This morning's New York Times is running a story on how Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, got $100,000 for suggesting a movie. There are some people howling about how Graydon is being 'bought', and how the magazine is turning favorable towards those who line his pockets, but speaking as an editor myself I can tell you that a huge part of an editor's job is simply knowing people. I've published Bill Coughlan's work in these pages pretty regularly for a while now, and last week I took on the role of producer for a short film he was producing. (Well, I did until I got sick.) Graydon produces a magazine all about the shiny people – it shouldn't be surprising that he would befriend and take on projects with some of them. Vanity Fair is a glossy mag with occasionally very in-depth articles, not a pinnacle of reporting journalism. (I'm not going to give examples because I don't want to start off on that debate.) Until there has been some actual proof of truly false, slanderous work being published in its pages at the behest of some of Carter's friends, I don't see any evidence of wrongdoing.