Jezebel: Janice Min

Vanity Fair Wants Its Women Cattier, Apparently

Irin Carmon — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:45:05 EST

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Vanity Fair has spiked a story about three women overseeing Hollywood coverage — Nikki Finke, Sharon Waxman, and Janice Min — "because it wasn't catty enough. They wanted a catfight story," according to The New York Post's anonymous insider. More »

How Tabloid Coverage Exalts Motherhood And By Extension, Sarah Palin

Jessica G. — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:00:00 EDT

This weekend I couldn't stop thinking about why Sarah Palin, a woman I've never met, upset me so viscerally. I was appalled from day one by the way she used her motherhood as a leadership credential but, after seeing Palin's face splashed on several tabloid covers, it hit me: Palin is just another link in the Brangelina chain of fetishizing motherhood. It's not enough to be successful as a woman. No, it's never enough to just be successful. You must procreate, because as Us Weekly editor Janice Min once said to the NY Observer, "It's almost un-American at this point to say you don't want children, especially from an image perspective. It's almost like saying you're a Communist." More »

Sarah Palin And Indulging In "The Liquor Cabinet"

Megan Carpentier — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

It is way-back week on Crappy Hour, when my first Crappy Love, Moe Tkacik, agrees to relive our original blogospheric passion for a full five days! Today's edition — for which we decided to stay up late, get drunk, and parse the headlines rather than get up early and hungover — includes my embarrassing encounter with David Gregory, the origins of human life, the First Dude, rumors, Karl Rove, Sarah Palin, David Broder, laughable Safire-ian stupidity, teabagging and the comparison between Governor Palin's leaky vagina and my own. Yeah, this is what sort of happens when Moe and I drink together. More »

Us Weekly Editor On Choosing The Mariah Cover Shot: "She Looks Great, But Not…Skanky."

Jessica G. — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:30:00 EDT

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Nightline went behind the scenes at Us to show how the celebrity weekly works. Editor-in-Chief Janice Min, despite encouraging the ever-expanding ego of the beast they call Speidi, comes off as a totally reasonable person. She tells the interviewer that when her female readers are challenged by their husbands about reading Us, they should ask, why do you watch sports? "What does it matter to you? It's men chasing a ball around a field," Min says. "It's of zero consequence to you." Ha! The feature also touches on the meaning of "celebrity news" and whether or not celebrities really want such intimate coverage. In the clip above, Min and company discuss all these things, along with the Mariah Carey weight loss cover which was chosen for its perfect ratio of skin to skank. More »

Death & Cellulite

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:45:00 EDT

When it comes to best-selling covers, the weeklies win with fatalities and flesh, reports the New York Post. Aside from special issues, like "Sexiest Man Alive," People magazine's best-selling issue in 2007 dealt with the apparent suicide attempt of Owen Wilson. So far, their best selling issue of 2008 was the memoriam to Heath Ledger. Star's best-seller? "Best and Worst Beach Bodies." (Meanwhile, over at Us, editor Janice Min is "breaking news" with revelations about Hilary Clinton's wardrobe and Barack Obama's love of hot sauce, The New Yorker points out.) What does it mean that the American public craves information about corpses and corpulence? [New York Post, The New Yorker] More »

'Us Weekly' Takes Obsession With Angelina's Outfits All The Way To The Checkout Counter

Jennifer — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:30:00 EDT

Great minds think alike? One day after we ran our gallery of Angelina Jolie's back-to-school style, Us Weekly hits newsstands with a two-page spread on the exact same thing. But the magazine took their version one step further: its editors actually determined not only the designers but the prices of all of Angelina's outfits ($7,206 total), which, we hear, is kind of all the rage these days! In fact, according to Fashionista, young women nowadays are comparing the cost of their outfits with that of their friends. After the jump, the Us Weekly spread, plus, the Jezebels compare their not-so-elegant "outfits". More »

'US Weekly's' Ken Baker Was A Nice Guy, Back When He Still Lactated

Moe — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:10:42 EDT

Yesterday's post on Us Weekly West Coast executive editor Ken Baker, the worst boss in America, drew many comments and a few phone calls from former co-workers. Once upon a time, you see, Ken was a nice, friendly, idealistic Columbia J-school grad with the highest of ethical standards. The only problem was that his nipples leaked breast milk, and also he was impotent and did not desire sex, even with Drew Barrymore, whom he found himself powerless to hit on. Then sometime in the late nineties, he fell in love with a ballerina who did not care that he couldn't get it up, and a co-worker at People directed him to doctor to the stars, Joshua Trabulus, who gave him a magical serum called "testosterone." And that is when the fun began. More »

Meet 'US Weekly''s Ken Baker. He'll Promote His Hot Nanny Instead Of You, Then Send The FBI To Your House

Moe — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:00:12 EDT

The jackass with Paris is Ken Baker, America's worst boss. We always thought there was something a little spooky about how mild and intelligent and reasonable Us Weekly editor in chief Janice Min came across in public, and now we know why: she has a horrible secret and it is not that she had reporters dig through Ben Affleck's trash, used scanners to intercept Britney Spears' bodyguards' communications or planted a reporter full-time at Cedars-Sinai (the hospital with the lock on the celebuspawn market). It's that she hired this guy to oversee all of this investigative journalism, and...Well. How to put... Baker was one of those bosses who thinks it is a good idea to involve the entire office in his speculation as to whether an employee's tits are real, encourages his underlings to sleep with paparazzi, hires the nanny he wants to see "pregnant in pigtails" as a reporter, and then, when suddenly someone catches wind and decides to do a story about it, snots all over your office:

On or about July 2005 BAKER entered JILL ISHKANIAN's office, closed the door and began to cry. During this conversation BAKER used up all of JILL ISHKANIAN's Kleenex to wipe his eyes and runny nose.

But it got SO MUCH MESSIER. More »

Breaking! In Hollywood, Thin is In!

heather — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:30:00 EDT

Hollywood is like one of those sorority houses where the pipes are always having to be replaced because all the bulimics who live there have eroded them with rivers of vomit. Every few years some plumber trudges out and does the filthy work of removing the puke-encrusted pipes, and the plumber reports back to the dean what he saw, and she acts horrified, and makes the sorority hold a big meeting where they talk about The Dangers of Eating Disorders, where some girl stands up and talks about how she personally doesn't have one but she knows that some girls do, and everyone looks at her like, Whatever, she is pretty thin. I wonder how much she weighs? And then a few years later the whole thing happens all over again. Anyway, what the fuck was I talking about? More »

MIDWEEK MADNESS: Janice Min Reveals The Secret To Celeb News Domination — Don't Really Give A Shit About Celebs

Moe — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:19:18 EDT

Welcome to Midweek Madness. In which we "read" the Wednesday celebrity tabs. So you don't "have" to. More »

It's Called Depression, Dumbass.

Anna Holmes — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:45:00 EST

This week's US Weekly and Star lead with cover stories on weight loss among the already-trim and Tinseltowned. HOLLYWOOD'S REVENGE DIETS! blares US. ANGELINA ANOREXIC? screams Star. More »

Machiavelli couldn't have planned it better.

eurotrash — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 10:57:56 EST

We salute you Jennifer Aniston - you truly know how to fuck with the celebrity weeklies! More »