Saturday, April 27, 2024

Exclusive: The Mysterious Disappearance from GQ Magazine Website of Controversial Warner Discovery Chief David Zaslav Profile

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It’s a case of a missing profile.

In the last two days, New York Times Culture writer Jason Bailey published a profile of controversial Warner Discovery owner David Zaslav. The story appeared on gq.com and was titled “How Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Became Public Enemy Number One in Hollywood.” The story was a pretty complete recitation of Zaslav’s issues with Hollywood including the current scandal at TCM, and didn’t even include his CNN problems.

But now the piece is gone. It’s been wiped clean from the GQ website. Vanished into thin air. A revised piece, 500 words shorter, has taken its place but not on the GQ website. This is the version that went out to aggregators like Yahoo News. If you Google Jason Bailey and Zaslav, the result is dead links to GQ.com and to other sites that linked to the original version.

Where did it go? And why? All of that remains unclear. The revised, shorter version is different than the original in that it cuts back to just the facts, ma’am. Bailey’s colorful thoughts about Zaslav being like the Richard Gere character in “Pretty Woman” — he tells Julia Roberts he buys companies to sell off their parts– are gone. There’s also now no mention of the party Zaslav threw in Cannes with Graydon Carter for Warner Bros’ 100th anniversary, or breaking news that he’s trying to sell 50% of the rights to Warner Bros. soundtracks that include songs like “As Time Goes By,” the studio’s signature piece of music.

If anyone knows what happened here, do email me at showbiz411@gmail.com. And meantime, here’s a link to the original story. https://archive.ph/2023.07.03-160323/https://www.gq.com/story/david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery-ceo-tcm-max

 

from Bailey’s excellent piece:

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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