By Michael Gross
When Women's Wear Daily ran a scathing article last week, alleging that GQ publisher Ron Galotti and its editor, Art Cooper, were at each other's throat, GQ insiders were outraged. Pronouncing himself "utterly mystified by the inaccuracies and nasty tone" of the story, Cooper wondered aloud how the newspaper could attack another member of the same publishing family. Advance Publications owns both Fairchild, which publishes WWD, and Conde Nast, which owns GQ. "The only motivation I can see is that Fairchild publishes Details, a flailing men's magazine," says Cooper. "Somebody at Fairchild is trying to undermine us."
Word up, Art. Reliable sources say that Advance chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. is behind the curtain. He has ordered Fairchild's famously snippy fashion trade newspaper to consider all of Conde Nast's editors fair game. Since he hasn't fired any of them lately, this could be Si's way of keeping them fired up. And Si's pampered Conde Nasties aren't alone. Cathy Black, president of competing Hearst Magazines, wrote a letter to Fairchild and Newhouse complaining about scathing coverage of Hearst's Harper's Bazaar and its editor, Glenda Bailey, who read it aloud to her staff.