Fresh Hell of a night out: Tina Brown attends Harper's Magazine Gala Celebrating 175 Years on November 13, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
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We invited Tina Brown on The Breaker podcast months ago, and the newsgods blessed us with good timing, as there was much to discuss with the legendary editor when we sat down in Manhattan on Wednesday. Over 40 minutes, Brown did not hold back, sharing her thoughts on Olivia Nuzzi, Anna Wintour, Graydon Carter’s Air Mail, David Remnick, Michael Wolff, Joanna Coles and Tucker Carlson, just to name a few. And she names the “blowhard” who was at The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit on Wednesday.
Also tonight, we dig into a bizarre new media start-up that is promoting itself as the “DoorDash of journalism,” the great and the good of News Corp turn out in Sydney for Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch’s Christmas party and speaking of parties we have a scene report from New York magazine's blowout in Soho Wednesday night to toast its inaugural Culturati 50 issue.
Finally, it’s Thursday, which means Journo Jobs is back. Tonight, we have gigs at Vox, The New York Times, NBC, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Post.
Mentioned tonight: Robert Thomson, Anna Wintour, Jeff Bezos, Siobhan McKenna, David Remnick, Col Allan, Graydon Carter, Marc Benioff, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, Will Lewis, Emma Tucker, Tucker Carlson, Jon Stewart, Nick Papps, David Haskell, Jim Bankoff, Pam Wasserstein Adam Friedland, Ben Ahlers, Pat Kiernan, Lindsay Peoples, Ray Chao, Genevieve Smith, Lauren Starke, Gazelle Emami, Alexis Swerdloff, Erik Maza, Brock Colyar, Charlotte Klein, Aude White, Alexandra Bruell, Orson Fry, Harrison Vail, Kate Klobe, Scoop Wasserstein, Oli Coleman, Michael Grynbaum, Jessica Testa, Mitchell Jackson, Corbin Bolies, Daniel Paik, Isaac Chotiner, Seymour Hersh, Brian Morrissey, Maxi Tani, David Folkenflik, Bari Weiss, Maurice DuBois, John Dickerson, Brian Stelter, Jessica Reed Kraus, Sam Buckingham-Jones, Adam Scott, Claire Danes, Parker Posey, Rachel Zegler, and more.
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Tina Brown on Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza, Michael Wolff, Graydon Carter’s Air Mail, Anna Wintour, Tucker Carlson and the “blowhard” at The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit
(Exclusive.) Our guest this week on The Breaker pod is Tina Brown, a legend of journalism, having steered the ship at Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Daily Beast. She now helms her own must-read newsletter, Fresh Hell.
From Il Tinello in Midtown East (cheers to owner Benny Bello for inviting us uptown), Brown didn't hold back when discussing the biggest journalism scandal in several years.
With the Olivia Nuzzi/Ryan Lizza saga rolling on, Brown speculated whether Nuzzi’s career could bounce back after the controversy: “I'm now just hesitating only because I did feel she could…But that's the problem, the book is not good. So, whether she can come back, I hope so. For her sake.”
“I must say that Ryan Lizza, her ex-fiance, has kind of done a pretty superb job of kind of decapitating her”, Brown told us.
We talk about Michael Wolff’s role acting as a “publicist” for Jeffrey Epstein and his newfound prominence as a Daily Beast podcaster. “Olivia Nuzzi is being kind of crucified for being Bobby Kennedy's, you know, publicist, essentially, what's the difference, with Michael Wolff?”
“I don't know whether Michael Wolff has to pay any kind of a price for having been revealed essentially as a conciliary of Jeffrey Epstein. It’s kinda amazing,” Brown said.
Brown names the “big cavorting blowhard” that was at Andrew Ross Sorkin’s New York Times Dealbook summit…
Lachlan’s Sydney Soiree
The Breaker bean counter again scoffed when asked if we could comp a cheeky trip to Sydney to stake out Lachlan Murdoch's Christmas party. You'll recall the Breaker bean counter earlier this year kiboshed a trip to Cannes Lions and Sun Valley -- we are hoping the bean counter cheers the hell up in 2026 so we CAN leave our downtown Manhattan bureau more often.
So instead we turn to the intrepid Sam Buckingham-Jones at The Australian Financial Review to enlighten us on who made it to Murdoch's exclusive shindig at Lachlan and wife, Sarah's, Bellevue Hill Manor, Thursday evening, Sydney time. Among the guests Buckingham-Jones and his snapper spotted were: the big dogs of News Corp downunder, including Australasia Executive Chairman Michael Miller, Sky News Australia Chief Executive Paul Whittaker, Foxtel Chief Executive Patrick Delany, and EA Group Chief Executive Cam McIntyre.
Ben English, the editor of The Daily Telegraph, who was one of the Australian editors blindsided when Nick Papps (who was editing the stablemate Sunday Herald Sun) was appointed editor of The California Post, was also there. Speaking of the New York Post’s sister title, former Post editor, Col Allan…