Media Beat

Even if you don’t know Thom Browne from Tom Ford, you probably recognize the bespectacled visage and signature coiff of Brad Goreski.

The dapper Canadian was the breakout star of Bravo’s The Rachel Zoe Project, which documented his rise from steamer-wielding errand boy to Oscar-night styling protégé, and now he’s striking out with a celebrity-styling career and addictive reality series of his own. It’s a Brad, Brad World, which airs Monday nights on Bravo, follows Goreski as he starts a styling business and trades quips with his boyfriend of ten years, TV writer and producer Gary Janetti (Will & Grace, Family Guy).

“We decided we would go on a crazy ride, a wild adventure, and hopefully the audience will come along with us,” Goreski tells us in this first segment of our three-part Media Beat interview. “I’m not exactly sure what a ‘Brad, Brad World’ is yet—it’s just that you never know where you’re going to end up.”

Part 2: Brad Goreski on His Falling Out with Rachel Zoe
Part 3: How Brad Goreski Got an Internship at Vogue

How exactly did Ryan Gosling become the man this year? Sure, fans of The Notebook always loved him, but who else was really checking for him back in, oh, 2007?

According to Entertainment Weekly executive editor Kristen Baldwin, Gosling’s ascent is no accident. She says quality work + star presence = crazy buzz.

“He’s a star because he’s given three amazing performances this year,” said Baldwin in our Media Beat interview. He’s incredibly, ridiculously handsome — like, it’s almost offensive how handsome he is — and then he’s just kind of a character. He stopped a fight on the street, you know?”

Squashing a beatdown can indeed increase your Twitter mentions, but Baldwin says aspiring A-listers don’t have to resort to such tactics to land in the pages of EW. “We don’t really get into their personal lives… we wanna talk about their work.”

Part 1: Entertainment Weekly‘s Kristen Baldwin Talks ‘Entertainers of the Year’
Part 2: Kristen Baldwin on Bringing EW to Tablets: ‘We really wanted to wait until we got it right’

With the runaway success of eBooks and iPads, you’d think that launching a tablet version for a magazine would be a given. However, Entertainment Weekly executive editor Kristen Baldwin says that rushing into the field too early could be a mistake for publishers.

“We’ve been on the tablet with our Must List app for quite a while, but in terms of the actual magazine, we really wanted to wait until we got it right,” she explained in our Media Beat interview. “Because what we learned is you have to get it right the first time, and users have to really enjoy it and be satisfied with it, because otherwise they’re just not gonna come back.”

Baldwin also discussed the key to writing those punchy blurbs that EW is known for: “It’s kind of like writing haiku.”

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Entertainment Weekly‘s Kristen Baldwin Talks ‘Entertainers of the Year’
Part 3: Thursday, we break down exactly how a celebrity makes it onto the A-list.

In a year of Adele on the radio, Bridesmaids at the box office, Jay-Z and Kanye on the Throne, and Charlie Sheen on another planet entirely, how the hell do you pick the definitive Entertainer of the Year?

Surprisingly, the folks at Entertainment Weekly say their choice for the top spot was a shoo-in: Daniel Radcliffe. “He’s proven that he’s going to have a career outside Harry Potter,” said executive editor Kristen Baldwin in our Media Beat interview.

Baldwin also discussed the magazine’s editorial process for churning out such lists on a weekly (daily for EW.com) basis. “Well, it’s never come to blows,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, it’s entertainment. Nobody’s really getting worked up about it, but you’re in a room with a lot of smart, funny people. So, it’s sort of like ‘one liner, one liner, one liner’ as people try to make their case and put down other people’s cases.”

So, which pop culture trends will define 2012? Watch the full video for Baldwin’s predictions.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 2: Tomorrow, Baldwin explains why EW didn’t rush into the tablet market.
Part 3: Thursday, we break down exactly how a celebrity makes it onto the A-list.

Every. Writer. Hates. Pitching. (Imagine you’re a puppy waiting at the dinner table for just one morsel of meatloaf to fall. “Can I work for you? Huh? Can I? Can I?”)

But Toure, who regularly appears on MSNBC and has penned features for Vibe and Rolling Stone, says freelancers better get over that aversion if they want assignments.

“Oh, I pitch a lot. I do,” the Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? author explained in our Media Beat interview. “I mean, I wanna let people know generally ‘I wanna work for you; I wanna work with you. I wanna do stuff, so keep me in mind.’ So, just that general, you know, sort of selling yourself… And even if those two, three, five things are rejected, you are top of mind for that editor.”

Toure also detailed his strategy for getting big names like Adele and Beyonce to open up on the record (he likes “question clusters”) and revealed what he was really thinking during that BET R. Kelly interview.

“It was about being a cat burglar and not letting him know that he played himself.”

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Toure Lights Up the Twittersphere with a Debate on… Tipping?

Part 2: Toure Tackles Watermelon, Fried Chicken and Post-Blackness in New Book

New York based music journalist and cultural critic Touré sat down with Mediabistro’s Donya Blaze for the latest in our ongoing series of “Media Beat” interviews.

In this special bonus clip, he explains that while publicists rarely try to declare an interview topic off-limits, this does sometimes creep into the process. As in when a certain musical artist interviewed by Touré followed up a flop single with the full CD release:

You can also view this video on YouTube. Touré, incidentally, owes his unusual name to a TIME magazine article read by his mom about former President of Guinea Sekou Touré.

After watching the fracas over Essence‘s hiring of a white fashion director in 2010 (and white managing editor more recently), we had to get newly named editor-in-chief Constance C.R. White‘s take on both. What does she think of those who say non-Black editors can’t truly cater to the needs of Black women?

“My take is that Essence has always had a diverse staff,” she said in our Media Beat interview. “That was last year… and I’m moving forward.”

White said her main focus in the fashion section, and all of the book, is to focus on what the reader wants, not to reflect the opinions of her editors.

“If you start to think of it as an editor as necessarily your concept of the situation, you can really get off-track. What we really do and what I really encourage my editors to do is be a proxy for the reader.”

Part 1: Essence EIC: We Are ‘Absolutely’ Looking for New Writers

Part 3: Want a Job at Essence? Be Curious.

This video can also be viewed on YouTube.

Film Threat was one of the first indie mags to successfully go online only back in 1997. Now, “Because there is an erratic collection of transient, ever-fluctuating, film websites requiring short attention spans to digest spliced information that is easily forgotten mere seconds after consuming,” they want to get back into print. And, like Sally Struthers, they need your help! Check out their crowdfunding campaign at IndieGoGo, where they’ve posted a couple more funny PSAs.

Previously on FishbowlLA: Filmthreat.com Hopes to Crowdsource Print Relaunch

It’s no secret that the competition for eyeballs is intense these days. Seriously, I don’t remember the last time I watched TV without somehow drifting to Facebook or Twitter, replying to an email, playing a new game, downloading an app, etc. And, with film prices shooting upwards of $12 here in New York, um, yeah. I’ll wait for Netflix.

But Columbia/Sony Pictures VP of production Devon Franklin says that the digital age has only made his industry go back to basics: to make great films.

“We have to make films for a lower price point without sacrificing quality,” said Franklin, who currently has Men in Black 3 and a live action version of He-Man in the works. “The biggest challenge that we face quite honestly is we still have to make great movies, and we can’t let the dialogue about what’s going on with Netflix and the digital media world affect making great films.”

You can also watch this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Jumping The Broom Producer Brings Spirituality to Hollywood

Part 2: Columbia Pictures VP Devon Franklin: ‘If You Write a Good Script, We’ll Find It’

It’s Devon Franklin‘s job as VP of production for Columbia/Sony Pictures to buy film scripts and see them through the development and production process. So, how can aspiring scribes keep their work out of the slush pile? Take a screenwriting class, enter film competitions, and polish your drafts until they’re perfect.

“Do everything you can to work on these ideas,” Franklin, the man behind Jumping The Broom, explained in our @mediabeat interview. “And I promise you — people think this is crazy — we need good scripts in Hollywood. So, if you write a good script, even if you’re in Nebraska, Ohio — you could be in the most remote part of the world — if you write a good script, I promise you somehow we’ll find it.”

Franklin applied the same principles of diligence and faith in his own life, which he details in his new book Produced By Faith: Enjoy Real Success without Compromising Your True Self (Simon & Schuster).

“The book is a metaphor for your life as a movie, and every movie starts with a big idea,” the author and motivational speaker explained. “My whole big idea for my life is to inspire and encourage, and God has called me to use film as part of a way to do that.”

You can also watch this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Jumping The Broom Production VP Brings Spirituality to Hollywood

Part 3: Columbia Pictures VP Devon Franklin Talks Netflix, Social Media