THEIR 15 MINS. ARE UP

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself"
Andy Warhol



THEIR 15 MINS. ARE UP
By KEITH J. KELLY
http://www.nypost.com/

May 30, 2007 -- POLO-playing Peter Brant, the real estate developer and art collector who bought Interview magazine with his then-wife Sandra from the Andy Warhol estate in 1989, has decided to put the mini-publishing empire up for sale.

In addition to Interview, Brant Publications also includes The Magazine Antiques and Art in America.

The company recently retained Allen & Co. to "explore strategic alternatives," sources say, which is the publishing industry's lingo that investment bankers use when they put a media property up for sale to the highest bidder.

Under Warhol's direction, the monthly magazine was a pioneer in chronicling both pop and underground cultures from a downtown perspective. The Brants had become art collectors who were fascinated with original Warhols and soon had befriended the man himself.

Two years after Warhol's death, Brant and wife agreed to buy full ownership of the magazines from the estate for $12 million - but it ended in bitterness. Their new company was eventually sued by the estate, which claimed after Brant paid the first $4 million up front, he backed out on the remainder and never paid the $7.2 million balance. The case was eventually settled.

More complications arose when Peter divorced Sandra. Sandra is the president and CEO and is still involved in the day-to-day operations. Peter remains the chairman of the jointly held company, but is listed below his ex-wife on the corporate masthead.

The biggest complication was Peter's 1990 conviction for tax evasion, which resulted in some hefty fines and a 90-day jail sentence.

But since getting out of the slammer, he has not slowed down. He eventually nabbed a trophy wife, former Victoria's Secret model Stephanie Seymour, and continued developing real estate - notably bringing polo to Greenwich, Conn., with the founding of the Greenwich Polo Club.

Neither of the Brants could be reached for comment yesterday.

Several industry executives confirmed the magazines are being shopped, however.

A spokesman for the magazine said only this: "Sandra Brant, president & CEO, and Ingrid Sischy, editor-in-chief, are as devoted as ever to Interview and excited about its future."

Defection;

It may get a little harder for the Condé Nast Portfolio folks to deny that there is unrest among the troops now that a second high-profile writer on the expensive glossy start-up has turned tail and run back home.

Betsy Morris, who quit Fortune when Eric Pooley was the top editor, has been lured back to the Time Inc.-owned magazine, now that new Managing Editor Andy Serwer and boss John Huey, editor-in-chief of Time Inc. are mounting a counteroffensive.

Morris resigned from her senior writer job yesterday and expected to be named to her old job at Fortune as early as today. She is the second high-profile defection from Editor-in-Chief Joanne Lipman's staff. Earlier, Laurie Cohen quit even before the launch took place to return to The Wall Street Journal, where she and Lipman were once colleagues.

Morris, who continued to work from Atlanta, could not be reached at presstime.


But unlike some of the stars who were upset when their stories did not make the cut for the first issue, Morris was in the starting lineup with a story on auto-scion Bill Ford and the future of the troubled car company.

She had been part of a tight-knit staff at Fortune when Huey was its editor in the mid-1990s.

Lipman confirmed the loss, but denied there was anything to worry about. "We wish Betsy well. She had a good run here." (One story is a good run?)

Asked if there were rumblings of discontent, she said, "Not even remotely. We have a remarkable degree of stability. Start-ups are thrilling and exciting, but they are not for everybody."

She also said they are still hiring. They just nabbed former Time Asia editor Karl Taro Greenfeld to join as a contributing editor.


Faking it
It's now week six for the Fake News coverage in Janice Min's Us Weekly, which each week tries to eviscerate some of its esteemed competition in the celebrity arena by showing what it calls faux news items that played out on the covers of other magazines.
In the issue that is to hit later this week, Min again goes after Life & Style for its incessant - and so far false - cover coverage that Angelina Jolie was losing Brad Pitt to old flame and ex-wife Jennifer Aniston.

It also scores against Life & Style's big sister, In Touch, for a story saying that Oprah Winfrey was consoling Brad and for alternating stories on a big fight between Brad and Angelina, to be followed by coverage of a big reunion six months later. The competitors are firing back, in particular, pointing to the cover of the current Us with a picture of Janet Jackson.

The cover story is on Janet's amazing 60-lb. weight loss and her ability to keep the weight off. But some of Us' rivals claim that recent paparazzi photos show Jackson gaining weight again and insist that the photo on the cover might be 2 years old or doctored in some way.

Arnold Turner, the photographer of the shot, insisted yesterday that the cover photo is indeed from the recent shoot he did with Jackson in The Bahamas. "I photographed Janet Jackson for the June 4 issue of Us Weekly on May 7. The shoot was specifically done for the cover story. The photo is consistent with all of the countless other photo and video images that were taken of her during the Atlantis' grand opening celebration, including her concert on May 11 and various other activities throughout that week."

Min does concede, however, there may have been a little "cosmetic touchup" for Jackson on the cover.

"The proportions of her body were not altered," said Min through a spokesman. "As is commonplace in the industry, there are superficial cosmetic touchups that occur on every cover."

She acknowledged that nobody is blameless when it comes to making errors - sometimes big ones - such as Us reporting the wrong sex prior to the birth of the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes baby.

"We strive for 100-percent accuracy, and when we make mistakes, we issue corrections," said Min. "They continue with a fictional plot line," she asserted, saying rivals will run two or three stories about a break-up that never happened.


At least one celebrity publicist, who did not want to be identified, said that there is a definite food chain among the celebrity weeklies, with People on top, followed by Us Weekly then In Touch, followed by Star, National Enquirer and Life & Style all jockeying for the last slots.


"There are times when they (Us Weekly) get it wrong, and there are times when I have issues with them, but when I need to have a conversation with them, they at least listen at some level," he said.