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A Wolff in Zaslav’s Den

Just a week after profiling David Zaslav and the media veterans the Warner Bros. Discovery chief Zoom-lunches with, Michael Wolff ran into them face-to-face—purely by chance.

Author

Oliver Darcy
April 21, 2025

David Zaslav. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/VF25/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)

On Monday afternoon, Michael Wolff strode into the midtown restaurant Michael’s and spotted a familiar trio settling in at a table: Howard Stringer, the former head of Sony; Richard Cohen, the retired Washington Post columnist; and Ken Auletta, the veteran New Yorker media reporter.

Just a week earlier, Wolff had opened his profile of Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive David Zaslav in New York magazine with this very group—an informal collection of media veterans who meet monthly over Zoom to trade insights and gossip. Now, with Stringer visiting from London, the group had opted to gather in the flesh, sharing lunch at New York’s most storied media haunt. And, just by happenstance, Wolff had been in the right place at the right time to run into them.

Upon seeing the group, I'm told, Wolff…

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Tina Brown. (Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

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