Here's what Michael Wolff got out of the it: his marriage broke up and everyone started making fun of him and, as far as we know, the long-promised Vanity Fair tell-all on the affair has been killed. But: a bunch of people have been talking about him, and he got to have sex with a 20-something for a while! And, really, sex with someone other than his wife and the attention of other people is all Michael Wolff really wants, at the end of the day.

As for Victoria? Well, she got internet famous!

Last night, media mogul Steven Brill sent us—unsolicited—his thoughts on the possibility of the New York Times charging for its website, which we wrote about yesterday. We will reproduce his thoughts in full, because how often do you get free, unsolicited musings from a media mogul on the area of his expertise (his new gig, Journalism Online, is all about this), even after you have derided him as usually wrong? Brill writes:

1. We have found in creating models like this for our newspaper and magazine affiliates that one of the other key advantages for them is that charging for online will actually enhance their PRINT revenues and circulation. There are two reasons: First, it allows the paper to "bundle" a discount offer for both, so that a would-be print subscriber or renewer can be offered a discount on his online subscription if he or she takes the print edition. (As in "Save 50% off the online subscription if you renew your print subscription.") You can't do that if you're not putting any value on, and not charging for, the online version. Second, if you keep giving one version (online) away for free, then you increasingly undercut sales of the other (print) version, not to mention your ability to raise the price on the newsstand, something most newspapers and magazines are trying to do. The long and short of it is that where papers have charged online in Europe and the U.S. they have enhanced their PRINT revenues. Indeed, the list of newspapers in the U.S. that have not suffered losses in print circulation lately looks like a list of those that are charging for their online versions.

2. In the models we are developing with affiliates, we show that you really needn't give up much if any online ad revenues when you charge online, because you really don't reduce your traffic much. That's because you can use a variety of methods to maintain most of your current (free) page views, such as: only charging readers who visit online more than, say, five time a month; only charging readers who visit frequently and who are outside your geographic base (locally-based online advertisers aren't paying to reach them anyway; or allowing readers to sample the first two paragraphs of a story before asking them to pay. We have created about 15 such varieties of free visits/sampling/charging methods. All of them contradict the notion of some kind of magic "pay wall" suddenly coming down and charging everyone for everything.

Rebecca Dana, reporter for the WSJ's Speakeasy blog and subject of the august paper's sultriest headcut ever, is leaving to take a job with the Daily Beast—her "dream job," she says. "I'm going to write about culture for them, with a focus on fashion. Will also do some editing and some general entertainment/media stuff," Dana tells us. She adds, "You won't have this stipple-portrait to kick around any more!" Oh?

The Claremont, NH Eagle Times folds, leaving the town without a newspaper. The Washington City Paper brushed off criticisms from witless Marion Barry fans who could not recognize the unadulterated brilliance of their latest cover. And other papers continue to try to fashion some sort of overarching editorial philosophy for the Huffington Post. Hint: It doesn't exist.

Do not expect Bill Keller to laugh and chuckle the next time a satirical cable news show comes calling! He says about his Daily Show experience: "Well, that's the last time I try to be a good sport. Even my wife told me that I looked faintly ridiculous, and she was trying to make me feel better. Among the people who would miss us most would be the wise-guy pundits and scriptwriters for satirical TV shows, because they riff on the news we produce." Bill Keller will punch Jason Jones right in the snoot, on sight.

LA Times media moralist James Rainey, for one, is outraged. He was forced, for research purposes, to go listen to Reynolds talking to Howard Stern about sexy, sexual things:

Reynolds spared no detail professional or, in particular, sexual...

Particular highlights among the lowlights: Reynolds' description of a celebrity she had "done," others she made out with, and her recollection of fantasy play with her husband, including the time he held a gun to the back of her head. ("I don't even care that it's loaded. I said, 'Don't even tell me. I don't care.' ")

Excuse James Rainey as he wipes his fevered brow, but this is not the "news" he knows. Is this really what people want from their vapid TV personalities? Blatant, lurid, sexy, sexuality, from Barbie-esque women? James Rainey puts the question to the powers-that-be:

Well then, I said to Hale, wouldn't talking about bondage with the aplomb of a porn star at least press the edges of the Fox code of conduct?

James Rainey is coming from a place of caring, Jillian. He cares. A lot. About you. He wants to help you. He is willing to work closely with you. As closely as you like. He is even willing to put it to you in the voice of a finger-snapping "girlfriend," so that you get his message loud and clear:

But, girl, you're middle-aged and expecting a second child (as announced on the air this week)...Isn't it time to grow up, just a little?

Girl, you betta listen to James. He wants to help you, girl. He wants to hold you, girl. He wants to...to love you, girl. Call him.
[LAT]

The new allegations had their roots in a 2007 incident in which one of Murdoch's tabloid editors at News of the World, along with a private investigator named Glen Mulcaire, were jailed for illegally hacking into cell phones associated with the royal family. But the phone tapping was much bigger—look who else was a victim:

The BBC has learned that Rebekah Wade, the editor of the Sun, a sister paper of the News of the World, was among 75 people identified by police as having had phone messages monitored by Mulcaire.
Ms Wade - soon to become chief executive of the papers' parent company News International - was informed at the time but declined to press charges, according to BBC business editor Robert Peston.

Yes: one of Murdoch's tabloids was tapping the phone of the editor of another of Murdoch's tabloids, allegedly. It's roughly the equivalent of...well there really is no US equivalent. And you better believe an American editor would be pressing some god damn charges, then perhaps buying some guns. Or at least complaining loudly.

It's truly incredible. And now Rebekah Wade (pictured) is the boss of the entire paper that spied on her! News Corp., ladies and gentlemen. It's not a job—it's a way of life.
[BBC, Previously. Pic: Getty]

The old New Jersey bureau office of the New York Times is being torn down. Looks like they started today or earlier this week at ripping the Edison building to pieces. You can see the carnage from the Turnpike — a very sad sight for sure.

Yes. Very sad indeed.

Bloomberg reports that the NYT is floating the idea of charging $5 a month to access its website in a survey of readers. (It also asked if subscribers would be willing to pay $2.50 per month).

Unless anybody has any other bright ideas, this is inevitable, and necessary. There's no way the NYT—or most other papers—can continue to allow their own free website to cannibalize their revenue forever. Print subscription levels will probably never rise again in a meaningful way. Online news is the future. Online ads bring in only a fraction of the revenue of print ads. Therefore, the website has to find another way to generate cash. And that way is charging for content.

If all 650,000 print subscribers paid $5 a month for the website, that would be an instant $39 million per year. More likely, many people would choose either only the print subscription (old people) or only the online subscription (non-old people). That means that the NYT could potentially sell many more online subscriptions than it sells print subscriptions. Its website is orders of magnitudes more popular than its print product already. Five bucks a month is not an outrageous fee for the premium newspaper site on the internet. Yes, the Times would lose some online readers, and therefore some online ad revenue. But they should be able to make up much more than that by charging a reasonable fee—particularly as this practice spreads and becomes more accepted. Bitch now, pay later. The paper will still have to face some pretty severe staff cutbacks. But this is the future. If you like to read the NYT, pay up.

Except the magic screen concept isn't so magical when all you're doing is trying to illustrate the impact of America's 20 million-barrel-a-day oil habit by taking a clipart image of a barrel of oil and reproducing it a couple times and saying, "And then you've got all these different oil barrels." A refrigerator and some magnets would have done the trick.

Earnest NYT columnist Nick Kristof is refreshingly honest about his job! He admits that his columns often have no impact; that he is "easily bored"; that he makes mistakes sometimes when he writes about things he doesn't know all that much about; and that his ignorance is widespread. He tells the truth, and he writes about things that are actually important! Nick Kristof, we want so bad to love you! If only you made a few more dick jokes or something, you could be perfect.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The New York Times has published an editor's note confirming that Edgar Martins' photos of abandoned construction project were in fact digitally altered: "A reader, however, discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show." Shame, because the flicks would have been fine without it.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.One part of the art of journalism space-filling is to be able to run stories that actually reveal themselves to be totally pointless. USA Today accomplishes this today, with a story (with obvious scandalous undertones) about how federal aid dollars are going "overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election." Oh, and in the last paragraph they mention: "From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau." But by then you already read the story, and they successfully filled that space, so everyone wins!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Ballplayer-turned-stock-picker-turned-mini-magazine-mogul Lenny Dykstra has reached the final stage of his career evolution: filing for bankruptcy.

Facing a string of lawsuits, unpaid bills and a long list of people he's accused of stiffing, the 46-year-old former outfielder said in his court papers in Los Angeles that he owes as much as $50 million but has only about $50,000 in assets.

Time for a comeback, Lenny. The Mets can always use extra pinch-hitting.

We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name and didn't bother to tell his readers that he was actually at the party.

Well, he wasn't alone. Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all. The reporters were invited to attend on the following condition:

"You are being invited to attend this event as a guest. Blogging, Twittering or otherwise reporting on this event is not permitted. If you feel that you cannot agree to abide by these ground rules, please don't claim a ticket."

That's right: Much of the White House press corps spent the Fourth schmoozing with White House staffers, catching performances by the Foo Fighters and Jimmy Fallon, and watching the fireworks from the most exclusive vantage point in the D.C. metro area, all off the record—not to mention off-the-Facebook and off-the-Twitter. These are the same people who just a week ago were whining in the press briefing about Obama's malicious and dastardly attempts to "control the press." (Well, not the self-same people—we're not sure if Chip Reid and Helen Thomas, the primary antagonists in that exchange, were in attendance.)

There is a cosmic irony at work here: The party was "closed press." (Ha!) It was covered, under onerous restrictions, by a pool reporter—the Baltimore Sun's Paul West. West was ushered in by White House staffers for a mere 40 minutes, so he could record the president's remarks. He was kept in a pen so that he wouldn't run amok and interview someone. He shouted questions at Obama as he worked the rope line, which the president ignored. Then he was taken away. West wrote up his blindered account of the party and then e-mailed it to the White House press corps, many of whom were actually at the party, outside of the pen, hanging out with all the other guests. And then, because they had temporarily signed away the right to do their jobs in exchange for facetime with staffers, a few cold Stoudt's American Pale Ales, and some corn on the cob, their news organizations picked up that pool report and used it to tell their readers what happened at the party. This is how the press covers the White House.

The party was designated "closed press" because it was originally going to actually be closed to the press. But on Thursday of last week, a batch of last-minute tickets opened up, and White House staffers decided it would be nice to invite the press corps. They distributed them to the news organizations, who then decided who to give them to. (We are reliably told it was mostly White House correspondents who snapped them up.) But instead of just opening up the event to coverage, which would have meant spoiling a nice backyard bash with network cameras, radio correspondents, international press, and the vast machinery of live electronic media, the White House decided that it would be more fair to the news organizations who weren't invited if they just kept it off the record. That way, the thinking went, no one's getting special access. As absurd as that sounds when you're talking about inviting a select group of reporters to a party with the president, it kind of makes sense if you have to deal with a host of news outlets jockeying for access. If it's all off the record, a small regional paper can't complain that not being invited seriously hurts their coverage.

What doesn't make sense, at all, is why a group of reporters who have recently begun clinging to the notion that they are independent of Washington's clubby morass of back-scratching self-congratulation would agree to attend an off-the-record party at the White House while one of their own is walled off in a pen like some forlorn scapegoat, doing the job they're supposed to be doing.

Whoa. Read that over again. According to a blockbuster report in The Guardian yesterday:

But one senior source at the Met told the Guardian that during the Goodman inquiry, officers found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones. Another source with direct knowledge of the police findings put the figure at "two or three thousand" mobiles. They suggest that MPs from all three parties and cabinet ministers, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, were among the targets.

All of this reportedly surfaced after a News of the World reporter was jailed two years ago for hacking phones. At the time, the company said it was an isolated incident. But if the Guardian's report is true, Murdoch's UK tabloids are—incredibly—even more despicable than we would have thought. The Guardian says that the company has paid one million pounds in out-of-court settlements to keep it all quiet. It also insinuates that top editors including Rebekah Wade could be implicated, though the extent of individual executives' knowledge is not clear.

Rupert Murdoch has already denied the report. But for Americans, the story is already being cast as a direct, veiled assault on Murdoch himself. Not just because he's the lone News Corp. figure familiar to most Americans, but because every US competitor paper would love to see him smeared! Chiefly, the New York Times—who put the story on the front page of their website, and were sure to include the phrase "Murdoch Papers" in the headline. [The "Murdoch Papers" are the papers of News Corp's News International division: the Times of London and the Sunday Times (more respectable), and the News of the World and The Sun (dirty).]

So what we have here is, potentially, a clear case of blatant criminal misconduct at some of the biggest papers owned the world's biggest newspaper mogul—and this case could go all the way to the top. Or it could not! But watch gleefully as the New York Times reports the hell out of it, waging a newspaper war in its own "What newspaper war?" way. (Where are you on this, NY Daily News?). And really, this is beyond the pale, even for what are some of the least scrupulous papers in the world. Hacking phones and hiring private eyes are scumbag tactics. We would even expect better from Rupert Murdoch.

[Guardian, NYT. Pic: Getty]

PDN finds telltale evidence that the photographer, Edgar Martins, digitally reproduced parts of his photos—things as small as leaves and sections of trees. Which raises the question, "Why bother?" Especially when the magazine went out of its way to say in its introduction to the photo series that Martins "creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation." Seems...dumb.

Adam Gurno, the Metafilter user who was the first one to call bullshit on the photos, is getting some attention himself. Good for him.
[Pic: PDN]

Now there is a new kind of star on the food scene: young butchers. With their swinging scabbards, muscled forearms and constant proximity to flesh, butchers have the raw, emotional appeal of an indie band.

God yes.

"Dangerous is sometimes sexy, and they are generally big guys with knives who are covered in blood."

They're no Ted Bundy, but they'll do.

"Obviously everyone is the middle of a total meat obsession," Ms. Keenan said.

That's what she said. Oh, that is actually what she said. Carry on.

In San Francisco, Ryan Farr calls himself a "producer of porcine pleasure."

Pig fucker.

Mr. Farr had a dream. "I want to throw a 300-pound pig in the middle of a room full of people and just tag-team it with him," he said.

Pig fucker.

"There is always going to be some guy in some meat room in some part of the world who is going to be faster than you," he said.

Sometimes it's better to take it slow in the meat room.
[NYT. Pic: Caviar's Flickr]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Wall Street Journal is developing a culture section focused on New York City—which could be rolled out next year—in accordance with Rupert Murdoch's belief that the New York Times' culture coverage is "lightweight." New, more literal 'Culture Wars!' tag here, TK.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Sure, the Michael Jackson memorial was a huge media clusterfuck covered live on every network. But it also meant two hours of ad-free time for them in the middle of the day! Not to worry: "representatives from the TV outlets that covered the event said the loss of two hours of daytime inventory was a decidedly minor concern." The average network would have only sold three ad during that time anyhow, all of them for Snuggies.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.And in a continuation of the 'Hobo New York Times' meme we just made up this week, but which is also very real: wunderkind NYT deal reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin is not in attendance at the Sun Valley media mogulfest meeting this year. Usually he's there blogging up a storm. Sorkin told Peter Kafka that he's too busy finishing his book to go out there, but an alternate theory espoused by us is that he's been forced to take a second job handing out fliers, because of Hobo New York Times.

Today in sunny newspaper industry news: 18 layoffs at the Albany Times-Union, ill-fated newspaper magazine-insert 'RiseUp' is more than $6 million in debt, and execs of the bankrupt Journal Register Co. will get more than $1 million in bonuses for pulling the company out of bankruptcy by laying people off, and other fun things.

Lindsey Hoshaw is a graduate of the Stanford J-school, and she wants to take a boat out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean to report on the massive floating garbage patch out there that will soon overtake us all. A worthy project! So Lindsey turned to Spot.us, where journalists pitch story ideas to the public and solicit donations for the reporting costs. (She needs $10K):

My enthusiasm for this project is only surpassed by the amazing opportunity I've been offered by The New York Times to publish an article and accompanying photos of my journey.

Qua? NYT science editor Laura Chang tells us:

We did not assign an article to Lindsey Hoshaw but we have indeed agreed to consider a freelance submission from her on the Pacific garbage patch. We have talked with Spot.us about their offer to raise support for her travel expenses, and this is O.K. with us.

So, the paper of record is happy to pay, I dunno, a few grand for this story, as long as Hoshaw can independently get the ten grand it'll cost to report it. Uh. Sounds like a good story, but yall better hope this method doesn't get too popular, cause then you'll really have to be rich to get into the lucrative field of journalism.

Playboy actually first excerpted Nabokov's Ada or, Ardor back in 1969, when they were a very popular and highbrow titty mag. But the years have not been kind to Playboy, because the years invented the internet, and everyone forgot both how to read and how to masturbate to magazines.

And do you know who we don't envy? Playboy's literary editor, Amy Grace Loyd.

So. Vlad Nabokov, one of the most brilliant English-language authors ever, had not finished his last work, The Original of Laura, when he died. And he demanded that it never be published, because he was a bit of a perfectionist. Vlad's son Dmitri complied with his dad's wishes for many years, until he decided to just let it be published, because why not. So "super-agent" Andrew Wylie took over, and Amy Grave Loyd attempted to woo him with orchids, a reference to Ada.

Ms. Loyd was disappointed, figuring the honor of first serial was more likely to go to a place like The New Yorker, which had its own long history with Nabokov, and had in fact just last summer published one of his newly translated short stories. Ms. Loyd's worry was not unfounded: Mr. Wylie had indeed sent Laura to the The New Yorker months earlier. But as it happened, according to a source at the magazine, the fiction department was not interested. (Fiction editor Deborah Treisman had no comment.)

On the first of June, Mr. Wylie changed his tune and wrote to Ms. Loyd asking her what, hypothetically, Playboy would be willing to pay for an exclusive.

They were willing to pay more than they have ever paid for a book excerpt before, and they were willing to pay this much without even reading a word of it. And it kinda turns out that the book might not be very good! "There are parts of it that are much more cohesive than others. But I found it fascinating in that way," Loyd says.

But 5,000 words of The Original of Laura will run in the December Playboy, presumably next to reviews of the latest in hi-fi gear, Canadian whiskey ads, Gahan Wilson cartoons, a lengthy Q&A with Mort Sahl, and nude pictures of Barbara Carrera. Pick it up at your local newsagent!

At left In this picture taken near Grand Central Station is an as-the-good-lord-made-her Bar Refaeli on the cover of Esquire. At right is dirty, dirty pornography. Below is the uncensored GQ cover. You can't even see his penis!The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

People on Metafilter originally called bullshit on the Edgar Martins photos. Here is a fun animated gif showing maybe some Photoshopping in action! Points to the NYT for acting quickly. They still have nothing on the twin towers of Photoshop terrorism, on Seventeen magazine and the Iranian government.

Real Estate, destroying us even in its death.

Allen is Politico's White House correspondent. According to the pool report of the event sent out to the White House press corps by the Baltimore Sun's Paul West, who spent about 40 minutes observing the party—confined to a pen so he couldn't mingle—before being escorted out, Allen was there:

Faces spotted at random in the crowd included AG Eric Holder, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, press secretary Robert Gibbs (gamboling with his son on the big West Wing play set), social secretary Desiree Rogers, Obama chums Martin Nesbitt and Dr. Eric Whitaker, and Mike Allen of Politico.

Allen must have been doing what we usually do at Fourth of July parties—drinking himself into patriotic oblivion. Because he totally forgot he was there! When he mentioned the the bash the next day in his Playbook column, he pasted-and-quoted the pool report, conveniently deleting his own name:

A source in the White House press corps tells us that invites to the event were very hard to come by—reporters who tried to cadge one were told that the guest list was limited to staffers and their families. Allen's claustrophobic, minutiae-obsessed manner of covering the White House—sniveling and attention-seeking one minute, petty and vicious the next—kind of reminds us of our own family sometimes, so it makes sense he'd rate an invite.

West, the pooler, confined to his little pen, tried bravely to ask Obama some questions during the portion of the party he was permitted to be there:

After the Marine musicians marched off, Obama and the First Lady descended the steps and worked a rope line for almost 20 minutes, carefully skipping over your pool and ignoring shouted attempts at questions.

We've e-mailed Allen to ask him if he had a chance to ask Obama any questions as he mingled with the guests. Though we imagine that if he did, he would have written about it by now, no? We've also asked the White House what other elite members of the press corps they deemed worth spending their Fourth of July hanging out with. We'll let you know when we hear back.

Cordero first made the news when she alleged that Epstein told her he could help her get a "modeling" career and used her for sex when she was 16. Then the Post reported she was born a man! And that she had talked about "masturbatory" fantasies on Myspace! And then they ran off and got a dismissive quote about Cordero from Epstein's flack, Howard Rubensteing—who is also the Post's own flack! A fact which they did not disclose, which is shady as fuck.

So Cordero sued the paper for libel, and now, the judge has ruled. In favor of the Post! Basically the judge said that, yes, they reported that she had sexy fantasies, but not that she actually did the sexy things, and the average person wouldn't think she's a "promiscuous slut" (exact legal language!) just because she had dreams of getting triple-teamed. Hell, the judge himself has animal fantasies that would make you sick, but he's a straitlaced guy in real life. We made that up. But if you want to call somebody a slut in print, just make sure you call them a fantasy slut. Relevant portion of the ruling:

Plaintiff's libel cause of action is predicated on the theory that the October 23 article was libelous per se because the statement that "[o]n one [of the Myspace pages], [plaintiff] gives a graphic depiction of a masturbatory fantasy' she has of being with multiple men and then multiple women" implies that she is "a promiscuous slut." Obviously enough, plaintiff can only recover damages on her libel cause of action if she can establish that the article was in fact defamatory - "tend[ing] to expose [her] to public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace, or induce an evil opinion of [her] in the minds of right-thinking persons, and to deprive [her] of their friendly intercourse in society" (Rinaldi, 42 NY2d at 379). The Post defendants argue that the statement does not have a defamatory meaning because the statement only reported that plaintiff had a sexual fantasy; it did not report that plaintiff actually engaged in sexual conduct with multiple men and multiple women or otherwise acted on the fantasy. For that reason, according to the Post defendants, the statement does not imply that plaintiff is promiscuous and therefore is not actionable. Plaintiff argues that the statement suggests that she is so perverted that she publishes an online diary of masturbatory fantasies of group sex and therefore implies that she is promiscuous. Thus, according to plaintiff, the statement is defamatory...

At bottom, plaintiff's claim of defamation rests on the contention that the average reader reasonably would infer that someone with such a lewd fantasy also is in fact sexually promiscuous. That some readers might draw this inference does not render it reasonable.

[via THR, Esq.]

Among Andrea's objections to Michael and his lifestyle:

[He] died intentionally disfigured, traveled the world with his personal anesthesiologist, owed money to everyone from Bel Air to Bahrain, abandoned a pet chimpanzee when the beast reached puberty, and hadn't had a hit record in more than 20 years.

Michael Jackson died with enough drugs in his system to fell a small village — indulging a habit that, like everything else about his twisted, wasted life, was overlooked by toadies, enablers and those who profited from access to this amoral walking skeleton.

"Death has not cleansed him," she concludes. Andrea Peyser will not be out-"Michael Jackson is a sicko"-ed at her own fucking paper. Even she does not find his behavior sexy. Not one bit.

The fact that Andrea Peyser is still able to obtain press passes is one of the most astounding things in all the media. Also astounding: On the direct opposite page of the Post today is Dan Aquilante's blowjob column praising the "remarkably tasteful" MJ memorial. They fight in the parking lot after work tonight.
[NYP]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.While the first video clearly shows how the media's interpretation of today's events was all over the map and sort of ridiculous at various points, the one thing they were all unanimously sure of was that they were moved. Very, very moved.

Thanks to intern Cassie Seale for putting together the second video.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.In January, one media entrepreneur got an idea so crazy it just might work: Why not start a publication called "The Printed Blog," consisting of various blog posts from around the internet that you print out and distribute like a newspaper? Alas, now The Printed Blog is folding, just like we said it would, because it was a terribly backwards idea, business-wise. But points for trying. "It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all." We should keep that in mind!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Mayor Mike has announced formal initiatives to save the media industry, right here in the Big Apple! The most interesting: 20 "fellowships" (that means money!) for tech or media entrepreneurs. Such as yourself, if you have an idea! Apply while they're hot.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Washington Post is still engaged in hand-wringing and self-flagellation over that fucked up memo about selling access to lobbyists. They have launched an "internal review," which is the type of typical thing that media companies do after all the facts have already come out. This has also forced The Atlantic to explain why its own 90% identical program is okay.

News of the newspapers, to-day: The NYT Co. postponed its deadline for accepting bids for the Boston Globe, perhaps in hopes of getting an actual good big; in positive NYT Co. news, "The New York Times announced today it has launched its international weekly news supplement in La Razón in Bolivia"; and, in your Crushing Numerical Reminder of the Dying Nature of the Newspaper Industry of the day, "Profits fell 100.1% since 2004 at newspapers with circulation greater than 80,000." That is more than 100%.

On almost no notice, Palin convened a late-night press availability in a remote fishing village in western Alaska for NBC News, CNN, ABC News, and Fox News in order to further obfuscate her already thoroughly inscrutable rationale(s?) for quitting her shitty job as governor of some crap state that's not even connected to the real America.

The interviews were a postmodern clusterfuck of epic proportions—a governor and her family on a desolate beach in the Alaskan wilderness, wearing waders and a lapel mic, surrounded by camera crews and sleep-deprived network news personalities. ABC News' Kate Snow got in Mitchell's shot at one point. Even though the sun was shining, it was really 10 p.m. in Alaska, because time doesn't work there the way it does in the real world. The gambit guaranteed that between the travel and time spent editing and doing live shots for the morning shows, the reporters didn't get any sleep last night.

Palin is shaping up to be something like The Joker of the political-media complex: Turning up at unexpected times with bizarre stunts designed to make everyone extremely uncomfortable, and then cackling a lot and speaking in riddles. It seems clear that last night's interview was just a dry run to see if she could get folks to fall for a trap—next time it's a hostage crisis.

So what did we learn this time around?

• "One term was enough." Too much, Sarah. One term was too much.
• "[Fishing] teaches the kids not to be divas." That one was offered without prompting. She's like an 8-year-old who thinks she can trick her parents into buying her a pony or something.
• People who don't understand why she quit "might not be fully aware of all the conditions" of her job. Like how hard it is.
• "You know why they're confused? I guess they can't take something nowadays at face value." Sarah Palin's "career" thus far represents the triumph of convincing people to take things at face value. It's the only value she has.
• "Most public officials, they get to look into a camera and they say, you know, 'You better leave your hands off my kids!' And I haven't been able to say that." Because David Letterman is still statutory-raping your daughter, Sarah, as we speak.
• "The fish slime and the dirt under the fingernails—the stuff that is me." Well put!

China's normal strategy when these things happen is to lock down the city in question, flood it with cops, push out state propaganda, silence the internet, and tell foreign reporters nothing. This time, though, they've organized a nice media tour! Discount hotel rooms, official briefings, ready-made photo montages, and all.

Journalists were invited Tuesday morning on a government-escorted tour of one of the Uighur neighborhoods hit hardest by the violence. But they were explicitly barred from conducting any interviews without government minders present, and television journalists who sought to wander on their own were reported to have been stopped by police or paramilitary officers who demanded that they turn over their film.

Not much different from covering the White House, really. Give it a few years and you'll see fat foreign reporters gorging themselves on spring rolls and summarizing press releases from the central government. But the crafty Uighurs responded with some inspirational protestations—they "smashed the windshield of a police car and several police officers drew their pistols before the entire crowd was encircled by officers and paramilitary troops in riot gear."

All right in front of reporters, which gave them good ways to lead their stories, rendering all the hard work the Chinese put into those official briefings practically useless! [SIGH]. Don't worry, repressive Chinese authorities. Once you get the press corps fat and happy, all this muckraking is over. Trust us.
[Pic via a good video at The Guardian]

• The event starts at 10 a.m., L.A. time. Who will be carrying it live? Everybody! Specifically, "All the major networks and a host of cable news and entertainment channels, including CNN, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, TV Guide Network and TV One."
• "More than 1.6 million people registered over the weekend for a chance at one of 17,500 free tickets to the service."
• To make things a little more lively, MJ's dead body will be in attendance! Appearing alongside the corpse: "Mariah Carey, Usher, John Mayer, Jennifer Hudson ­as well as a delegation from Motown, the label that nurtured Mr. Jackson as the child star of the Jackson 5. There are also figures from sports (Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant), politics (Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III), movies and television (Brooke Shields) and the church (the Andrae Crouch Choir)."
• The presence of Michael himself is, of course, driving the TV anchors wild with hyperbole. As well as anyone speaking to the TV anchors. Said Ken Sunshine, PR man for the event: "Michael Jackson is the biggest figure emitting love ever." HEH.
• According to vague "experts" and "analysts," one billion people will watch this thing. Christ. Let's hope not.
• And through all of this madness, reporters won't even be given any food that they can't pay for themselves. Or phones! Sounds nice. From the official media advisory:
  

According to The Independent, here's the conflict: YouTube is expected to take in around $240 million in revenue from advertising this year. The problem is that this sum doesn't come close to covering the site's operating costs. Every minute of the day there are over 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube and the costs involved with maintaining servers, bandwidth, software, etc, is astronomical, so much so that if it weren't for YouTube's "multinational sugar daddy," Google, supporting it and willing to bleed money to hold on to it as a property, YouTube would already be dead.

So whose fault is this? Yours! And mine, of course. Because we've become a bunch of spoiled little brats who refuse to pay for any content online, nor do we want to be bothered with stupid advertisements getting all up in grills during our web surfing.

We are uninterested, verging on contemptuous, of the marketing strategies that were supposed to pay for us to enjoy online services for free. We've become totally unwilling to pay for them directly, either; we simply figure that someone, somehow, will pick up the tab.

Now, let's all pause right here and take a second to look at ourselves in the mirror after reading that passage. You feeling slightly guilty? No? Me neither. Well maybe a little. But still, we're not that bad when it comes to tolerating online advertising, are we?

The fact that most people over the age of 30 doubt that online businesses can survive by offering free services is irrelevant, because most people under the age of 30 are demanding them. On messageboards and forums across the internet you can see them calling for record companies, film studios, newspapers and television channels to come up with a solution that will extend their entertainment utopia, and quick; if they don't, well, they'll find a way around it. And while many see this as a selfish, unrealistic attitude, the onus is on businesses to get themselves out of this mess because the digital medium exercises unstoppable power.

So is our little utopia going to hell? Maybe!

The news regarding YouTube's losses have caused such consternation because people simply can't believe that the third-most-popular website on the web is unable to stand alone and turn a profit. And suddenly, the magical web, whose supposed capacity to revolutionise business has attracted and continues to attract waves of ambitious entrepreneurs, may slowly be revealing itself as an arena in which only a few large companies can survive.

So what does the future of the internet look like?

Either produce something that people are willing to pay for, or come up with an idea for a free service that's so ingenious that a benevolent multinational is willing to take it off your hands.

Look, can we really help it if we demand everything online be free and will stop at nothing to get what we want for free even when it's not intended to be free? After all, the editor of Wired stole material to write a book about how all content should be free! Is there really anything more to say?

But seriously, do we agree with everything in The Independent's article? Absolutely not! Do we believe that YouTube's financial struggles are a bellwether for a widespread failing of the net in general? Absolutely not! At various points the article reads like little more than a rehashing of many of the same arguments that the old media dinosaurs having been braying endlessly over the last few years, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't provoke me to stop and think, and for that reason you should go and read the entire piece for yourself and form your own opinion. And please feel free to share them in the comments below.

How Can YouTube Survive? [Independent]

Life, and the news, can't be all car chases, legislative gridlock, affairs by prominent Republicans, unrest overseas, war, and Sarah Palin. It seems eminently understandable that the circus surrounding the early death of a terribly famous man would continue to be considered newsworthy. But no! It is all the liberals' fault, or something.

First, Albany Republicans refused the man his moment of silence last week. Then, New York congressman Pete King called him a pervert. Now, T-Paw, the outgoing Minnesota governor who figures a national career awaits him if he just hangs in there and doesn't attack Letterman or go to Argentina, weighs in:

"[It's] time to move on." He opened his portion of the show talking, unprompted, about the Jackson coverage. "You can't get away from it. ... I've had enough of it.

"It's time to pay our respects and move on."

Are we alone in not being bothered, really at all, by the Jackson coverage, which has already tapered off, and which will be much more muted after the funeral, at least until the toxicology report comes back? We are liberal media elites, though, and so our sympathies, as always, lie with perverts.

(This is not even counting the various hundreds of dumb conservative bloggers who took Jackson's death to be some sort of MSM/Obama plot against them, or something. And here we thought it helped Mark Sanford!)

The New York Observer got this internal staff memo today from NYT deputy managing editor Bill Schmidt to the newsroom, telling them: 1. Do NOT make international calls on your company-issued cell phones and Blackberries; 2. Do not call 411; 3. Please try not to send text messages.

Although we recognize that texting has become an indispensable means of communication for many people, our basic company plans with Verizon and AT&T do not provide for unlimited texting. A lot of texting costs us a lot of money, whether as a per-message fee or as an unlimited-message add-on.

So please use discretion when deciding to send a text, especially if a voice call or e-mail would get your message to the recipient equally well. Do not use Twitter via text messages; install a client like Twitterberry on your phone instead. Do not send picture or video messages ("MMS") from company phones except for work purposes. And do not text from overseas.

Good lord, you are a newspaper company in the communications business, NYT. Jesus Christ you guys are broke. I think I pay about $5 a month for unlimited text messages, and I don't even have a massive corporate account.
Next staff memo: Did you know you can walk right into TD Bank and pick up as many free pens as you want? Please do so!
[NYO. Pic via]

[Note: Results are from 1592 total votes in two polls; we started a new poll after we added Miami and New Orleans to the list. This placed Miami and New Orleans at a disadvantage, so they can claim moral victory. Although they wouldn't have won anyhow. Results rounded to nearest percentage point.]


New York: 32%
Chicago: 16%
Washington, DC: 16%
Detroit: 9%
Los Angeles: 6%
New Orleans: 6%
San Francisco: 5%
Boston: 5%
Las Vegas: 2%
Miami: 3%

A good example of just one of the newspaper industry's problems: Macy's has cut its newspaper ad spending in half since 2005. That's a decline of about $600 million. And even after the decline, Macy's was the second-biggest newspaper advertiser in 2008, behind only Verizon. That money is never coming back. To newspapers.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Vogue's July issue proves that it is totally catering to hobos now, because it features "a 'Steal of the Month,' and a section with all items under $500." Why not just go to a garage sale, in the slums of Detroit, then? Outrageous. [SPOOF pic via]

This Daily Beast story on the release of a $1,000 coffee-table book on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing is apparently not a paid advertorial. Despite that, it still features this paragraph:

If the price is steep, what it offers is nothing short of a family heirloom in the making. Moonfire is a gloriously imposing tome, large enough to require a degree of exertion just to flip it over. Inside, in addition to a reproduction of Mailer's book, are scans of his original manuscript, and photographs that, decades after that Space Age began to feel dated, still boggle the mind. Taschen will print only 1,969 copies of the book-each will be signed by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and the final 12 will contain a chip of extremely rare moon meteorite. As a package, the project is an achievement worthy of the subject it celebrates.

Odd.

Media (unpaid) job opportunity! Write for, haha, "The Ennuist,"—a blog just as easy to pronounce as "Mediaitieite" but more pretentious better.

The Ennuist aims to provide a witty, irreverent look at pop culture and current events. Sometimes pretentious, sometimes controversial, often relevant, though sometimes not. Think Gawker when it was good, The Awl with a younger focus, or Radar Online before it turned pink and sparkly.

Haha, "The Ennuist." Haha. The good Gawker would have had a helluva line for that one.

A Bloomberg employee tells us:

Bloomberg recently introduced "metrics,'' an arbitrary, computerized numbers game for judging employees' performance. One yardstick is the number of newspaper pickups a reporter has. When one Bloomberg journalist recently pointed out his good showing in the IHT, a senior editor replied with a North Korean-style straight face, "the Herald Tribune doesn't count for pickups.''

And why wouldn't the IHT be counted? Our tipster says it's because Winkler "declared it off-limits" because he's still angry about the paper signing a contract with rival Reuters two years ago. Is that The Bloomberg Way? We've emailed Bloomberg for comment and we'll update if we hear from them.

UPDATE: A Bloomberg spokesperson's comment: "It's not true. Newspaper pickup is not a metric."

Yesterday, WP publisher Katharine Weymouth ran her own apology for the flier that went out to evil DC lobbyists last week offering to sell access to the newsroom at intimate dinners for the low low price of $25,000.

The apology was okay. Not poetic, or dramatic, but okay. Occam's Razor tells us that what probably happened here was one asshole in the marketing department got a little too gung-ho with this whole "intimate dinners with influencers" idea and sent out an idiotic flier. Politico broke the story last Thursday. If there had been any indication that the Washington Post was trying to defend this flier, then okay. Controversial. But from the very minute the story broke, the paper said that this offer was obviously against their own internal guidelines, and their own newsroom immediately disavowed it, so whatever.

The next day the NYT put it on the front page! Which was already more prominence than it deserved. The next day there was a column about it on the front of the business section, and now another story today on the Post's apology.

This is the New York Times' version of kicking the competition. The Times is generally too stiff to come right out and do a dance in print at the misfortune of their competitors, like the tabloids do. Instead the just decide to cover the hell out of a relatively minor media story! Perhaps the WP still strike back with a mildly disapproving mention in a Howard Kurtz column. Suck my hot type and die, motherfuckers! Journalistically!

Gawker hasn't exactly been shy about taking its shots at Mediaite in the time leading up to the launch, so we spoke to Editor-At-Large Rachel Sklar via email to give her an opportunity to talk about the site and counter some of the criticism we and others have had about Mediaite and Abrams Research.

Gawker: Okay, first off, you've been working on this launch for months. Now that the site is finally up and running, how do you feel?

Sklar: Months - actually it's been quite a quick turnaround. Someone did the math here and it's more like ten weeks. So how do I feel? Hm, tired. I still have a bunch of stuff to do tonight. But, happy! I love the site and had a blast with the team putting it together. If you don't give me an opportunity to kvell about our interns later on in this Q&A, permit me to do so now. They are off-the-charts fantastic.

Next!

Gawker: Well, it probably just seems as though you've been talking about it for months, so forgive me.

Now, there's been plenty of criticism launched in the direction of your boss, Dan Abrams, for what many, Gawker included, see as a conflict of interest in having a media advisory firm attached to a media website. Obviously, you feel differently. How have Gawker and other critics of Abrams Research/Mediaite been wrong about this?

Sklar: It seems like YOU'VE been talking about it for months, you mean! We didn't even launch a Twitter until May: http://myfirsttweet.com/1st/mediaite

It's not attached. They are separate businesses. Check out Dan's blog post.

(Ed. note—Here is what Abram's said in his inaugural blog post addressing these concerns:

While I have certainly helped create the tone and direction of Mediaite, now that the site is live, I will take on the role of Publisher. I will continue to help guide and manage the business side of the site, but the editorial decisions will be left entirely to the editorial staff.

Why would I give up the opportunity to edit my own site? There are a number of reasons. Most important, however, I want this site to be viewed as objective – tough and opinionated – but not the Dan Abrams Post. I have strong feelings about many in media and will write opinion columns for the site but the editorial team will determine the editorial content. When you think about the team we have assembled, it's easy to understand why I feel so comfortable - Managing Editor Colby Hall, Editor-at-Large Rachel Sklar (former Huffington Post media editor) , Senior Editor Glynnis MacNicol (former FishbowlNY editor), and TV Editor Steve Krakauer (former TV Newser editor) (among others) - are top of class.)

Gawker: So Abrams essentially says in his blog post that he won't use Mediaite to protect and promote the interests of his clients at Abrams Research. But wouldn't you guys at Mediate cry foul if someone like Nick Denton did the same thing? Do you not understand the skepticism that the "just trust me" line of defense inspires?

Sklar: Someone could make the same argument about advertisers (insert Bloodcopy joke here!).
But hey! We've got this great new site! Check it out!

It was at this point that I got an email from Sklar saying that she was on her way home and that we'd resume the interview, but I never heard back from her. Oh well. In her defense it was four in the morning at this point and she may have walked through the door of her apartment and just collapsed into the fetal position. I can't say that I'd blame her if that was the case.

But just because we've had trouble viewing the site doesn't mean that others haven't seen it! Here's what the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz said:

With separate pages for TV, print and online, the site aggregates plenty of content, like other media-focused portals, while also offering opinionated takes on scandal coverage, journalistic feuds, ethical questions and sundry embarrassments. There is a "Confront the Critics" feature — an artist gets to talk back to a negative reviewer — and a "Sex Watch," as in, who's exploiting titillating images for page views?

Some headlines, from an exclusive peek at last week's trial run: "Where Will Sanford Sell His 'Love Story' on TV?" "CBS and CNN and Michael Jackson Coverage — Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." "Which MSNBC Colleagues Did Joe Scarborough Call Out This Morning?" "Vibe Folds: Death Knell for All Music Mags?"

ASSME's Drew Grant also got a look at it before it went down and naturally went straight to the "Jobs" section.

Plus there's a Job section, which as of yet doesn't seem to rival (Laurel) Touby's in quantity or quality…in fact, searching in their "Jobs for Media Professionals" section results in 0 items. Probably just a bug that will get fixed in time, but I prefer to think of it as gallows humor.

So what are you waiting for? As of right now (4:19am Eastern) the site is back up again. Go check out Mediaite now while it's still up.

UPDATE: At about 5am, I noticed an email had come in from Sklar while I was out for coffee answering an earlier question I'd posed about her role in the day to day operations of Mediaite. Here's what she said:

A bit of everything - write, obviously; do some video stuff that we're working on; help develop the features we've planned for the site. We're small so we all do a lot of everything. I've also been recruiting contributors, which I did a great deal of at HuffPo - that's been fun. I love the people we've got so far. I might need to kvell a bit here, too: Jim Impoco has a great column about Portfolio's emerging legacy; my old pal Jeffrey Feldman has the definitive take on the Pitney-Milbank dustup; and then there's Rob Spence, who's, oh, a CYBORG. Wooo, the singularity is coming! (I sort of know what that means.)

But I have to say the column I'm most excited by is by Bill Rappleye. Bill is 85, has been working in journalism for over sixty years. He's writing a column for us called "Old Guard" all about what's happening in media, from the perspective of someone who has seen it evolve through decades of technological advancement. He's like a walking institutional memory bank. We're lucky to have him.

So there you go.

Just the Messenger [Howard Kurtz/Washington Post]
The Mediaite is the Message: We Overloaded the Power Grids! [ASSME]
Screengrab via Mediaite

In a piece on how web users are spending increasing amounts of time watching video on the web, Stelter credits Hollywood for the change in our viewing habits:

TV networks get much of the credit for the longer-length viewing behavior. In the past two TV seasons, nearly every broadcast show has been streamed free on the Internet, making users accustomed to watching TV online for 20-plus minutes at a time. By some estimates, one in four Internet customers now uses Hulu, an online home for NBC and Fox shows, every month. "Dancing With the Stars," the popular ABC reality show, draws almost two million viewers on ABC.com, according to Nielsen.

Stelter goes on to theorize that this Hollywood-inspired increase in time spent watching video on the web has led to much of the new scripted content on the web is being created independently, outside of the traditional, soul-sucking Hollywood development system.

The viral videos of YouTube 1.0 - dog-on-skateboard and cat-on-keyboard - are being supplemented by a new, more vibrant generation of online video. Production companies are now creating 10- and 20-minute shows for the Internet and writing story arcs for their characters - essentially acting more like television producers, while operating far outside the boundaries of a network schedule.

Much of the video innovation is coming from people who - empowered by inexpensive editing equipment and virtually no distribution costs - are creating content specifically for an online audience.

"On the Web, producers have this delicious freedom to produce content as long as it should be. They're starting to take advantage of that," (Blip.tv co-founder Dina) Kaplan said.

Though we agree with much of what Stelter says, one point we'd like to expand on that isn't addressed in Stelter's piece, something we addressed previously in a post titled "The End of Television as We Know It" back in May, is that we believe eventually someone will independently shoot and distribute an episodic series online that will become a cultural phenomenon, something people discuss around the proverbial water-cooler on a regular basis, and that will be the moment when the scale is officially tipped and the television networks run the risk of becoming little more than relics of a bygone era. How far off into the future is something like that happening is anyone's guess, but it certainly seems as though we're getting closer and closer with each passing day.

Rise of Web Video, Beyond Two-Minute Clips [New York Times]

Last October, a Page Six item blew the lid off of a well-regarded quasi-secret in the People offices: Bryan Alexander, the West Coast deputy bureau chief, was placed on leave while his bosses tried to figure out what to do with Alexander, who was taking nepotism to new heights at a magazine that has strict policies in place against it.

Alexander was accused of promoting and favor-assigning items to both his brother Regan, and to one Mary Margaret Acoymo, a staffer promoted via the London bureau of People in 2006 by the mag's West Coast chief Elizabeth Leonard. She was given the promotion on Alexander's recommendation. Alexander and Acoymo then started publicly dating, which pissed off more than a few People staffers, who were severely annoyed with the fact that the girl an editor was dating got promoted over them. Even if Alexander was doing it on the merits of both his brother and his girlfriend's talents, it sure as hell didn't look that way.

Nevermind that the now-deceased Jossip chimed in with a lowblow tipster item suggesting Alexander swung both ways; two months later, in another round of People layoffs, Alexander was gone. His company found the most convenient way to get rid of him without having to address the embarrassing issues boiling to the weekly's surface.

So why - or rather, how, exactly - has Alexander resurfaced at Time Inc's flagship publication? Once you're done at that company, you're done. They're not the kind to believe in second acts. Alexander's received a string of bylines beginning Friday, all related to Michael Jackson. Three theories:

1. Time can't find anybody more reliable for this kind of thing than Alexander, a name they can trust (so long as he keeps out of the office).

2. Time's HR people don't know or forgot about the incident. Unlikely, but the distance between what Time does and what People does is pretty wide. Then again, paying freelancers might not require going through HR, so maybe he made it under the radar.

3. Alexander's about to file suit against the company and would rather just write for them instead. Least likely, but a possibility nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Alexander's squeeze Acoymo remained at People, though her last contribution to the website was in February, it appears. Jossip suggested this was "because it's more fiscally responsible to keep a junior staffer employed than entertain the possibility of a sexual harassment lawsuit." Can't really argue with that, and a lawsuit, however successful, is the kind of thing that could blackball one from a career of magazine writing.

Update: The reason Acoymo hasn't had any recent bylines at People is that she doesn't work there any more. She left in March to be a news editor at Radaronline.com.

The lesson, unemployed magazine writers? If you're slick enough, you can pretty much recover from anything. Personnel problems at magazines are as disposable as the products they produce, apparently. Oh, and also: you're not getting hired because employers are going with the same old shit that probably got them into the sad state they're in now. And with the methods Alexander worked in pretty wide practice as is, you're never going to. As always, it's who you know, and how much they care about getting busted.

Dating People Set Off A Buzz [Page Six]
The Final Round for People's Bryan Alexander [Jossip]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Howard Kurtz wonders: Can black ladies cover Michelle Obama fairly, or might they be biased for her, because... you know. You know. Howie himself is careful to prove that the premise of this story that he wrote is stupid. Another wasted day, Howie.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Rupert Murdoch says he is categorically not thinking about buying the New York Times. This rumor originated with Michael Wolff, so we'll believe Rupert for the time being. OR WILL WE? We will.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Here's how ABC News reporter Jeffrey Kofman landed the first US network interview with the president of Honduras, just after the coup: He "walked right up to the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa... [showed] his ID and about five minutes later, he entered the inner sanctum and sat down for an interview with Micheletti." Journalism! Who knew?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The very latest on the Washington Post's disastrous email offering cheerful access to editorial staff to corporate sponsors for the low price of $25,000: the paper's canceled these proposed 'Salon' events, the ombud calls it a "public relations disaster," and the newsroom says it was entirely in the dark until the scandal broke this morning. Still to come: much, much crowing from Politico, ad nauseum.