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Let Si Get ThisThe Condé Nast economy—all expenses paid, all the time.

By David PlotzPosted Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009, at 10:46 AM ET

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That annual Washington do has grown from an after-dinner gathering for drinks at a contributor's apartment to two huge blasts—before and after the dinner itself—at a rented embassy. VF's annual Oscar-night party has become a similar institution in Hollywood. In addition to the parties themselves, Si also naturally pays to fly in VF staffers and to put them up at top hotels. (What, they don't have editors in Washington or L.A.?)

Some Condé Nast parties are so ridiculous that even other Condé Nasties make fun of them. This week's New Yorker, for example, mocks a recent Vogue party in honor of food writer Jeffrey Steingarten. According to The New Yorker, Wintour so detested the carpet at Le Cirque 2000 that she ordered the florist to cover it with autumn leaves (handpicked, of course).

The apogee of party absurdity is Vanity Fair's sponsorship of an annual London dinner for the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. As one observer puts it, "Vanity Fair, an American magazine, pays more than $100,000 to a British art museum solely so that it can sponsor a dinner where Graydon Carter gets to sit next to Princess Diana." The princess was the museum's patron.

Actually, paying $100,000 for face time with Princess Di may not have been a foolish investment for a magazine so dependent on peddling her image. And Condé Nast's excess has other plausible justifications as well.

Some top editors may earn their perks. Vogue and GQ make millions, according to industry analysts. Vanity Fair is enjoying banner years, and while it probably hasn't made back the millions Newhouse lost in starting it up, it is certainly in the black. The New Yorker loses money—how much may even surpass perks as a topic of Newhouse gossip and speculation. On the other hand, The New Yorker is the most talked-about magazine in America, and Tina Brown is the most talked-about editor. That is worth something.

Public media companies such as Time Warner (or, for that matter, Microsoft) can entice and hold journalists with stock options. Advance is private, so Newhouse uses other golden handcuffs. He runs a lifestyle prison. Top editors stay because they could never afford to live in a house as nice as the one Si's interest-free loan bought them or to host parties as nice as the ones Si's party planners throw for them.

Condé Nast's magazines are all about glamour, wealth, prestige. To uphold that image, magazine editors need to circulate at the top of New York society. But the top of New York society consists of people who make far more money than magazine editors do—investment bankers, corporate chieftains, and fashion designers. Million-dollar salaries aren't enough to mix as equals with the Trumps and Karans. Si's perks are equalizers.

And they say it's not as good as it used to be. In 1992, according to Thomas Maier's biography of Newhouse, the editor of Self held a birthday party for Si Newhouse's dog. (Owners ate caviar; dogs drank Evian.) The lowliest assistants used to take car services home. But new Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio has restricted cars and catering. Editors who used to fly the Concorde now fly first-class; those who used to fly first-class now fly business. Expense accounts are scrutinized. Even so, today's Condé Nast is economical only by Condé Nast standards. The belt is tighter, but it's still hand-tooled, hand-tanned, and fashioned from the finest Italian leather.