The Hollywood Reporter's new guise as a weekly glossy has debuted on its website, revealing that the first redesigned issue will showcase an "actress roundtable" with six of this Oscar season's most celebrated ladies — all of whom are white, The Wrap kindly informed its readers.
Under Janice Min, who was brought in by Richard Beckman to helm THR after a stint editing Us Weekly, the publication has ditched the daily print model that had become economically unfeasible — especially in the era when Nikki Finke and her ilk can get scoops papers like THR and Variety used to have a lock on.
The Wrap, a THR competitor, responded to the cover by sneering that it featured only white actresses. According to The Wrap's rationale, this merited a comparison it to Vanity Fair's March 2010 "New Hollywood" issue, which featured nine on-the-rise actresses and little diversity. The Annie Leibowitz-shot cover spread drummed up a decent amount of criticism, and in the end didn't even sell that many copies. The 300,000 snapped up were enough to make it the magazine's worst-selling issue at that point in the year.
Considering the amount of vitriol Sharon Waxman and her colleagues at The Wrap have expended on The Hollywood Reporter, we'll chalk the accusation of white-washing up to petty bickering. If the sites' difference in traffic from a few months ago has stayed contant, however, The Wrap's inferiority complex may lead them to keep firing shots.