Throughout the year, Murphy and other editors schmooze with agents and publicists, judging who is List-worthy. Then they field hundreds of phone calls and faxes from the very same agents and publicists, who remind them of the amazing feats their clients accomplished in the past year. Publicists and EW staffers say that no amount of pitching can influence The List. But not for lack of trying. According to an entertainment journalist, one publicist for a music-studio executive marched into a top EW editor's office and demanded that her client make the cut.
Executives are especially concerned about where they place in relation to their rivals, of course.
The magazine excised Morris's entry at the last minute. Occasionally, the magazine bundles several executives from the same parent company into the same ranking. Once The List is finalized, a hyperactive waiting game begins. Executives tell their minions to try to get an early look at the rankings, and publicists try to cajole EW editors and writers. One year, a publicist for an executive at a major studio tried to get a EW researcher to use a cough to signal if the exec's position had improved from a year ago.