New Delhi: International men’s magazine GQ is in the crosshairs of fans and critics after it pulled a story from its website that was condemnatory of powerful American media executive David Zaslav.
The author, freelance film critic Jason Bailey, was not amused either.
The office of Zaslav – the CEO of Warner Bros. Disney – complained to the publication after the article was put up on its website last Monday.
The publication tried to water it down, but removed it completely within hours of being published.
The original article spoke about job cuts at the company’s Turner Classic Movies channel which outraged prominent directors and other superfans. It also critiqued the company’s decision not to release nearly-completed films like DC superhero film Batgirl and the family sequel Scoob!: Holiday Haunt— citing tax reasons.
The article opened by mentioning how Zaslav was booed by the Class of 2023 while giving a lecture at his alma mater Boston University.
Bailey also compared him with the tyrannical Succession patriarch Logan Roy. The final paragraphs of the original article compared Zaslav to the pitiless businessman played by Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, adding that the Warner boss was “only good at breaking things”.
The cherry on the cake was Bailey’s observation that Zaslav was the “most hated man in Hollywood”.
According to a report by The Washington Post, GQ received a call from one of Zaslav’s representatives soon after the article was published. The editors then tried to “soften” it
The edited version removed the above references and made significant changes to the tone of the original. A segment where Bailey called the reality shows that Zaslav oversaw at Discovery “reality slop”, was also deleted from the article.
Bailey, in a conversation with The Washington Post, said that he was unhappy with the changes and requested the publication to remove his byline from the article, which GQ refused but eventually deleted the article.
In a statement, a GQ spokeswoman said the article “was not properly edited before going live”.
When asked about the complaint to GQ, a spokesperson for the Warner Bros. Discovery said the complaint was filed because Bailey hadn’t asked the company for a comment before publishing it, a standard practice followed by news outlets.
The edit and eventual deletion of the article also angered top film critics, with one tweeting that it was “completely unacceptable to water down a journalist’s words to appease a mighty CEO…”
🧵Be sure to read the differences between the grafs here. Completely unacceptable to water down a journalist’s words to appease a mighty CEO like Zaslov, and also unacceptable to hang the writer out to dry. https://t.co/Yd57F5nB4J
— Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) July 3, 2023
https://t.co/xzQTkWtVcd pic.twitter.com/wkPCysVfJz
— hunter harris (@hunteryharris) July 3, 2023
The row with GQ is another chapter in Zaslav’s book of controversies. The Warner Bros. Discovery CEO have been heavily criticised for job cuts as the company works to pay off nearly $50 billion in debt.
Also read: Hollywood likely to face second strike as talks with SAG-AFTRA actors union near deadline