Hollywood Loves New York?

I thought Hollywood had a love-hate relationship with NYC, but when it comes to building buzz for an Oscar campaign, New York is a crucial element. Generally, I think publicists should NEVER be mentioned by name in gossip columns or profiles of celebrities (reporters should be mentioned even less) but since this is a story on publicity, it makes sense. Still, saying a publicist did "months of planning" in setting up a favorable profile of Helen Mirren in The New Yorker who is is absurd. Maybe several phone calls were placed over a several month period, but exactly what planning is needed? Either The New Yorker says yes or they say no and once they agree (and it's the New Yorker which needs to agree, not Mirren) then it's a simple case of getting the actress and the writer together as much as both want or need. If a publicist spends MONTHS getting ONE story placed in ONE publication, my God, how could they possibly have time to arrange the mountains of articles that were printed about Mirren in the last few months (for both "The Queen" and the new "Prime Suspect")? Did that involve YEARS of planning? But my real wrath is for the NYT: how could they possibly use this word in a sentence:

"[Kate] Winslet is on the up-alator, having been named as one of the people who will receive a tribute at the Gotham Awards, the East Coast kudos given out by the Independent Feature Project, a nonprofit indie film group."

The "up-alator?" My God, that would be bad enough in a quote, but to just it as if it were a perfectly reasonable word? Embarrassing.