Judith Regan: Standard-Bearer
Oct. 27 2008, Published 7:07 a.m. ET
MARK OF QUALITY Regan She may have been deposed and disgraced over the proposed publication of O.J. Simpson's If I Did It, but that hasn't kept Judith Regan from dominating the otherwise dull and, well, bookish publishing news.
This week's Newsweek gets straight to the goods (and inspires a segment on this morning's Today show) with Mark Miller's exclusive look at If I Did It, despite the fact that "All 400,000 copies of the book were recalled for destruction, save for one locked away in a News Corp. vault." After all the controversy, it's surprising that the book doesn't even describe how Simpson hypothetically killed his wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ronald Goldman: According to Simpson, after a confrontation, Brown rushed at him like a "banshee" and tripped, hitting her own head on the ground. (Talk about blaming the victim!)
Other outlets didn't even need a nugget of the banned book to namedrop Regan, who they've somehow turned into a standard-bearer for her former industry—or at least a quick shortcut to sexing up a boring publishing story.