Chronicling the highs, lows, quips, quotes, comings and goings of Washington, D.C. spokesguys and spokesgals

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Kudos to P.R. Geniuses at Vanity Fair

This ain't Washington-related, but I just finished watching Katie Couric's debut on the CBS Evening News. They put on an interesting first show, but it was a tad heavy on the recurring gimmicks for my taste ("SnapShot," "freeSpeech," etc.) They certainly seem to want to emphasize that they're trying new things, as Couric repeated that point a few times.

But mainly, I'm impressed by the P.R. pros at Vanity Fair. For weeks they've been declining to comment on rumors that their September issue would feature the Suri Cruise pics, offering quotes to the effect of "we don't comment on future issues" (which you have to admire for its sheer courage, given that a magazine's PR department does almost nothing BUT talk about future issues. Anyway...)

Of course, knowing that tonight's Couric debut was the biggest media event of the month, they surely started negotiating some time ago with CBS producers regarding an exclusive on the news. And when Couric said the issue hits newsstands tomorrow, I got the sense that VF had probably decided on that publication date the minute after they hung up the phone with CBS and arranged the exclusive.

This isn't the first time Vanity Fair has smartly kept their scoops under wraps before a super-sly release. Remember their revelation last summer that Mark Felt was Deep Throat?

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