Graydon Carter on Vanity Fair, Editing & a Short-Fingered Vulgarian Named Trump

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

News Commentary, News, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Graydon Carter is the co-founder of Spy Magazine and Air Mail, and for 25 years, he was the editor of Vanity Fair. His memoir, When The Going Was Good, chronicles a time when the going was extremely good for glossy magazines and their star editors. During the golden age of magazines, Vanity Fair combined celebrity profiles with deeply reported journalism to great acclaim, and Carter, arguably, became more famous than many of his extremely talented writers. He and Kara discuss everything from office politics at Vanity Fair to Canadian politics, including President Trump’s (possible) descent into madness, the artistry involved in making a restaurant cool (as opposed to hot), and why anxiety is an essential ingredient for editors. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher,
0:16.9	and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Graydon Carter, the storied magazine editor who is best known for co-creating spy magazine in the 1980s and being the top editor for Vanity Fair for 25 years.
0:28.6	I met Carter. Well, I knew about Carter before I met him. He was obviously a legend in the magazine industry.
0:34.5	And I worked for Vanity Fair for a very short time, largely to get an invitation
0:38.0	to the Vanity Fair Oscar party, and that is why I did it, and that's the way it goes. But he was
0:42.1	always legendary, always interesting raconteur. I've had many dinners with him, and just a very
0:46.7	funny, interesting and erudite person. Even poor spy, Carter was an early critic of then real
0:52.9	estate mogul Donald Trump. He wrote one of the first major profiles him for GQ in the 1980s, and his criticism of the man he called the short-figured Bulgarian was fitting then as it is today.
1:03.9	Carter's work as both a writer and editor was never lacking in witty commentary. He helped to find the voice of publications he touched for sure,
1:11.4	and he was possibly more famous than many of his famous writers. That voice and Menme and other
1:16.8	stories are the subject of his new memoir when the going was good in editor's adventure during
1:21.2	the last golden age of magazines. We're going to talk about that golden age and how he's transformed
1:26.6	the print legacy into digital in his latest publication airmail.
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	...

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