."
The magazine is also aggrieved that Polanski was able to give evidence by videolink from Paris. This made cross-examination more difficult, Hooper says, and meant that the jury could not see his face after he had completed his evidence. It was "morally outrageous" that evidence should be heard in this way. Hooper is also concerned that foreign litigants will be encouraged to "forum shop" and bring London libel actions from overseas.
Yet for all its moral outrage, Vanity Fair did make some fundamental errors of fact which undermined its case. "We conceded two years ago that the meeting must have taken place after the funeral, not before," says Henry Porter, its London editor. "We're happy to admit our errors - and mistaking [Telle's] nationality is honestly not that bad a mistake. But we are absolutely certain [the conversation] happened a matter of weeks afterwards."
So why did the magazine refuse to settle before the matter reached court? "We fight all our cases if we're sure of them, and we trust our witnesses," Porter says. "We didn't 'insist' that this go to court, but offered to publish a letter by Mr Polanski. He wanted it to go to court. And if you believe you're right, you have to fight."
Other commentators have taken a far more critical line against Carter's failure to back down. Duncan Campbell, in yesterday's Guardian, denounced his presumption "to peddle inaccurate gossip [to provide] tittle-tattle for the entertainment of the latte-drinking classes". Henry Porter's response to Campbell is succinct: "What a pompous ass. What possible business is it of his to lecture us about whether we should be in court when he didn't even bother to turn up?"
Temperatures evidently remain high at Condé Nast. The question now is how far the Polanski case will have damaged Vanity Fair's reputation - and with it that of the star editor who has come to define an era of celebrity journalism.
(Evening Standard, July 27 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, July 27, 2005
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