For a stratospherically high-level media bash, the launch of “Regime Change” — the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times — was surprisingly butt-centric.
Paying homage to institutional journalism as only an Aussie could, Swan said, “I once heard one of my favorite magazine writers compare an editor to a hospital worker who trails along behind you to make sure your arse isn’t showing out the back of your hospital gown.”
He added, “Our editors do so much more than that. But they also do constantly conceal our arses. You cannot possibly imagine the amount of bare arse that would be on display in the pages of ‘Regime Change’ if Maggie and I couldn’t rely on a monumental amount of help from our editors.”
Meanwhile, paying tribute to Swan, Haberman offered her own anorectal allusion, saying that he, in just a few years, worked his way up to being one of the top DC reporters. “And he did it the old fashioned way: through hard work, and not being an a - - hole.”
Among those celebrating at the New York Times HQ were A.G. Sulzberger, Joe Kahn, Carolyn Ryan, Sam Dolnick, Jake Silverstein, Chris Christie, Preet Bharara, Swan’s wife Betsy Woodruff Swan and his dad, Norman, Haberman’s husband Dareh Gregorian and her parents Clyde Haberman and Nancy Haberman, Katy Tur, Lawrence O’Donnell, Jeff Zucker and Alison Gollust, Andrew Zucker, Tina Brown, Gayle King, Lis Smith, Risa Heller, Al Roker and Deborah Roberts, Emma Tucker, Jonathan Karp, Greg Greeley, Vanessa Friedman, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Peggy Noonan, Lachlan Cartwright, Jacob Bernstein, Carl Swanson, Molly Jong Fast, Lydia Polgreen, Ari Melber, Steven Rubenstein, Josh Dawsey, Charlotte Klein, Michael Grynbaum, Masha Gessen, Zach Haberman, Jacob Bernstein, John Berman, Audrey Gelman, Elie Honig and many more.
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