'I think people remember Demi Moore for that Vanity Fair cover more than any movie she did. It was taken just for Demi. Now it's become iconic'

• My guest this week is one of the most famous bylines of our times, Tina Brown, editor of Tatler at 25.

Yes I was 25, a Young Turk.

• That's about the time people finish their internships. And then, not just Tatler, Vanity Fair, New Yorker , your own Talk. Now, you're the biographer of Princess Diana.

Absolutely, I feel I've done magazines, I have done a weekly, I have done a monthly, I have done a book. Haven't done a newspaper, so you know that's the only thing I regret.

• But you have done a TV show.

I had a TV show, yes that's true.

• But times have changed since you took over Tatler and you changed Vanity Fair, and then you outraged people by changing the New Yorker, but successfully. There was no Youtube or Facebook back then.

No, I think editing has never been more complex than it is now. I think it is a very hard thing for editors today to keep their focus because they are being assailed from every direction by this ambient news everywhere they go and to keep that focus and to keep yourself aware of what the priorities are, I think that is very challenging.

• Take us back to your times at the Tatler, at the ripe age of 25.

Well, I had this wonderful break, Tatler was this tiny little magazine and I was given a chance to edit it. My motto is, 'If you don't have a budget, get yourself a point of view.' I mean, there was only a staff of 12 and I picked people who simply had a lot of attitude. And where there's no budget, we were enterprising, which I think is a great challenge and a good thing for young journalists, you know, rather than join a big robust organisation where they are just being interns. It's much better to take up something small where you haven't really got any budget and you have to be inventive.

... contd.

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