Jann Wenner slips up with Sarah Palin attack

Has publisher Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine, misjudged his readers? Wenner is in trouble after his popular gossip magazine US Weekly ran an unflattering story about Republican wannabe VP Sarah Palin this week. Between 5,000 and 10,000 subscriptions to the popular gossip magazine were cancelled in the days after the magazine splashed with a picture of Palin and a "Babies, lies and scandals" headline on its cover.

Anyone familiar with Wenner (pictured) could have seen this coming. A counter-culture icon, Wenner co-founded Rolling Stone a year after dropping out of Berkeley University in 1966. He made a star of Hunter S Thompson and was instrumental in getting Tom Wolfe's debut novel Bonfire of the Vanities published. He must also rank as the only magazine editor who has played himself in not one but two Hollywood movies - Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire.

Faced with the Sarah Palin phenomenon, Wenner's liberal politics seem to have kicked into gear. While other celebrity-fixated magazines such as OK! cooed over the new Republican vice-presidential candidate, US Weekly devoted page after page to her teenage daughter's pregnancy, allegations over her conduct in office, as well as "new embarrassing surprises". However, the mass exodus of subscribers following the issue's launch seems to suggest Wenner is not on the same page as his readers.

An article in Women's Wear Daily in July suggests as much. An anonymous associate of Wenner's told the magazine that although Wenner owns US Weekly, "It's not really his world, not like Rolling Stone, a world he instinctually understands". Rumours this year stated he was looking to sell the magazine for a price of $750m.