http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1045785942631948503,00.html
Beautiful Losers By RUSS SMITH
Just for a moment, ignore Jacques Chirac's temper tantrums, Dennis Kucinich's ridiculous presidential bid, antiwar protesters who can't locate Iraq on a map, Turkey's economic blackmail of the White House and anything Sen. Ted Kennedy, the moral arbiter of the Democratic Party, has to say in Congress.
Instead, let's enter the bubble of media narcissism.
In a matter of months, two veteran journalists will likely preside over distinctly different events. David Talbot, a founder of Salon, will raise a glass at a San Francisco wake, comforting his staff that the online magazine, which is currently on the verge of extinction, "fought the good fight" and other such blather.
Meanwhile, Maer Roshan, formerly a talented editor at New York magazine and Talk, will accept congratulations at a Manhattan restaurant for the launch of Radar, the "irreverent" monthly (and allegedly, by the fall, biweekly) aimed, according to its Web site, at "media-savvy post-boomers [who] want affirmation and information."
Mr. Talbot and Mr. Roshan have at least one trait in common: hubris. That's not a criticism, for without beat-the-odds confidence industry legends like Henry Luce, Hugh Hefner and Jann Wenner would never have founded their magazines and raked in fame and fortune. But financial ruin, which Mr. Talbot and his backers now face (and, if my bet is correct, Mr. Roshan will encounter within 18 months), has a way of pushing would-be media titans into the large gallery of forgotten loudmouths.
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I think we can count on plenty of celebrity-obsession from Mr. Roshan and a lot of the sort of thing we already have too much of. Watch for a movie or pop star on the cover of the first issue, a fawning but empty political profile from Mr. Tapper and the latest installment of Mr. Young's self-obsessed diary. The magazine's Web site claims immodestly -- two months ahead of schedule -- that "Radar packs an editorial punch, with articles that provoke debate, create heat, and regularly make news."
Harry Houdini lives! Now if only it can conjure up a return on investment, too.