Vanity Fair May-15

1 Desmond Tutu In this month’s V.F. Portrait (page 140), Archbishop Desmond Tutu honors equal-rights advocate and MacArthur Fellow Bryan Stevenson. A Nobel Peace Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Archbishop Tutu is no stranger to the causes of the oppressed. But, as he says, “causes need champions, and Bryan—a gifted lawyer, academic, and writer—accepted the responsibility for championing the cause of righteousness.” 2 Evgenia Peretz Contributing Editor Evgenia Peretz says that the connection between a subject’s private and public personas usually makes some kind of sense. Not so with conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, whom she profiles in “The Re-education of Dinesh D’Souza” (page 96). “One minute, I’d be inclined to think him a reasonable person with a respectable audacity,” says Peretz. “The next, he’d be comparing himself, on…

This month, Vanity Fair special correspondent Bryan Burrough sifts through the wreckage at NBC News, an assignment he began working on a month before the regrettable self-immolation of Brian Williams, the Nightly News anchorman and the division’s bright and shining star. Once considered a paragon of American broadcast television, NBC News started having troubles long before the revelation earlier this year that Williams had misstated or exaggerated some of his activities in war zones and during his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, ever since Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable giant, took control of the network, in 2011, the news division had been on a slow, downhill roll. When Comcast took charge, NBC News had the No. 1 morning broadcast (Today), the No. 1 Sundaymorning broadcast (Meet the Press), and the No.…

As a Marlborough School alumna, I am deeply ashamed of my school, specifically the board of trustees, which has thrown all the blame onto head of school Barbara Wagner (“The Prep School and the Predator,” by Evgenia Peretz, March). Not once, even in their report, did they mention any of the board members—specifically John Emerson, who was president of the board at the time and the person Wagner approached with Mikaela Gilbert-Lurie’s allegations against Joseph Koetters. The victims deserve to have everyone who knew about the allegations identified publicly. WHITNEY STAMBLER Los Angeles, California Evgenia Peretz was perfectly on point: how is Barbara Wagner, a visionary in education who helmed a girls’ school credited with the sixth-highest S.A.T. scores in the country, and beloved by a majority of the school…

This month, we begin with Sinatra love: “Bravo to V.F. for this wonderful article,” says Linda Beuerle, of Lansing, Michigan, regarding “Nancy with the Lasting Faith,” by A. J. Lambert, granddaughter of Nancy Sinatra Sr. “Thank you for the excellent article. . . . As a devoted fan of Frank’s for 70-plus years, I often wondered about Nancy and her life.” So says Dee Hunsicker, of El Paso, Texas. “What a delight to see ‘Senior’ looking so fabulous at 97,” writes Natalie Skalla, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nancy Powers, from Taylor, Michigan, echoes that (“She is amazing and looks absolutely wonderful!”) and wonders, “What are her children Nancy junior, Tina, and Frank junior up to? What is Amanda [A.J.’s sister] doing?” But mainly the mail was about what was missing from…

There’s nothing dreamlike about how Americans perceive the American Dream. Nothing surreal, or vague, or involving harried white rabbits in waistcoats. The American Dream, we seem to feel, is a simple, connect-the-dots matter; it makes perfect sense. We have nothing against successful careers or wealth or fame, but far more of us believe that the American Dream is about giving our kids a better life. And two-thirds of us think that our lives are better than our parents’, which means the system works. (Incidentally, more of those polled said that the American Dream is best embodied by Steve Jobs—even more than chose Kim Kardashian.) There’s no mystery about how to achieve this American Dream: through education. (So say 47 percent, as opposed to the 9 percent who feel “being born…

COAST Along Our inscrutable contributing editor EDWIN JOHN COASTER ponders Fox News punditry, a new New Republic, and lucrative matchmaking in his correspondence on PAGE 50. THIS MONTH MEDIA MOTHER SHIP Which newspaper is NOT owned by News Corp.?* The Wall Street Journal Joondalup/Wanneroo Times London Evening Standard Papua New Guinea Post-Courier ANNA CAMP AGE:32. PROVENANCE: Columbia, South Carolina. PLAYING HER PART: After earning a B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts, Camp joined the New York theater circuit and had parts in Equus and The Country Girl, the latter directed by Mike Nichols. “He saw me in an Off Off Broadway play, so everything I’ve ever gotten was from God Hates the Irish, this weird musical that apparently everyone came to see.” RIDING HIGH: Camp’s cinematic break…