The New York Times’ Michael Schulman writes a puff piece profile of Ronan Farrow.
MSNBC needs to be very careful. Between the Times slobbering all over Farrow and the quotes both the network and Farrow have made about how his show is supposedly going to essentially reinvent how news is delivered on cable, MSNBC is in extreme danger of blowing this launch months before the launch. They are setting expectations so ridiculously high that nobody could possibly meet them. For MSNBC’s sake Farrow better be walking on water on day one or the long knives will be all out for him. And deservedly so. Anderson Cooper didn’t have the deck stacked this much against him when he got pushed onto primetime.
“Wow, he’s handsome,” one dinner guest said, peering over a throng of photographers.
“He’s going to be our president in, like, 30 years,” another gushed.
The event, last Monday at the American Museum of Natural History, was a benefit for the Blue Card, which aids Holocaust survivors, and the object of the room’s collective kvelling was Ronan Farrow, the 25-year-old lawyer, diplomat, author, boy genius, offspring of two celebrities (though which two is an open question), possessor of alabaster good looks and, as of this month, the latest talent to join MSNBC, where he will host a weekday show starting in January.
Like a styled valedictorian, Mr. Farrow worked his way through the well wishers, his corn-colored hair lightly tousled. Though he already has the résumé of someone twice his age, in the last year Mr. Farrow has come into his own as a public figure, appearing on Vanity Fair’s international best-dressed list and applying his spiky Twitter commentary to everything from politics (“Leadership in America just turned into a pumpkin”) to pop culture (“Miley Cyrus is basically our generation’s Simone de Beauvoir”).
Filed under: MSNBC
