Matt Taibbi

When Vanity Fair contributor James Verini approached Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi about his work on the shuttered Russian newspaper The Exile, Taibbi suggested that Verini consider killing the story. As he wrote in an email: “In the end nobody really wants to read about a couple of overgrown suburban teenagers writing about anal sex and the clap and then calling themselves revolutionaries when some third-world dictator gets bored of letting them stay published.”

But Verini persevered and Taibbi agreed to a lunch, though he again tried to talk the reporter out of the story, stressing that the story of the newspaper was best told in his 2000 book, co-authored with Mark Ames, The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia.

I told him yes, that was true, but the book had been published in 2000, and, frankly, I didn’t think it was very good.

“The book wasn’t good?” he said.

“No, I didn’t think so,” I said.

“My book?” he said.

“Yes, the Exile book. I thought it was redundant and discursive and you guys left out a lot of the good stuff you did,” I said.

At this, Taibbi’s mouth turned down and his eyes narrowed.

“Fuck you,” he snarled, and then picked up his mug from the table, threw his coffee at me, and stormed out.