Tina Brown
Tina Brown
Tina Brown CBE, is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair. Having been editor-in-chief of Tatler magazine at only 25 years of age, she rose to prominence in the American media industry as the editor of Vanity Fair from 1984 to 1992 and of The New Yorker from...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth21 November 1953
CountryUnited States of America
Reputation is a timely subject, now that nobody has one.
Any great, long career has at least one flameout in it.
'Worshipping in private,' as Obama does, comes off as just another form of annoying elitism.
There is nobody more boring than the undefeated.
'Out of the box' corporate thinking helped carry real American innovation out in a box. A pine box.
Now everyone leaking and tweeting and posting on everyone else is the acknowledged way to get ahead in the 21st century.
It always seemed to me ironic that the McCain campaign kept referring sneeringly to Obama's meager resume - 'a mere community organizer!' - before he entered electoral politics. It was Obama's experience as a community organizer that proved such a killer app when he applied that skill to the Internet.
The no-secrets era of social media makes one consider the built-in risk factor of nominating high-testosterone men to positions of power at all. Everyone is under too much scrutiny now to take a chance on candidates who suddenly blow up into a comic meme, a punchline, a ribald hashtag.
Until 1869, when they were banned, debtors' prisons were the great incinerators of British reputations. Those who were unable to pay their bills were jailed until their creditors were paid - an unlikely event, given that the prisoner was unable to work.
One common denominator of super-affluent alpha men is the conviction, unchallenged every day, that the world revolves around them.
Public life has become so gladiatorial. Every day, another reputation bites the dust.
It's Obama's bad luck that he got elected just as the mayhem of the foreclosures, the banking collapse, and the General Motors disaster was accelerating the surge in unemployment to warp speed.
Obama's stern demeanor punctuated by intermittent flashes of his wide, relaxing smile is his greatest weapon in defusing pent-up angst.
The post-presidency, as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have proved, is a win-win. Money, Nobels, the ability to leverage your global celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse you wish, plus freedom to grab the mike whenever the urge takes you without any terminal repercussions.