Spy Magazine

Graydon Carter

Vanity Fair

• Spy was founded in 1984. “Spy was conceived in 1984 over long lunches and via interoffice memos at Time Inc., when Andersen wrote for Time and Carter for Life. Armed with a list of 100 story ideas, 32-year- old publisher Thomas L. Phillips Jr. raised $1.5 million in seed money and another $1.5 million last spring. The first Spy appeared in October 1986 with Chris Elliott, resident wise guy on Late Night With David Letterman, as cover boy and a main story headlined Jerks: The 10 Most Embarrassing New Yorkers.” (Miami Herald, February 7, 1988)
• Spy’s humor relied heavily on body-shaming celebrity New Yorkers. “There are no sacred cows at Spy, which gets its name from a 1940 movie. It has skewered the Kennedy dynasty, mocked successful short men, exposed the ‘colleges of the dumb rich,’ and zoomed in on the wrists, necks and cheeks of women who are ‘too rich and too thin.’ […] In the parlance of Spy, Dan Rather is a ‘vainglorious anchorguy’ and his boss, CBS President Laurence Tisch, is a ‘churlish dwarf billionaire.’ Henry Kissinger is a ‘chubby socialite-war criminal’ and Gloria Steinem is a ‘girlfriend of rich wimps.’” (Miami Herald, February 7, 1988)
• Critics of the magazine justifiably noted that much of its humor was directed at easy targets and relied heavily on overuse of adjectives. “Some of the magazine's regular targets say Spy takes too many cheap shots. Esquire magazine gave Spy a ‘Dubious Achievement’ award, imploring, ‘Enough already!’ ‘God knows there's so much going on in this town that needs skewering that to do it so easily is a shame,’ says Esquire editor-in-chief Lee Eisenberg, who faults Spy for ‘this reflexive use of an outrageous adjective any time they want to make a point.'” (Miami Herald, February 7, 1988)
• Donald Trump was a regular target of Spy Magazine, which ranked him the third-most annoying New York celebrity in 1988. “In almost every issue, Spy rounds up and upbraids a cast of usual suspects -- archenemies New York Mayor Ed Koch and Queens- born developer Donald Trump, ‘celebutantes’ and movie stars, politicians and publishers. It recently announced The Spy 100 – ‘the most annoying, alarming and appalling people, places and things in New York and the nation.’ Convicted Wall Street insider trader Ivan Boesky finished first, President Reagan second, Trump third. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Attorney General Edwin Meese and New York subway gunman Bernhard Goetz placed in the top 10.” (Miami Herald, February 7, 1988)
• 1988: Trump told New York gossip columnist Liz Smith that he had inside information suggesting Spy Magazine was in financial straits and would not survive another year. “Spy magazine, the irreverent 2-year-old New York satirical magazine that specializes in swatting reputations coast to coast, is beginning to get a few brickbats through its own windows. Recently at least three columnists and Manhattan real estate tycoon Donald Trump have thrown insults and dire predictions at the magazine. Last week syndicated columnist Liz Smith reported that Trump had predicted to her that Spy would not ‘even be around in a year.’ According to Smith, Trump based his forecast on knowledge of financial problems at the magazine.” (Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1988)
• In the first years of its life, Spy Magazine mentioned Donald Trump in every single issue. “Both Smith and Trump are frequent targets of the magazine. Trump has been mentioned -- unfavorably -- in every issue for the last year -- by the magazine's own count. He also made the Spy 100 list in the current issue five times. The list of ‘the most annoying, alarming and appalling people, places and things’ singled out Trump for several of his activities, including boxing promotion and his best-selling book.” (Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1988)
• One media columnist who had been targeted for ridicule by Spy, Lewis Grossberger, derided the magazine as a “mean-spirited” “swaggering frat house bulletin.” “Finally, a media columnist for a 7-month-old New York weekly has declared hostilities on Spy after being scalded in the magazine's Review of Reviewers column. Lewis Grossberger, whose column appears in 7 Days, mentioned Spy unfavorably ‘four or five times’ in his column since Spy labeled him ‘irrepressibly tiresome’ last month. Grossberger, once a fan of the magazine, said he has called Spy ‘mean-spirited’ and a ‘swaggering frat house bulletin.’” (Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1988)
• Spy Magazine regularly dubbed Trump a “short-fingered vulgarian.” “In many ways, Spy is like a college humor magazine that graduated and settled in Manhattan, where it keeps the village gliterati shaking and quaking with laughter or rage, depending on whose superego is being lanced and deflated. To the delight of many, Spy regularly eviscerates such high-profiled New Yorkers as Donald Trump, who is perennially described in Spyese as a ‘short-fingered vulgarian’; Mayor Ed Koch, the ‘freelance racist’; and ‘bosomy dirty book writer’ Shirley Lord, who is the wife of Abe Rosenthal, formerly executive editor of the New York Times.” (Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1988)
• Spy Magazine’s founder, Kurt Andersen, declared the publication’s mission was to apply “great objective journalistic resources to ultimately trivial and inconsequential things. “Occasionally reckless but never careless, Andersen maintains, the top echelon at Spy ‘applies great objective journalistic resources to ultimately trivial and inconsequential things. The material has to be not only well written and edited but funny. But when it works, it's very entertaining. And people respond because the magazine assumes a degree of intelligence and commitment.’” (Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1988)