Historically, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone covered the TV & movie industries and the music industry respectively. However, you're correct now because both Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair cover stories and topics that traditional mainstream outlets won't touch. The Matt Taibbi op-eds are good examples. Think about it. People are getting hard hitting news from Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair instead of ABC, CBS, NBC, Time, CNN, FOX, NY Times or WSJ; to name a few mainstream outlets.