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In an unusual move, GQ magazine removed an article criticizing powerful media executive David Zaslav from its website just hours after it was published on Monday, after receiving a complaint from Zaslav’s camp.
Freelance film critic Jason Bailey’s story slammed the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO for his handling of the company’s entertainment content — particularly for perceived crimes against film, such as the layoffs at broadcaster Turner Classic Movies, which outraged celebrity directors and other superfans and his decision not to release finished films like Batgirl for tax reasons. At one point, Bailey compared Zaslav to the tyrannical “succession” patriarch Logan Roy.
“In a relatively short period of time, David Zaslav has become perhaps the most hated man in Hollywood,” Bailey wrote.
A Zaslav spokesman complained about the story shortly after it was published on GQ, according to people close to the trial, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect confidentiality. By early Monday afternoon, the magazine had made extensive changes to the story.
Archived versions of the original and edited versions of the article show significant changes that resulted in the tone being toned down. A line calling Zaslav “the most hated man in Hollywood” was deleted. The “succession” comparison was removed, as was a section where Bailey called the reality shows Zaslav oversaw while helming Discovery a “reality slop.”
In the final paragraphs of the original article, Zaslav was compared to the ruthless businessman Richard Gere played in Pretty Woman, with Bailey writing that the manager is “only good at breaking things.”
The ending of the edited article was much kinder to Zaslav, removing the reference to “Pretty Woman” and simply stating that movie lovers’ complaints had “gone personal.”
Bailey told the Washington Post that he asked editors to remove his byline after GQ made the changes. He said an editor told him that GQ would not publish an article on its website without the author’s name. As of Monday afternoon, the article was completely removed from the site.
“I wrote what I felt was the story I should write,” Bailey said. “When I was asked to rewrite it after publication, I declined. The rewrite that was done was not to my satisfaction so I asked to have my name removed and was told there was an option to withdraw the article altogether and I was fine with that.”
In a statement, a GQ spokeswoman said the article was “not properly edited prior to publication.”
“After a revision was published, the author of the article requested that its byline be removed, at which point GQ decided to unpublish the article in question,” the statement said. “GQ regrets the editorial error [led] to a story being published before it’s finished.”
A spokesman for Warner Bros. Discovery said GQ complained about the article because Bailey did not contact the company for comment before publication.
“The freelance reporter made no attempt to contact Warner Bros. Discovery to verify the content of the article prior to publication — a standard practice for any reputable news outlet,” the statement said. “As usual, we contacted the point of sale and asked for numerous inaccuracies to be corrected. As a result, the editors ultimately decided to retract the article.”
Bailey confirmed that he did not contact Warner Bros. Discovery for comment on the article, but denied the notion that the article contained “numerous inaccuracies.” Bailey said his editors at GQ never told him the article was inaccurate and the edited version of the article did not contain a correction.
“I think a direct comparison of the piece before and after GQ’s internal edits shows exactly what WBD wanted changed and that GQ was happy to do so,” Bailey wrote in an email to The Post.
GQ has a corporate affiliation with Warner Bros. Discovery. The magazine’s parent company, Condé Nast, is owned by Advance Publications, a major shareholder of Warner Bros. Discovery. Advance Publications did not respond to a request for comment.
The changes and eventual deletion of the story angered leading film critics. On Twitter: Author Scott Tobias called The edited version of the story was “completely unacceptable,” said critic Matt Zoller Seitz divided the archived version of Bailey’s article. Critic Hunter Harris illustrated sparked the controversy on Twitter with a screenshot from HBO’s The Wire — another Warner Bros. Discovery work — in which fan-favorite heist artist Omar Little describes a rival operation as “very sloppy.”
The fold over the GQ article is just the latest controversy for Zaslav, who has been leading cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery as the company works to pay off nearly $50 billion in debt. The company’s stock price has fallen by about half since April 2022, when Discovery and WarnerMedia merged in a $43 billion deal.
Zaslav also faced challenges running Warner Bros. Discovery’s most prominent cable network, CNN. Zaslav fired his handpicked CEO, Chris Licht, in June after months of unrest in the news giant’s management, culminating in Licht’s ill-considered involvement in a profile in the Atlantic that suggested Licht was overwhelmed.
This article has been updated.
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