By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-21 · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer on FishbowlLA, 2010
In the autumn of 2010, every few weeks seemed to bring another byline defecting from Variety to The Hollywood Reporter. Bill Higgins was one of the more telling departures.
Then
FishbowlLA, citing Anne Thompson’s indieWIRE blog, reported that Bill Higgins — who had spent roughly a decade covering the party and social scene for Variety — had crossed over to The Hollywood Reporter. He moved into THR’s Wilshire Boulevard offices as a staff writer covering parties and Hollywood philanthropy.
The hire was a small piece of a very large project. Under editor Janice Min, THR was roughly doubling its staff and remaking itself as a newsstand weekly glossy. Higgins joined a run of recent recruits that included Kim Masters, Allison Hope Weiner and executive editor Owen Phillips at Min’s daily editorial meetings. A gossip columnist, FishbowlLA noted, was reportedly next on the list.
Now
Janice Min’s reinvention of The Hollywood Reporter became one of the defining trade-press stories of the decade. The glossy relaunch, the aggressive hiring and the awards-season ambition turned a fading daily into a magazine that genuinely competed for scoops and attention.
The momentum did not hold indefinitely. Min eventually moved on, the trades were swept into the same ownership consolidation that absorbed Variety and Deadline, and the lavish print operation of the early 2010s was steadily trimmed as the business shifted online.
Higgins’s quiet move from one trade to another is a useful marker of that moment: a brief, well-funded window when The Hollywood Reporter could out-hire its rivals — and when covering the Hollywood party circuit was still considered a beat worth poaching for.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.