The Los Angeles Times is laying off 75 people.
Happy Tuesday!
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The Los Angeles Times is laying off 75 people.
Happy Tuesday!
So. The McCain campaign oddly decided to run against the media this year. It's not that odd, because Republicans have been doing it quite successfully since 1968, but this is the first year they've had a candidate who started off beloved by the media. And they just sorta pissed that away. Then in running against the media, they pissed off the media, and suddenly John McCain can't get any favorable coverage anywhere, and then they push back againt the media even more, and then Times executive editor Bill Keller says: “My first tendency when they do that is to find the toughest McCain story we’ve got and put it on the front page, just to show them that they can’t get away with it.” Sorta giving the game away! So that explains the gambling story. But those terrible old standards of make-believe "fairness" are what then led the Times to enable the insane and vicious tone the campaign suddenly took this week.
The Times put that gambling story on the front page even though there didn't seem to be that much to it. Now Keller admits, basically, that they did it because the McCain campaign was bothering them. So, obviously, then they had to be fair and put some sort of theoretically damaging Obama story on the front page a week later! And they did, with Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths, the story of how goofy '60s Weatherman Bill Ayers cleaned up and went legit and eventually served on a non-profit board with Barack Obama, which means Obama is a terrorist. Like, seriously, this is what they concluded:
A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”
NOW the increasingly, incredibly detestable Sarah Palin is standing before huge angry frothing crowds saying "I read in the New York Times" (BOOOOOO) "that Barack Hussein Osama is a terrorist" (BOOOOOOOOO) "so let's form a posse and kill the liberal media" (YAAAAAY). And, honestly, it's a desperate campaign in self-destruct mode, but that doesn't make it less disgusting and scary, that a major party is engaging in this kind of rhetoric unashamedly before these kinds of crowds.
And it's all the Times fault, just like everything else.
Did you know Jennifer Lopez once had a nervous breakdown? Or that she's a pretty big fan of crackpot religion Scientology? By the standards of the average modern celebrity profile—where a diarrhea story counts as a scoop—this is pretty good material. So why did it end up running today in Tina Brown's newly launched Daily Beast, instead of in a real magazine? Because a real magazine spiked it. Because they were scared of J-Lo!
Sez the Beast:
The interview was originally done for a major fashion magazine, which removed [reporter Kevin Sessums] from the story after Lopez regretted some of her comments and asked that the story not be published.
What "comments" did she object to? We're guessing this one in particular, which of course is the lead angle:
There was a time when I was very overworked and I was doing music and movies and so many things. I was suffering from a lack of sleep. And I did have a kind of nervous breakdown. I froze up on a set. Well, not on a set, but in my trailer. I was like, ‘I don’t want to move. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to do anything.’ It was on that movie Enough [in 2002]. Yeah. I did. I had a nervous breakdown.
There's also a section in which she defends Scientology, though she says she's not a Scientologist herself. But her dad was one!
Okay, so celebrities and their flacks can be touchy. Neither of these parts really make J-Lo look bad at all; run of the mill stress breakdown (which she apparently got over quickly), and sympathy for Scientology. Well, how many people are sympathetic to their own dad's religion? Most of them!
The more interesting question: what magazine spiked the piece? Because, honestly, they kind of look like shameful celebrity fellators now. Jesus, none of this is really "news," but the fact that Sessums turned in what was at least a moderately interesting celebrity profile with new information in it is a pretty unassailable not to spike it.
So what "major fashion magazine" is totally in the tank for J-Lo? Depends on whether "fashion magazine" is an accurate descriptor or a kind of weaselly way to throw people off track so as not to burn any bridges. Is Vanity Fair a fashion magazine? Is GQ? Hard to tell. If you know the answer, email us. Guesses go in the comments. [Daily Beast]
Early Saturday morning I dragged myself to the New Yorker Festival in Midtown, to see media mensch Ken Auletta moderate a panel discussion with Times editor Bill Keller, Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates, Slate press critic Jack Shafer, and breathless WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan, the token conservative. I'll leave out the boring recap parts and distill the experience down to its key point: Peggy Noonan should go back to writing political speeches, because—even taking into account the fact that she's a Republican hack—her dishonesty is embarrassing to watch. Ugh.
Noonan, remember, was caught on a live mic talking about how the selection of Sarah Palin as VP was "bullshit." A fact that was referenced repeatedly by Ken Auletta! So what did Noonan spend the bulk of her time on the panel (subject: "Covering the Candidates") doing? Defending Sarah Palin.
It was far too early to take notes, but I'll sum up Peggy's arguments: "Sarah Palin, fresh, new, American, real, six-pack, women, sexism?, the American people." The experience was strange because every single person sitting in the room—the panelists, the moderator, the audience, the security guards—was well aware how dumb Sarah Palin is. But there was Peggy, gamely searching for some all-American Reaganesque prose to elevate Palin into something legitimate. The panel was about the media, so the bold political hackery was jarring and out of place, like when those crazy Christians wave signs at the funerals of dead soldiers saying God killed them because of fags. There's a time and a place for your brand of lying, Peggy. It's on the weekend talk shows, after you sign on as a speechwriter for the sure-to-be successful Palin administration. There are lots of political hacks writing columns; but Noonan always wants to pop up as some sort of spokeswoman for Middle America, in the most patronizing way possible to actual Middle Americans.
You failed at the New Yorker Festival, Peggy Noonan.
The contrast between Noonan and the other panelists was what made the entire ordeal grimace-worthy. Bill Keller has more political pressure on him than almost anyone in the entire media. But when Ken Auletta asked him how it affected him when the McCain campaign charged the Times with being in the tank for Obama, Keller said (approximately): "It makes me want to find the toughest, hardest story about McCain we have and put it on the front page the next day."
That's called honesty, Peggy Noonan. Retire with your trademark false grace. [Pic via Startraks]
So 40 million people watched Joe Biden be his usual affable self and Sarah Palin look terrified and panicky as she struggled to finish every 90 second answer. Wow! That's more than any debate since 1992, when Ross Perot was more entertaining than anything else on television! Also this is a hilarious paragraph:
The night had split leadership with CBS winning the most viewers with Survivor: Gabon and the debate/analysis. But NBC took both the 18-49 demo and the 18-34 demo with its combination of My Name is Earl and the debate.
People still watch Survivor? Christ. Nation: doomed, as always.

We have to give them credit, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt really know how to work the media - or at least our twin does!
The two hosted the Reality Check Challenge at Taco Bell to support the World Hunger Relief Movement on Thursday
Montag says, "It’s really important to be here today — world hunger is a bigger issue than people realize. Every six seconds a child dies of world hunger, so that’s a huge cause. It kills more people than AIDS and tuberculosis and those diseases put together. We really need to do all we can to help out."
Nice - she rehearsed her lines!
Spencer added, "I think right now we need to help America the most."
While there, they also took the opportunity to use that time to speak to the media about other topics. And what else is more interesting than politics?
So Heidi took some time to talk about Republican VP candidate, Sarah Palin.
Montag said, "She will do great in the debates — she’s a strong woman and my prayers are with her. She has definitely been victimized by the media; it’s very hard for a woman being vice president or president. But I think she is standing strong."
With that amount of insight, Heidi should go work for CNN.
As for Spencer, he took some time out to chat about his favorite topic, the girls from The Hills.
Pratt said he was praying for Whitney Port's new spin-off show, but said that his real thoughts are with Audrina Patridge. Apparently Patridge is experiencing some "personal problems" that are too dramatic to even talk about on TV.
Spencer says, "My real prayers go to Audrina; she really needs it at the moment. She is going through a lot, I just wish her and her health all the best."
He adds, "Something big is wrong, but it is up to her as to whether she wants to go public with it."
WTF???
What's wrong with Audrina???
Spencer needs to talk!
And as for The Hills possibly ending, Spender says, "All good things come to an end, but the big thing for us post-'Hills' is our spin-off 'The Heidi and Spencer Show,' which is definitely happening."
Riiiiiight.
So, what do U think is wrong with Audrina? Or did Spencer just say that to cause media speculation and get some attention for himself????
[Image via WENN.]
Mike Nizza (pictured?), the biggest Wu-Tang fan in the history of the New York Times, is leaving the paper in order to bring da ruckus to The Atlantic's web projects. His boss, NYT digital editor Jim Roberts, closes the staff memo on Nizza's departure by quoting a Gawker comment. With his exit, the Times loses a rebel, who makes more noise than heavy metal. Nizza will be remembered for that old loco style from his vocals—Bill Keller couldn't peep it with a pair of bifocals. We saw this moment coming, though. Mike was a vandal. Too hot to handle. Now, he's saying Goodbye like Tevin Campbell. Full memo below:
In a couple of weeks he'll be taking a job with Atlantic Media, which publishes the Atlantic magazine and the National Journal. Mike will be a senior editor and will create and launch new Web sites and online features for the company.
As many of you know, Mike was instrumental in the development of nytimes.com. He started here in 2000 and quickly rose through the ranks of producer and senior producer before becoming an editor in 2006. I first met Mike when he was running the home page early that year and saw immediately what my predecessors had seen
in him: a well-tuned understanding of the news; an unparalleled depth of knowledge of the Web and the many resources it offered; and a quick agility with technology. Mike was instrumental in the site redesign in 2005 and 2006, and his ability to creatively manipulate the coding on the page gave us great flexibility to produce bold designs for the big breaking news stories of the day.
But Mike knew he could contribute more to the report, and when the job of running The Lede blog opened up in the spring of 2007, he was quick to raise his hand. The rest is history.
On Day One, the awful massacre at Virginia Tech occurred, and Mike turned the blog into a gripping, running account of the developing story … for three straight days. Yes, we had used the blog format to provide live coverage of baseball games and for a few hours of a congressional hearing, but Mike's Virginia Tech report blazed a completely new trail and thoroughly complemented the conventional news stories. With his minute-by-minute updates, he presented material from news conferences, eye-witness accounts, blogs and other materials that he sifted from the Web.
The collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis gave Mike another chance to provide users with a deeper and fast-paced approach to a breaking news story, and when Hurricane Ike plowed through the Texas a couple of weeks ago, Mike was at it again, providing an unending stream of posts that culled reports from our own correspondents, from local news sites and a seemingly unending stream of Twitter updates.
But Mike also found ways to fulfill the original promise of The Lede, exploring stories that spiraled off in new directions. He wrote about modern-day pirates, Tasers and outer space. He could be equally comfortable writing about global famine or Rachael Ray.
Mike also kept us in touch with pop culture. Amy Winehouse made frequent appearances in the blog. And it wasn't a surprise to find Keith Richards or Snoop Dogg. Gawker even took approving note of Mike when he made it clear that he was a HUGE (his word) fan of the Wu-Tang Clan. That prompted one Gawker reader to comment:
Wouldn't it be great if they started to credit him as "Fo Shizza Mike Nizza"?
We will miss him.
Jim Roberts

Comedienne Sandra Bernhard is denying reports that she verbally attacked Republican VP Nominee Sarah Palin.
Bernhard is denying that she said Palin would be "gang-raped by my big black brothers" if she enters Manhattan.
Ouch.
This supposedly happened during her opening monologue during a show last month in Washington, DC.
But Bernhard told the Daily News on Thursday, "I never said 'gang-raped' and I never used 'rape.'"
The "funny" woman is speaking out after an announcement was made that she was dropped as the keynote speaker for a benefit in mid-October at Rosie's Place, a women's shelter in Boston.
But when first contacted by the Daily News in mid-September to confirm the remarks, Bernhard never denied it.
In an email at the time, she said "That comment is part of a much larger, nuanced, and yes, provocative (that's what I do) piece from my show about racism, freedom, women's rights, and the extreme views of Governor Sarah Palin."
Inneresting.
As for Bernhard, she said she had waited to set the record straight because "as a performer, I'm not in the business of explaining myself to ill-informed critics. However, once this caused collateral damage to an innocent charity which does great work, I needed to correct things for the record."
And although Bernhard said she couldn't recall her exact words, since she said it's very improvised, she did say she "addressed the issue [that] if Sarah Palin had, God forbid, been violated, would she be willing to care for the baby?"
As for the cancellation, Bernhard claims she has no hard feelings and plans to make a donation to the shelter "immediately."
She added, "I understand the predicament they're in."
What do U think of her comments?
[Image via WENN.]
Ben Eason, the CEO of alt-weekly chain Creative Loafing—which declared bankruptcy this week—has a vision for the future of his publications. And that vision is to be like Huffington Post Chicago. Huh? Here's what he wants, and here's our free quality advice to him, before he fucks up some of the nation's best alt-weeklies for good:
Eason has been holding up the Huffington Post’s Chicago website as a model. It has one employee, who essentially sifts through every media outlet in Chicago for the best stories and then links to them. He’s a filter of content, but not a creator of one. Eason is in awe of the model.
Eason sees his papers doing something similar, but it “doesn’t mean we give up on original content.” Instead, Eason wants his journalists to be filling their websites up every day with fresh content. And not just fresh content, but links to other stories written by anyone in the world.
So: Eason wants his alt-weekly writers to spend all week writing for the web—being bloggers, in essence—and then, at the end of the week, somebody pulls the best bits from the website and puts them together to create the print edition.
Problem: These cities don't need any more bloggers. There are already too many of us! What they need is more original content. Otherwise the bloggers just end up talking about each other, which is the most boring thing in the world. Shit, how much original content is left in Atlanta, anyhow? In DC, the City Paper has already stopped running cover story features. Is it raining pigs? I believe it is.
Again: we don't need more bloggers. Content is really much more worthwhile. Invest in it. Any asshole can blog, shit. You have reporters. Use them!
Solution: Fuck an alt-weekly. Become and Alt-monthly. Keep the features. Take your time. Consolidate. Save on printing costs. Save journalismism. And try not to go broke. Your cities will thank you. [Atlanta Mag via Romenesko/ Maura]
Dadgummit, porn ruins corporate strategy! CBS is learning the hard way that if you give people a "branded mobile platform" to "upload" their "user-generated content," the "content" they will "generate" is "nekkid womens." The Tiffany Network started a site called CBSeyemobile.com where you, the idiotic consumer, can upload photos. And now they're shocked, shocked to find out that it's full of filth, loose women, and inappropriate public demonstrations of lesbianism! Ad Age broke the story in a Pulitzer-worthy feat of journalism, causing them to (modestly) publish this rather NSFW picture, which we are prepared to say is the most newsworthy photo that has ever graced that august publication's pages:

But you can't say it didn't generate any user dialogue:

Citizen journalism, ladies and gentlemen. [Ad Age]
Yesterday we learned that our national diet is shifting towards cheap, simple meals like tomato soup and Kool-Aid because of the national economic meltdown. But that doesn't mean your tomato-Kool-Aid soup must be boring and plain! Publishers are flooding the market with a new crop of food magazines, just in time for our collective shift from a nation of gourmet snobs to a nation of bony, coupon-clipping scavengers.
2008 saw the publication of 336 food magazines, up by a third from only five years ago. That's probably way more than necessary! Bad move? Here's a market summary: Interest is up. News stand sales and web traffic are both up. But! Ad pages are down. Several big food magazines have already seen double-digit drops in ad pages. And outside industries like travel and home furnishings that advertise in some food magazines are also hurting, and buying fewer ads.
So what are publishers doing? Tying new magazines to celebrity chefs, or to the Food Network. Paula Deen! Sandra Lee! Rachael Ray! All big successes, or predicted to be! Other, more mundane cooking titles will surely fall by the wayside over the next year.
The future of American food publishing: "Rachael Ray Tells You How To Use Lard To Re-Fry Your McDonalds Burgers To Raise Your Family's Caloric Intake Above Minimal Survival Levels." Mmmm! [WSJ]
Creative Loafing, the conglomerate that owns the alt-weeklies in DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and several other cities, has filed for bankruptcy. The company has more than $40 million of debt, a number exacerbated by its purchases of the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper last year. This may be just a foreshadowing of some painful days to come for alt-weeklies in general—we also hear the Village Voice may be on the verge of some layoffs.
Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason tried to put a positive spin on the move as one that will allow the company to reorganize safely without hurting quality:
The move does contain good news for editorial departments in the chain. Eason announced that cuts to edit staffs at all the papers would be rolled back but stressed that all the papers should proceed with “Web-first” publishing strategies, in which writers and editors customize their content for the Internet and subsequently transfer that content into their print products.
Hmm. So the print editions will be old versions of the website? Alt-weeklies are in a tough place. They're being squeezed by the internet on virtually every front, particularly in large, cosmopolitan cities that have a lot of blog competition and heavy Craigslist use.
As for the Village Voice , we hear that it may have some layoffs coming in the very near future. We have a call in to the Voice. If you know the facts, email us.
You'd think Fox News would be thrilled with the idea of an Obama presidency! Though they made their most important mark as the propaganda arm of the post-9/11 Bush presidency, they began as a channel in opposition to the status quo. Remember Clinton? The one who was president? The modern conservative movement is built around aggrieved victimhood, and Obama in the White House should mean the return of great Fox television. But they seem more concerned, right now, about getting that John McCain guy (who they never even really liked!) elected. They're actually maybe scared that their moment is over? That Rachel Maddow really is the future? How else to explain dumb stunts like erasing an AP report on Sarah Palin from their website after it showed up in search engines.
The story was on how prominent conservatives like Kathleen Parker are all terrified that the McCain is sending a genial idiot into the White House based purely on her attractiveness to the base. Not revolutionary stuff. But too hot for Fox, apparently.
(Though they did report on Frank Luntz's focus group proclaiming an Obama victory in the debate. No one referenced the group's decision again that night, as far as we know, but the Fox website is still highlighting the video.)

Ok, Vanessa Minnillo is officially a lacking any brains. But that's not exactly a surprise, now is it?
During a recent interview with In Touch Weekly, the "actress" spoke about her career and her desire to win an Oscar.
Hah!
Seriously!
Says MiMoron, "My goal is to be acting and winning an Oscar."
We can't believe she said that with a straight face!!!
She added, "I want to be an actress with an Oscar and babies."
Is she delusional???
Her career highlights include MTV's TRL, fucking Nick Lachey and that shiteous Epic Movie. No one even saw that shitfest!
Oh, and who does Minnillo want to be like?
Julia Roberts, of course.
Minnillo adds, "She's phenomenal! I would love to be just like her."
Good look trying…and failing!
P.S. You'll have better luck winning an AVN award for your future work in porn!
[Image via WENN.]

As many of you recall, Alec Baldwin was exposed on a voicemail recording last year calling his 11 year-old daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig."
We guess that's better than a "rude, thoughtless little Bitch," right?
The outburst came as a result of him being upset over Ireland (the daughter) not answering his calls.
But, Baldwin is now blaming the bitter and ongoing custody battle with his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, for causing the anger he was feeling when he left that voicemail.
On Monday, while promoting his new book, A Promise to Ourselves, Baldwin spoke to a crowd at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club.
He said to them, "I'm disappointed, I'm ashamed to say this: You get angry. I wanted to see my daughter."
In the book Baldwin "rails against the family court system in Los Angeles, offers advice based on his own experience with divorce litigation and talks about how one parent can turn a child against another parent."
He also admits that he's apologized to his daughter Ireland for the message which he adds was wrong and "horrified" him.
Though, he has gone on to say that the tape should not have been released without his permission and blames Basinger for the release. She obviously denies it.
Funny, Baldwin blames everyone but himself!
[Image via WENN.]
In 2003, there were 75 news magazines in the US and Canada. Now there are 45. That's a 40% drop in five years. Why? Because magazines are generally too slow to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle, and besides, everyone is too busy reading their "Regional" magazines, of which there are 1,120. So, for example, "The Untold Tale Of Hurricane Katrina's Victims" is now 25 times less popular than "New Orleans' Best Jambalaya Restaurants Under $25." Americans, geez. [Folio]

Here's another celebrity using her name and fame for good.
Mia Farrow was in Haiti this past Sunday as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador meeting with victims of the storms that have hit the small country in the past few weeks.
The storms have left over 300 people dead.
Farrow told the AFP, "I saw a city mostly submerged in deep mud (and) people still stranded on roof tops. Other people are still living in school and in a church."
Sad.
She added, "There is a sense of confusion, loss and anger. The people in the shelters had not eaten for days, (there is) not enough water coming — of course there is in no sanitation of any kind."
Farrow promised to spread the news of the horrible destruction and death that the country is facing once she returned to the U.S.
Mia said, "My hope is to be a good steward of this information, to take this message to the United States and the international community with the hope that the conscience of the world will respond."
Let's hope her efforts help.
[Image via Mavrix Online.]
When, back in April, we wondered what exactly political newspaper/website Politico was up to (and do they make money?) we said this: "once the presidential thing is done, Politico will have to go back to what we thought it'd be in the first place—a wonkish, Roll Call-like little trade paper for Congress-watchers and DC insiders." Because pure politics does not make money, and Politico has a lot of big salaries to pay. But Politico didn't listen! Once the election is over, The Times reports (from their new media desk!), Politico will expand! And then the Washington Post will copy them!
Politico (politico.com) is to announce on Monday that after Election Day, it will add reporters, editors, Web engineers and other employees; expand circulation of its newspaper edition in Washington; and print more often.
Hm. This piece does basically explain our earlier questions about their revenue: it is the Roll Call model, more or less. Roll Call is a little Washington DC paper that covers congress exclusively and very, very well. Its tiny audience is, you might imagine, incredibly influential, made up as it is of lobbyists, members of congress, and their staffs. So its print edition is profitable—as is, we assume, the print edition of Politico.
But we're guessing Politico is still losing money on the web, where their vast national audience lives (until November 5, of course). But the thing about those specialty ads is that they pick up when a new Congress is in session, which means after the elections.
There is still an air of vanity project about Politco—DC already supports two wonky Congressional papers, a third seems to be pushing it—and executives with owner Allbritton say only that the paper "has operated around the break-even point lately", but they seem to expect profits soon. Like maybe next January. Let's hope so, because they're adding 11 new reporters and editors! And if the congressional paper model doesn't quite cover it, they're also going to try being a sort of political ad network for struggling newspapers too!
The Politico Network will provide political content to newspapers and then sell some of their online ad space, presumably at better rates than Google. "Politico hopes to aggregate political pages from multiple newspapers, sell them to advertisers, and return to the papers significantly more than they would receive from standard ad networks." More power to them, we say! It still seems like a losing proposition, but so do most forms of communication these days, right?
And speaking of! The venerable Washington Post today launched something called "Political Browser." It is a webby internet aggregating thing. It links to political stories from across the entire internet, you see, even including blogs! It looks a bit like... Politico! (Also a bit like The Note, and Talking Points Memo, and 500 other things.) Political Browser executive editor Jim Brady says, "call it a 'cheat sheet for politics,'" just like you call all those other blogs and sites that provide the same basic function.
So. Will this make the Post any money? No, of course not. But it may drive more traffic to their site, and it doesn't cost much to make a couple staffers blog a little more.
We were all so pure before life got in the way. Even media types! Even Ann Coulter. Via Oh No They Didn't, click for the polemical pundit, back when she was a brunette and a virgin, Lou Dobbs as a Leave It To Beaver innocent, and Rachel Maddow as a 21-year-old leather-jacketed Rhodes Scholar who could kick your ass.
Lou Dobbs

Anderson Cooper

Rachel Maddow

[more here]
If there's one thing we're absolutely sick of it's journalists complaining about other journalists for no reason except to revel in the glorious, righteous contrarianism of complaint. And we are about to complain about it. Ha, cause we're so contrarian! Check out my surprising viewpoint, baby! I'd like to start off my complaint by telling Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple to shut up.
Wemple's column, which I am now whining about, is him whining about the whining of the New York Times. Specifically, about the Times being disappointed at the fact that their pretty fucking awesome Sarah Palin blowout story last weekend didn't have the same resonance that it would have had in times past, because the media is overcrowded these days.
***WHICH IS TRUE.***
Okay then. Go, Wemple:
Here’s a quote from NYT boss Bill Keller:
"But we do want our work to be noticed, and I’ve been repeatedly surprised at the rich, important stories that fail to resonate the way they deserve."
What has Keller so upset? Well, apparently, that three-bylined investigation of Sarah Palin that ran in this past Sunday’s paper didn’t bounce high enough for the big guy. “But this kind of work doesn’t dominate the discussion the way it might have in elections past,” said Keller.
Poor thing.
Dude, who pissed in your corn flakes? Wemple is doing the knee-jerk "Whores, all of you!" thing that Andrea Peyser does. Let's translate:
BILL KELLER: "Innocuous factual statement."
ERIK WEMPLE: "Stop whining, bitch."
Then Wemple notes that one of the reporters on the NYT story said that even though it got 1000 comments on the Times website, that still doesn't mean it had the national impact it would have had in times past.
***WHICH IS TRUE.***
That pisses Erik Wemple off. Doesn't the reporter know that his story was commented upon by none other than the Washington City Paper???
Can someone explain to me what he’s talking about?
Clearly those titans at the Times need to scroll back a bit on this blog, which earlier this week credited the Palin story as a masterful mix of narrative and investigative styles, though the blog item was silent on the slight impact the story had made.
Yes. Because any time a national reporter gives a quote in a news story, we may assume that his references to the media are intended to convey, exclusively, the work of the Washington City Paper's blog. Its impact is equal to that of all forms of national media combined in decades past.
What good journalist cares about impact anyhow?
Erik Wemple I like many things you write but this is ridiculous so please shut up.
Whining about our whining about his whining about their whining goes in the comments.

Ever wonder what Carrie Bradshaw would have been like in high school?
Well, your prayers have been answered!
Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell is slated to release the first in a pair of teen novels about Carrie's life in high school.
The first new book is due in 2010.
Fans of the show and film, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, will get an insight into how the fashionista in Manolo Blahniks got her start.
Was she a teenaged slut?????
Titled The Carrie Diaries, the books will revolve around the friendships and romances of a teenage Carrie, and the pursuit of her dream to be a writer. According to Bushnell in a statement released by her publisher, high school is where Carrie began "observing and commenting on the social scene." And as expected, she "did not follow the crowd - she led it."
We can't wait to find out what 18-year-old Carrie wore to senior prom!
And who she went with!
[Image via WENN.]

It's cougar mania in Hollywoodland!
Shia LeBeouf recently admitted that he's always had the hots for ABC's Diane Sawyer.
"She just does it for me," the Transformers star says of the veteran journalist.
Diane is about 40 years older than young Shia!
We can totally see Diane's appeal, though.
She's smart, super pretty and her newscaster purrr is zexy!
[Images via WENN.]

Could this have been a publicity stunt?
It looks like thousands of DC Batman comic books need to be destroyed.
The reason?
Apparently a "printing error" revealed a ton of curse words and obscenities.
The words, like fuck and sit, were supposed to be blacked out. However, two shades of black were used and the curse words were clearly legible, including words like a-hole and c*unt.
Scandal!
One part of the comic has Batgirl saying "Text every friend you've got, sh*theads. Sell your poison somewhere else. This here arcade belongs to the f*cking Batgirl."
When did that slut get such a potty mouth???
Has Batgirl been hanging out with Miley Cyrus????
The curse words appear in All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder No. 10.
So, DC Comics has asked all vendors to destroy the copies they receive, as they caught the error earlier this week while the comics were heading to the stores.
Some shipments were able to be stopped, but others got delivered and those were asked to be destroyed.
According to DC, the error was "a printing gaffe" which caused "a problem with All-Star Batman. As soon as the problem was discovered, we quickly asked retailers to pull the issue. We apologize to our retailers and fans for any offense or inconvenience."
And while some comic-book stores have pulled the issues, others still have them for sale, like St. Mark's Comics in NY.
The owner says, "We've sold a lot. We didn't destroy it because we couldn't know everyone would destroy it." Oh, and they're also not inflating the price. The comic is still being sold for the cover price of $2.99, adding "There's no need to inflate the price. It's wrong and evil and slimy."
Yea, and it helps that people can buy it for cheap, because then they can sell it online and rip others off.
A few copies have already been found on eBay selling between $20 and $250.
[Image via Getty Images.]
The ultimate confluence of a prestige media restaurant reviewer and prestige media restaurant has finally occurred: Frank Bruni has reviewed Michael's for the Times. At this point we should skip all the background, because those who don't appreciate the import of this moment will never be invited to Michael's anyhow. Suffice it to say that the city's most famous critic visited its most famous media power lunch spot, and, in a blinding flash of meta-media honesty, declared that it sucks big time:
Though he deems it "satisfactory," Bruni points out Michael's most obvious flaw: it charges outrageous prices to people who want to see and be seen, so who cares about the food? I'll tell you who: Frank Bruni.
The shrimp were entombed in a dense, soggy beer batter and interred in an almost monochromatic landscape of goat cheese, puddles of dark miso aioli and shavings of summer truffle that might have been shavings of summer rubber for all the flavor they had.
California cuisine? More like gloppy, affected pub grub, for which Michael’s charges $25
Zing! You could have had a corner seat, Frank, but now forget it. How about the obligatory media-food tie-in?
Across a series of visits I had some enjoyable food, notably the renowned Cobb salad, less a salad than an entire ecosystem, vast and verdant, with enough avocado to feed three I.C.M. agents or five Vogue editors.
Gracious. Now back to the main point:
And shouldn’t a diner paying $38 for sea scallops get more than two, situated at opposite ends of a long hillock of sautéed snow pea leaves?
Also keep in mind Michael's is hated by its own waiters, and its sommelier gave Bruni a bum recommendation on Chardonnay. On the upside, you are guaranteed to meet Laurel Touby there.
newVideoPlayer("/Greg_Lindsey_Jeopardy.flv", 506, 423,"");
Greg Lindsay comes across as an uptight guy. But that doesn't stop him from appearing on television again and again. Indeed, he's the poster boy for go-getters who try on every form of media until they find one that fits best. The former WWD gossip columnist and author of a book about sleeping in airports landed a "memorable" appearance on Martha Stewart's TV show earlier this year. And last night, he was a contestant on Jeopardy! The secret to his publicity, he advised a youngster long ago, is to remember "it's all about the brand called you." And how! Click to watch the clip of Lindsay's, um, uphill battle. And we'll let former Deadspinner Will Leitch finish the story of watching the show with Greg himself:
It's incredibly difficult to keep a secret anymore, and in this adolescent media world, it's impossible. So: I assumed, because Greg hadn't been blowing cash and buying everybody drinks and hookers over the last three months, that he had lost on Jeopardy. We'd known about this for a while, and a bunch of us had even helped him study. I was even a little concerned; he was putting so much effort into winning that I feared what would happen if he lost. Every pseudo intellectual has dreamed of being on Jeopardy. Actually making it, and then getting crushed, could emotionally devastate even the most stable of us. So I worried Greg was doomed.
Halfway through Double Jeopardy, my worry was not displaced. All of us had gathered at the Barrow Street Ale House, hoping to cheer Greg on, but he was so far behind that our priorities changed. No longer were we, "Way to go, Greg." It became, "Christ, how the hell do I deal with the crying dude when I just want to leave already?" And then he caught a break, and hit the second Daily Double, and then entered Final Jeopardy within distant striking distance. At this point, we were just happy he'd made it that far. He had nothing to be embarrassed about. I was trying to imagine a scenario where Greg would feel comfortable inviting people to come watch his show without him actually, you know, winning. This seemed about right. Within striking range during Final Jeopardy. Close enough. Good show, son. Everyone back in Illinois is surely proud.
And then the crazy defending champion woman missed — honestly, Galileo was obvious; she totally choked — and, somehow, amazingly, Greg had won. I write about sports a lot, more than I'd like, actually, and I find that the more sports I watch, the more difficult it becomes to come across an outcome that's truly unexpected. The term "upset" has become trite. Even the scrappy underdogs make millions and, if you met them in real life, would not like you. But to actually watch a friend of mine come from nowhere — seriously, the man was defeated — and win, in front of everyone he knows and holds dear (and even a few he doesn't) ... well, not even this cynical Brooklynite could deny it. About 35 jaded, angry, jealous, winded media people, everyone sniping behind everyone's backs beforehand, apoplectic that THAT guy got THAT assignment, all in a room together ... suddenly screaming like we're 10 year olds, shocked, giddy, foolish. It was awesome. This is all giving Greg a bigger ego. But it's true. The place went nuts. We were all so happy.
He's on again tonight, and maybe he'll win, and maybe he'll lose. Honestly, after the first unexpected victory, it turns strange, really, to cheer for your friend to make more money. This is New York, after all, and more money could mean a better apartment than I have, and That. Just. Won't. Do. But for one night, we were all Marshall. Update the Greg Lindsay Career Trajectory, folks. My friend is a Jeopardy champion.
So, now that he's won on Jeopardy ... maybe he can finish his goddamned book.
In nature, introducing an invasive species into an ecosystem has a domino effect. A new insect predator eats all the bugs, which are food for all the birds, which flock elsewhere, forcing the predators of the birds to migrate themselves, etc, etc. Also the beating of a butterfly's wing can cause a hurricane halfway across the world, I hear. So too goes the media industry! That's why you can thank the internet for driving all the rarefied magazines you love straight to the edge of a big big cliff. Why else would there already be an Us Weekly spinoff?
The magazine industry is far more insulated from the economic pressures of blogs and news aggregators than newspapers are. But! High-end papers like the NYT and the WSJ, watching the internet eat away at their business model, are desperate to make up some of their revenue loss. So they start fancy weekend magazines—T and WSJ., respectively—to cater to luxury advertisers and bring in money to subsidize their real news operations, which are increasingly unprofitable.
Both T and WSJ. have thus far done a good job of drawing in upscale advertisers. But guess who that hurts? Every other magazine that would like to draw in upscale advertisers. Which means all your favorites! So while newspapers are sprawling enough to extend their brands in a different direction, standalone magazines are not always so privileged. (Unless they have no fear of ridicule, like Us).
In this way the internet screws newspapers, and newspapers screw magazines. And magazines screw... ?
The lovable left-centrists at The New Republic look upon the middling political coverage of CNN and declare—it's good! It just may be the for-real best political team on television, Greg Veis declares. His primary justification for this claim is their use of technology, which means the stupid wall-of-tvs behind Wolf Blitzer in the situation room and the neat iPhone thing John Roberts manhandles on primary nights. The iPhone thing is a cute if needlessly flashy way of displaying useful information, yes, but in trying to expand those innovations into a claim of CNN's superiority to the hackery of Fox and MSNBC, Veis makes a compelling argument that CNN is basically everything wrong with contemporary political discourse. Join us on a trip into the land of politics as parlour game!
Fox may have lost a step, but it still draws the largest number of viewers; and whenever Lou Dobbs, CNN's sole flamethrower, unleashes another screed against brown people, it's ratings gold.
CNN's ratings are up because they are better than evil Fox and self-righteous MSNBC! Of course their biggest moneymakers are still vile 21st-century Father Coughlin Lou Dobbs and old softballer Larry King, so let's dispose of them without further comment.
But, Dobbs aside [900 pound gorilla aside! -ed], CNN couldn't bring itself to adopt the same strategy. Instead, it doubled down on even-handed, data-heavy political coverage. On a commercial level, the result has been an improbable ratings resurrection. On a watching-from-home level, the result has fluctuated wildly: The coverage can be nicely informative one moment, then bland, pedantic, and painfully hackish the next. And yet, when compared to grumpy Fox and self-righteous MSNBC, CNN's election coverage may well be the least of three evils.
Positively ringing.
On Pennsylvania night, CNN's panel of consultants was on the verge of breaking into a juicy, heated exchange on the differences between Pastor John Hagee and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, when Campbell Brown intervened and said, "Wait, wait, wait; I've got to go Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican." It was obviously an insane thing to do—a real-time glimpse into how banal and clipped responses have triumphed over a brand of discourse that might, in some small way, approach honesty. But the decency in her request—there should be some nod toward even-handedness in election coverage—points directly to the biggest challenge facing CNN: How does it make balanced conversation interesting?
"Decency" is so pleasant, isn't it? Let's forget that whole "honesty" thing!
As we've said, MSNBC is over the top and crazy, but you know what you're getting. There's an honesty to their occasionally blatant partisanship. Just like Fox's cheerful propagandizing is it's own form of twisted honesty—as long as you correct for built-in bias, you're getting the story straighter than you do when Bill Bennett lies for two minutes followed by equal time for Paul Begala and then some funnies from Dana Milbank, while your objective moderator, Wolf Blitzer or Campbell Brown, just shrugs the fundamentally incompatible worldviews away as the simple inescapable reality of partisanship.
CBS bought CNET, the tech-focused online conglomerate, for $1.8 billion earlier this year. Which prompted the general reaction "Really, that much?" And also, "Isn't this two fundamentally boring brands combining to form a larger, still boring brand?" Well one brave man says no, it's much more promising than that: CBS CEO Les Moonves, who engineered the deal! But is he right? It's hard to see why he would be:
Moonves is counting on CNET to raise CBS' revenue by two points within three years, which would mean that its online growth would have to offset the "flattening out" of CBS' own TV and radio ad revenue. But CNET is basically a tech news brand, and a pretty unexciting one. CBS is a general interest brand, and an unexciting one. So why try to make CNET another unexciting, general-interest brand?
Watching Moonves at a meeting of CNET executives, it's hard to miss the CEO's competitive spirit. The key, he says, is to boost traffic at CNET's dozen or so Web sites, which include video gamer site Gamespot.com, the all-things-television TV.com, and food site Chow.com. Katie Couric was on CNET streaming special shows from the convention. Chow.com's photogenic food editor Aida Mollenkamp is headed to a guest spot on Rachael Ray's show, which CBS syndicates, while CNET reporters are expected to populate every segment possible on its news shows.
It's going to take more than corporate synergy, though. For example, Moonves says TV.com is bound to be "the destination for online TV viewing" once it has shows from all the networks. Eh. It has a good name, but it doesn't even have CBS shows yet.
The basic problem: CBS itself has an increasingly old audience. They're counting on CNET to bring in the young audience. But CNET isn't cool. And if Les Moonves is the man who has to make it cool, its chances are less than average.
The total number of magazine ad pages fell more than 7% in the first half of this year. So the magazine industry says to itself, "You know what we need to sell more magazine ads? An ad campaign." Makes sense, right? And so does the message of this new campaign: "Magazine ads: they make people want to buy things." They're not beating around the bush here, people. Naturally, a big part of this new campaign is online. Hypocrisy in action? Not really!:
The new ad campaign (including the pictured spot, which shows, apparently, my apartment), is nothing but images of people who bought a lot of shit after they read about it in an imaginary mag. But all the spots are designed to drive traffic to a website where there are a lot more stats on magazine advertising's effectiveness. Is this ironic, considering online ads are one major reason for the decline in magazine ads?
Actually no, since part of the appeal of magazine ads is their ability to drive traffic to websites. It's right there, on the website! Also, magazines are far less threatened by the migration of advertisers to websites than newspapers are, because magazine ads are more appealing as a physical thing. Newspapers are the canaries in the ad coal mine. So magazines have nothing to worry about until newspaper advertising starts drying up, which... oh, right.
The Times explains this mysterious business like so:
The goal is to show that advertising in magazines encourages consumers to consider buying products — a phenomenon known as purchase intent — and stimulates them to go online to shop or to learn more about items they might want to buy.
Novel!
[NYT]
The 24 hour news cycle affects everyone differently, and horribly. A television reporter in Hong Kong has resigned after he was caught committing self-love on the top tier of a double decker bus. Former Asia Television journo Chiu Yu Kit admitted to the act in court, but explained that he was merely trying to "ease his stress" when an off-duty cop caught sight of him standing up on a seat facing the window and taking in the local color while taking care of himself.
A judge put Kit on a one year good behavior bond and suggested that he take up exercise or socialize with other people to relax. But, as everyone in the media knows, spending time with other media people only makes things worse! Look what happened to Lou Dobbs!
The article also notes that, last month, "a 'lonely and disturbed' Hong Kong man became stuck and had to be freed by emergency services after attempting to have sex with a park bench."
Things are tough all over. [Straits Times]
"Fashion Rocks" is Conde Nast's big advertorial extravaganza pegged to Fashion Week, when the magazine company can sell extra ad space to all its fashion advertisers in a fluffy, profile-heavy special supplements. But we hear that the staff of the Conde-owned WWD is currently embroiled in a mini-revolt, after they were ordered to write the copy for the 48-page Fashion Rocks supplement that went out with yesterday's issue. There's no reason an editorial staff should ever be made to write advertorial copy. The most egregious line-crossing of all: a full-page interview in the supplement with Richard Beckman, Conde Nast's own head of marketing.
Beckman, of course, would be the mastermind of the entire Fashion Rocks campaign, so what the hell is a fluff interview of him doing in a WWD-penned special supplement, posing as legit editorial copy? Staffers there are asking themselves the same thing. They feel that Mary Berner, who formerly led Fairchild and WWD before it was all absorbed into Conde Nast, would never have stood for such a thing.
On MediaPost yesterday, Ari Rosenberg decried the whole ongoing degeneration of the advertising/ editorial line. "Today's media-buying demand for a 'big idea' required to earn a media commitment, combined with a softer and more competitive environment, all driven by a sales force that has no idea who Henry Luce is, have publishers doing things not done before," he wrote.
Which leads to this:

So the rumor—which is still, we should note, just a rumor—is that listings-and-more magazine Time Out New York is in financial trouble. Tipsters say the money trouble is a result of bad investment decisions by management. But TONY has even bigger problems: its entire business model is built on quicksand.
TONY is light on content and heavy on listings. That's probably not going to change significantly. So consider what they're up against:
Suffice it to say that TONY can't depend on increasing sales of its print version to stay afloat. That leaves its website. Which they certainly understand—the mag tried to invest and make its website the leader in its category last year. Unfortunately that didn't pan out. And it's hard to see how they could surpass all the aforementioned online competitors now, even with a big infusion of money.
So if TONY's business model doesn't deliver them a solid profit right where they are today, the outlook is grim.
[Anybody out there with more info on TONY's financial situation (good or bad),