YouSaid · the spoken record

Graydon Carter

lines on the record: 50
first: 2025-03-27
most recent: 2025-03-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, as I say, I think the doors to entry into journalism are far more open now than they were, certainly when I was younger. The same time only, if you want to have a long, long shelf life and make a life living out of this and maybe have children and raise a family, quality will always win. It's a slower build, but it's a more lasting build. I mean, there are things you can make. There are flash in the pan things that can fade quickly. And in the restaurant business, for instance, the hardest thing is to go from being a hot restaurant to a cool restaurant. Hot restaurants often last for about 18 months and then they just disappear because they're no longer hot. But to make the transition from hot to cool and the same thing can be applied to anything on the internet, that is where the artistry lies.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think I myself was just sort of open for ideas and willing to dive in and not be afraid to make a complete fool of myself.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“in Britain so you know come up with the idea design it in a day and three weeks later we have them in the shop and we had 500 made they were sold out in three or four days so now we're on constant reorder”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“put that and so i think it'd make it a little easier when you're traveling around and you talk to an american accent especially in europe right now yeah”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do love having the bricks and mortar. I love our shop and down in the village. And we probably will open one in the Brentwood country mart at some point in the future in Los Angeles. No, I think we've done. The nice thing is we just, it's fluid enough that if we come up with an idea for something, for instance, I wanted a pin for when people were traveling this summer. To separate them from the hordes. And it's this right here.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To succeed and thrive, it'll never be as big as the New York Times, but I think it can carve its own path. We have the lane almost all to ourselves, and it will just survive beyond me.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But we were living in the south of France, and I read all the foreign papers. And I thought I could put together a package of stories about both Europe and America that I thought would interest people. I didn't want to be on the hourly news cycle and I didn't want to run anything that large, but I thought I could do it if I delivered something on Saturday morning when people sort of are tired of the new cycle and the horrors of the outside world. Something that looked as close to a magazine as humanly possible. And I think Airmail does that. And I had a great partner in Alessandra Stanley. We worked together at Time magazine 40-odd years ago. And my friend Jim Kelly, who's their book editor, and everybody else is in their 20s pretty much. And so we call it has-beens and rookies. It's one of the great joys of my life to be able to continue doing this.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think that certain types of magazines will do well and a lot of it depends on the editors. I think it's harder now, but it's easier. It's an easier way of entry if you're a writer or photographer. In the past, you had to be the editor of a magazine to get a job or to get your work in that magazine. Now you can just put it on the internet. And if you can get noticed and if your work is good, maybe you can make a living out of it. But nobody ever went into journalism for the money. They went into it for the exhilaration, the desire to do good work, have an interesting life, and maybe make a bit of money.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the good ones are still in pretty great shape. I look at the magazines we get in here and it's The New Yorker, the Atlantic, New York magazine, the Economist. We've got Private Eye from England and World of Interiors. And you would never know there was a recession with some of these magazines, with the exception of the English papers magazines. They have great online experiences.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a very generous employer, but he wasn't throwing money out the window just to throw it out the window. He knew that it took money to create the magazines that he loved. And when he took over Connie Nast in the 1970s, it was the third-tier publisher. There was Time Incorporated that came first. Hearst came second, and Connie Ness came third. It was largely a magazine or a company of finishing school magazines. And so he, through acquisitions and through startups and relaunches of magazines, he built it into the number one magazine company. He spent money on his editors and the photographers and writers because he wanted them to be the best he could get his hands on. And they were extreme. But at the same time, you know, Kurt and I did spy on a shoestring and I did the observer on a shoestring, doing it on a shoestring or having all the resources.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, we... I didn't think of these as innovations. I thought of them as sort of organic extensions of the magazine, and not all were my ideas. Some of them I went kicking and screaming on, but they did expand the magazine sort of cultural footprint in terms of whether it's the Hollywood issue and the Oscar party or the new establishment summit we did in San Francisco. But then we also did an annual dinner and party with Mike Bloomberg around the White House correspondence dinner. And a social life was a part of what Vanity Fair was in the day. And I think it was important. And I think that also it made it fun for the staff because every year the Oscar Party say I would take probably, I don't know, 15 or 20 of the writers out there and have them come to the Oscar party. And I think that was sort of a great sort of bonus for all of them.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We go. So when we took that over 20 years ago, there were very few American food, comfort food, restaurants in New York and in the village, very few banquet type restaurants, very few with white tablecloths and with low lighting. And so the restaurant had a point and it continues to do well. And with Spike, Kurt and I cooked up a magazine that did have a point. It was going to be a magazine of funny reported journalism about the central figures of New York at the time.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had this college magazine that caused me to be thrown out of school. I'd spent so much time on it. And I'd had it for five years. And it was neither, it didn't really have a point. It was a literary political magazine. It wasn't all that far left and it wasn't far right. It wasn't all that highbrowed. It wasn't lowbrow. It was just a magazine put up by a bunch of college kids who didn't know what they were doing. When I sold the assets to our closest competitor, but I came out of it knowing that whatever you do, the thing you do, it has to have a point. And using that as guidance along the way, it had a big effect in my career. When we had a restaurant in New York, the Waverly Inn, which we... Took over”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I do think I have a feeling that even Johnny Carson, who did the Thai show every night for decades, that he would get anxious before going on stage. And I remember reading the Lawrence Olivier, even Lauren Slivier would get anxious before going on stage. So I think that complacency would be the enemy of quality and anxiety is the friend of doing something well. Because through anxiety comes a constant need to try to be better than you actually are. And it never, I'm anxious before I start writing a story. I'm anxious before I edit a story. I wasn't this way, but I am.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Giving the phone back to my wife and just tears welling up in my eyes, both from happiness, but also just extreme relate.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And while we were closing it, I could have called Carl because Carl was on our masthead, but I thought he would then immediately call Bob and Bob would get it in the Washington Post the next day. And if I called Bob, the same thing would happen. And here we were, a monthly magazine. It wouldn't be on the newsstands for another three weeks or so. And so anxiety took over. We'd been anxious about the story for the past six months because we weren't 100% sure. We were 96% sure or 55% sure. And so my wife had an old flip phone and it was the battery was going dead and I was praying that I'd hear what Bob and Carl had to say about this. And just before we got on the plane, they made an announcement and said, yes, Mark Feld is deep throat. And I remember.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Issues here, there are problems right here. First of all, Markfeld was in his 90s suffering from dementia and had told only a few family members that he, in fact, was the basis for deep throat. And so this went on for two months, and we weren't 100% sure that it was him. And we closed the story. I get married. I go on my honeymoon, and I'd forgotten all about the story. And we were in The airport of Nassau on our way back. I didn't even know what a cell phone in those days. And David Friend called, oh my God. And we were waiting to see what Bob and Carl would say.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mean in the scope of things, it's not, it wasn't seismic. In the moment of the contemporary culture of it, it was seismic. And it started like two years beforehand. Also, it goes to the fact that because we felt secure enough at Vandifair, we could play a long games on certain stories. And this one took probably close to two years to pull together. I'd gotten a phone call from a lawyer who said that he represented the man who was deep throat. And this was in 2003. I used to take any phone call from any reader or anybody that just in case there was a A lead on a story, and so I assign an editor to talk to him further. And after about six months of talking, we had a name, and the name was Mark Feld. And I had never heard of him, and nor had the editor David Fren. But we thought, okay, let's proceed with this. And so.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was like $10 for a year, and I thought, okay, that's not a business anymore. And whereas the Wall Street Journal is like $400 for the year. And I just think I don't follow the LA Times closely enough, but I think that staying out of editorial matters is important. And I think he's, I don't know Will Lewis, but I have a feeling his days should be numbered because it has not gone well for Jeff on this. And too bad he can't bring back Marty Barron, who was...”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was heralded as a hero when he bought into it. And I don't know where he's getting his advice from, but just about every single thing he's done in the past year has served to weaken the Washington Post. I got a subscription offer the other day. I think it was like...”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was making his rounds of dinner parties and that sort of thing before an issue of one of his magazines came out. He could honestly say to anybody who asked, I have nothing to do with that part of the business. And so he just basically had trust in his editors. And if he felt the editors were not doing the proper job, he changed them. But an owner getting too involved in the editorial process. I don't know of an instance other than small magazines where that works.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, when you buy a media property, there's elements of public trust about it. It's not like you're buying a furniture factory. And Sci had his own unique way of doing things. A lot of people who did not know him thought of him as eccentric. And I suppose he did have his eccentricities, but he was also incredibly wise. So I had a policy of giving his all the element things they would need to be successful. If they failed, it was because of them, not because of him. He gave them all these things. And then he stepped aside. He would be there to count for counsel and he had his own Socratic method of working through a problem, but he never, never interfered. And he would not say, please don't do a story on this person or please do a story on this person. And he would not read magazines in advance of them coming out. So when”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I got rid of three of the people who had been left behind, who were troublemakers. I did that all in one week. That was more people than I'd fired in my lifetime. And things changed. And I wanted, because I like a collegial, convivial office with very little drama. There's enough drama out on the streets of New York rather than having it in your actual office. And so all of a sudden I can bring my children to work, my wife. My colleague starts saying, please, and thank you after discussions. And it changed the whole temperature of the office.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not that I didn't want it. It's just that it surprised me And then after the two-year period, this is a long period, you know, I wouldn't bring my kids into the office because it was so poisonous. Everything changed one day. I got rid of three of the troublemakers. I didn't fire anybody for two years.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think actually I saw that. Actually, both stories can be true because Sai never discussed editorial changes with other editors. He might have been confided with Anna because I think she was his closest confidant. No, I think I understand her air point of view, but I know that what my story is correct as well. But I had no plan for Vanny Fair, but I didn't think so I would pay me unless I was actually at the wheel driving the magazine. So I started about a week later and it took me a full two years to fully get my feet under the table and to get issues pulled together that I wanted rather than just things I could get my hands on.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And almost choked. And so we We talked for a while, and I said, I explained to him that we'd made such fun of Vanity Fair when we were at Spy that that might be a bit difficult. And he said, okay, it's the New Yorker. And then obviously, you know, Tina Brown, who had far greater seniority at Connie Nast, said, you know, she decided that she wanted to be the editor of New Yorker, and I couldn't blame her for that. And so the day before this was to be announced, Anna Winter called me and said it's going to be the other magazine, that is to say Vanity Fair. And so, but Act Surprised when Sai calls you. After we decided on the New Yorker, I'd worked on a six month, 12 month, 18-month plan of what do I do to change the New Yorker and would not be in dramatic shape in any way. More just slow sort of changes.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so Sy was, I didn't know this at the time. He would make twice yearly visits to all his properties in Europe and he'd stop off in London and Paris and Milan. And he comes back, he sees copies of the New York Observer and all his editors in baskets. And he comes back thinking this is some huge international success. And he calls me and Sans would do like, could you like to have a conversation? And so I go to his apartment about a week later. I was very nervous. I was nervous because I thought he was going to offer me something like GQ or details, which I knew I would not be able to do a very good job of. And also it was very happy where I was. I wasn't making much money, but I was really happy doing the job. And so anyway, he got right to the chase and he said, would you, I've got two magazines and wonder if you'd be interested in either of them. And he said, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To gel, and I started sending comp copies to friends of mine in Europe who were editors over there. And because other people were starting to rate it, and my focus was on Greenwich Village and the upper east side of New York.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Kurt and Ice and our partner, Tom Fellows, we sold it to Johnny Bagazi and Charles Sachi. And as is their right, they wanted certain people on the cover and they wanted to do this and wanted to do that. And it's one thing editing this magazine when you co-founded it. And it's another thing to be under the thumb of somebody else. I'm still very close to Johnny Pagotzi, but it just didn't work for me. And I had this idea for a twice-weekly newspaper that would focus on all the professional aspects of New York City life. And I was going around trying to raise money for it. And this man Arthur Carter, who owned the New York Observers, he said, why don't you come take this over? So I did that for a year. And that was a great experience. I absolutely loved the job. I love the people I worked with. I thought I can get this to be come a thing. And I had a six month and a 12-month and an 18-month plan. And by about the six month, things were starting.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh God, that's impossible to answer. I think, because I couldn't have stayed at Life magazine, where I was at the time because I just wasn't going anywhere there. I probably would have become, I had a decent little side career as a writer for magazines. I mean, Kerr would have gone on to far. I would have been open for business to do almost anything. I would have written for magazines and then, I know, book, I don't know. But I probably somehow find a way back into editing.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, first of all, I thought that that meeting in the Oval Office was absolutely atrocious. And that's Zelensky's look. I mean, Churchill visited Roosevelt during the war wearing his sort of his jumpsuits during the war. I mean, this is a man who's been at war for the last two years or so. I thought JD Vance was even worse. I thought his behavior was appalling. And as for Elon Musk, I mean, that's not a good look for a man looking like a...”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I think he loves to flood the headline zone. Since he's been elected, all these executive orders and everything like that. So if you pick up a copy of the Times or the journal in the morning, he's in a half dozen, sometimes a dozen headlines. And that I think he likes. Also, I think if you just spray the populace with all these changes and some of these crazy ideas, they lose track of what's actually important.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd like to take your house without paying for it. Just don't see it happening. The Panama situation may be different, but I don't see Greenland or Canada happening.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's done wonders for liberal democracies around the world. And in terms of unifying them and making the left-of-center wing of their politics rise, I mean, the Liberal Party in Canada was in deep trouble six months ago. And Mark Carney, first of all, Mark Carney is handled people like this for decades in his job. He's so smart. He's got a wonderful dry sense of humor. I don't know him well. I've met him once. But I admired him from afar. And I think that he will trump be wise to be cautious of this man if he gets into the same room over a negotiation. And the fact of the similar fact of the matter is Canadians don't want to be Americans. They like being Canadians. And I'm not sure how he thinks this is going to happen, but if a new evolves in the way of troops, he should not do it.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“His nicknames are so clumsy and sort of unliterate. And so I don't take any credit for that. I think those are the typical things a schoolyard bully does. And I think that how masculine is it to whine all the time, to bully the little guy, and to treat women as non-equals? That's not in any dictionary in the world under the definition of masculinism. And I'm talking about this of the overall. Yeah. Encroaching bro culture, which I hate.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wait till you see it and see if he ever drives it. I don't think he can drive. And I think. The golf carts are one thing, but a three year old can drive a golf cart. But I don't think he's probably ever done anything that a normal father has done at his age. I think he's a very good family man. I think he is that. But he's just a kind of a unique person. And I thought I was sort of being glib in this interview, but it... I think he had larger aspirations than most people gave him credit for.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, and Trump was a, you know, he wanted to be out there. He'd be calling into the tabloids gossip about himself under an assumed name. And he loved being a tabloid fixture. And this is when we had two very vibrant competitive tabloids, the Daily News and the New York Post. And he was very much the poster boy for those two tabloids.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“New York had just come out of near bankruptcy or bankruptcy in the 1970s. And the 1980s was starting to build. And all of a sudden, the city had this new influx of money and largely from investment banks, which had not really been a factor in the past. And there was a lot of money, and the people who had the money weren't afraid to parade it. Great for journalism. And so it was like an ongoing daily Macy's Day parade of floats. And Trump was one of those and people like Leona Helmsley and the ladies who lunch. And it's the world that Tom Wolfe captured in...”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“100%. No, no, butterfly's wings. And I liked him. I'll be honest. I thought I didn't want, I mean, we weren't chums or anything like that. When I became editor of Vanny Fair, he tried to bring me into his circle, but it couldn't hold.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sending staff out to buy up all the copies of GQ on the newsstands in New York. Now, I think it was in part to get it out of people's hands so they wouldn't see it. At the same time, so that it would seem like it was one of their bestsellers of all time. And I think, strangely enough, years later, I was working for Cy New House who published Random House and Connie Nass. And he said that the sales of that GQ cover inspired him to approach Trump to do a book. And the book became the art of the deal. And then the art of the deal led to the apprentice and then the apprentice led us to where we are now.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, he can be charming. And I literally don't recognize the Trump I see on TV now. He bears no relationship to the man I met and the man I knew over 40 years. He was transactional and he was always on the not the make, but looking for the advantage but these sort of scattershot last two months are not what I expected at all that he hasn't grown he has he's not wiser the way people get wise you you lose a lot of steps along the way as you get older but he's the same man and that's how I don't recognize him”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I spent three weeks with him, and this was his first bit of national exposure. And it was hard not to be somewhat charmed by him. He's not without his charms. And, you know,”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can The six foot two inch frame is trim but well nourished, the hands small and neatly groomed, the suit is blue and stylish, may be a little too flared in the legs for someone who lives east of the Hudson. But the only thing that gives away this striver from an outer burrow are his cufflings, huge mollusks of golden stone the size of half dollars.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I suppose at some point AI is going to replace them, but I think that you can tell a well-made, hand-built publication over something that was done through programmatic selection or some algorithm. It's not the same because the algorithm won't find something that you didn't think you were interested in and you wind up being interested in.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Brian would have been a star. He was a star before I took him on, and he would have been a star without me. Editors serve a variety of functions. Some are grade pencil editors. They're sort of copy editors. Some try to inspire the writer. The job of the editor is to sit you down, Kara, on Monday and say the assignment you're about to take on is the most important one of your career. And you're going to do the story, then you turn it in and then me to sit down with you on a Monday or Tuesday four months from now and tell you the same story about the assignment you're going to take on then. So it was about trying to get the best. And treating them well, I think that you get much more out of people if you show appreciation for what they do because being a writer is much more difficult than being an editor. So, yeah, that's what it is”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not as adventurous as most reporters. I don't say we're going to far corners of the world to bad republics and doing that sort of thing. I like the business of ordering a number of stories into a package that I hope would please a reader. And I love being an editor. So I've been an editor now for 52 years. And when I started, I was probably one of the youngest editors in the business. And at this stage, I'm probably one of the oldest editors in the business.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were looking for an art director. I said, Well, I can draw a bed. And so they made me the art director. And then one of the top editor left a year later and I became the editor. And it consumed all my days. Nobody knew what they were doing. But I stuck at it for four years.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I love magazines. I devoured them. And so, and when I was my adventure on the railroad was basically a lot of my parents' friends and my parents sent their kids off West to toughen them up and get them under their so-called comfort zones. And I spent six months working as alignment for the Canadian National Railway. And it was one of the greatest six month periods in my life. I loved living in a boxcar on the Saskatchewan Prairie with a bunch of guys, many of whom had criminal records, but were otherwise really decent people and just got into a spot of trouble along the way. So then I come back and then I go to college and I stumble into this office where a bunch of kids were putting together a literary magazine and they'd gotten funding from the university and office space from the university and they”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I grew up in Canada and we'd spent five years in Europe and we came back. I was about six years old. And I loved growing up in Canada. It was really cold. And your life for seven months of the year revolved around skiing and hockey, both of which I loved. And I had no real notion of what I wanted to do, but I did love magazines because they brought the outside world into us when I was growing up. My parents subscribed to time and life in the New Yorker and later Esquire. And magazines did a certain thing. They tell you newspapers tell you about the news of the past day or the past week. And magazines tell you about a time and place.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wrote to you, and I think you were doing the thing with Walt You came in, and usually I don't, I'm not a big one for meetings, and it was supposed to last, I don't know, five or ten minutes just to say it, to say hello. And you stayed an hour and a half, and I thought, it was a great hour and a half.”
2025-03-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT