Ha: "There he is in a beard." So good we were thinking about just stealing it outright.

Anyway: Bill has a point, and for once it does not sadden and enrage us. Although we know just enough about economics to know that we have no idea if Bernanke is a savior or a villain, we too salute Time for having the straight-laced cojones to place on their cover someone a large percentage of America is going to mistake for Jeffery Tambor with a beard.

BW's new editor will be Josh Tyrangiel, the editor of Time.com. He replaces Steven Adler, who left BW last month after Bloomberg took over. One might reasonably speculate that Tyrangiel was a familiar name to Norm Pearlstine, the former Time editor who now runs Bloomberg's content. Funny Tyrangiel Wikipedia line: "In journalistic circles, Tyrangiel is postulated to be the successor to Richard Stengel, the current editor of TIME." Has inaccuracy been found on Wikipedia? From BW's own report:

In some media circles, Tyrangiel was considered a leading candidate to succeed Time managing editor Richard Stengel. According to sources, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was so impressed with Tyrangiel that he tried to recruit him to be come the editor of CNN.com, the online arm of the 24-hour cable news channel, but Time Inc.'s current editor-in-chief John Huey intervened and convinced Tyrangiel to stay at Time with the promise that he might one day succeed Stengel.

Separately, we hear (unconfirmed) rumors that the long-expected post-sale BW layoffs have now started. One tipster tells us: "No word yet on how deep, but seems like a lot... Sounds like edit and ad sales are tomorrow, all other business functions are today." UPDATE: "3 people in marketing and 2 in finance" have been let go, our tipster says.

And as for the effect of Tyrangiel's departure on Time, which is itself in the midst of cutbacks: A tipster tells us that the savings there from Tyrangiel's departing salary means fewer people will get laid off. Which is good news, because the tipster says that "the deadline for volunteers at TIME is tomorrow in new york. after that they'll move swiftly to lay people off in new york, london and hong kong."

We've contacted Bloomberg and we'll update when we learn more. Please forward all internal memos and tips on this here.

UPDATE: This is the memo that went out at BW yesterday—some believe the "meetings" it references will include layoff notifications.

November 16, 2009

To: BusinessWeek Employees

From: Norman Pearlstine and Chris Walters
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek Integration Report #3

We are pleased to provide a progress report as we enter the last two weeks of the integration process.

Since our previous update on November 5, we have met or spoken with hundreds of you at departmental roundtable discussions. Thank you for your candor, insight and thoughtfulness on ways to make BusinessWeek even better. We took away many new ideas and better clarity on each department's priorities, concerns and accomplishments. In turn, we hope you took away a sense of our respect and excitement for the future of BusinessWeek.

At the same time, a selection process has been underway in many areas. This week, BusinessWeek staff members (except in Europe and countries where local requirements govern the process) will be invited to a meeting (in person or by telephone) to learn next steps. During the first half of the week, meetings will be held with Marketing, Communications & Events; Circulation and Production; Finance; Technology, and Digital. The remainder of the week will be spent with Sales and Sales Development, and Editorial. You'll be notified of the time and place separately.

One-hour information sessions will be scheduled on Thursday and Friday for U.S.-based employees receiving offers from Bloomberg to learn about benefits, policies and programs. Additional new hire orientation and terminal training will be provided after December 1. Employees outside of the U.S. will also receive similar information in the near future.

If you are moving to a Bloomberg office on December 4, you will receive information on logistics, your new address and general telephone number, and moving boxes. BusinessWeek marketing will provide electronic "change of address" cards to notify clients of your new location. Your "businessweek.com" email address will remain in effect.

Along with McGraw-Hill, we are striving to make the process as smooth and respectful as possible. We are very mindful that this transition will be emotional for everyone, and ask for your continued patience and consideration.

Sincerely,

Norman Pearlstine
Chief Content Officer

Chris Walters
Integration Leader

[Tyrangiel pic via]

At a Time Magazine panel last night designed to hype speculation over who the stupid "Person of the Year" will be, two distinct, stupid favorites emerged: Twitter, and The Economy. Neither of which is a person. Christ. Even "You" was technically a person, despite being the stupidest choice ever. How about "Americans Who Are Getting Stupider," as a dark horse candidate?


It looks like money issues could finally force Hugh Hefner to sell Playboy. The company's stock went erect yesterday amid reports that it's in discussions with Iconix, which specializes in turning around brands that have fallen off. If you listen to wild blogosphere estimates, Playboy is now worth significantly less than Gawker Media. That's when all the models disappear.


Optimistic words are flowing forth from the mouths of fashion magazine executives! Conde Nast's Tom Florio says Vogue's profits will double next year! Other fashion mag publishers are equally gung-ho about next year! That's the benefit of getting to compare your profits to the worst year ever, in history. They will be better than that.


CNN had been pouring lots and lots of greenback$$$ into producing an entire online-only, all-day newscast on its website, for some reason. Now they're laying off four of their online anchors and cutting way back on that whole project, because they remembered, hey, we have a whole channel on TV, already. Always thinking!

On March 10, 2008, the New York Times broke the story of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's hooker habit, and cable news went insane. One of the gratifying things we found in the 1,300 pages of e-mail correspondence between Spitzer's flacks and reporters (which we obtained under New York's public records law) was that some reporters who were booked as talking heads actually made an effort to know what they were talking about before they went on TV. Of course, it's hard to get too much information at the last minute — which is one reason no one on cable television knows what they are talking about — and often the natural impulse of reporters is to check in with a flack for guidance.

The day after the Spitzer news broke, as speculation over his future was at a fever pitch, Financial Times reporter Brooke Masters, who wrote a book in 2006 about Spitzer's rise to power, was booked to appear on CNN. She sent a frantic e-mail to Spitzer's communications director Christine Anderson ten minutes before she was scheduled to go on, asking, "what tone should I take when asked if he will resign?" She signed off with, "Help."

Anderson responded that no announcement would be coming that day, but that Masters' "tone should probably be that the options aren't good." On CNN that night, in a taped segment for Anderson Cooper 360, Masters said, "Unless he can completely reinvent himself, his old method of dealing with the world and his old attraction as a politician is gone."

When we let Masters know that we were publishing the exchange, she wrote in an e-mail that "I knew I was going to be asked what Mr Spitzer would do, and I am a reporter not a pundit so I was trying to gather the facts." Which we commend her for. Still, it's worth remembering the next time you see a reporter analyzing a story on cable somewhere, that — at least for the ones who did their homework — the facts, and the tone, sometimes come unattributed and off the record from people who are paid to manage reporters.

Another reporter who checked in with Anderson before going on TV was them-Time magazine deputy managing editor Adi Ignatius, who now edits the Harvard Business Review. Oddly, Ignatius — who had covered and profiled Spitzer for Time — was booked on ABC News and NBC News as a supporter of Spitzer's, to balance out the detractors offering gleeful quotes on his self-immolation.

On March 10, a few hours after the story broke, Ignatius e-mailed Spitzer's chief of staff Marlene Turner asking if he could speak to Spitzer or anyone else in his office about the governor's state of mind before going on ABC News's World News Tonight. Turner referred him to Anderson. World News didn't use any of Ignatius' tape, but the next day, NBC Nightly News invited him to speak as "someone who knows and likes Eliot," and he asked Anderson for access to Spitzer or anybody else who might know his thinking. Anderson responded that she'd be happy to talk to him.

That night, Ignatius was identified on a Nightly News segment as a Spitzer "supporter," and he told correspondent Mike Taibbi that "it's going to be very, very, very difficult for him to stay in office."

Ignatius and Masters were right to find out as much as they could before being presented to television audiences as informed analysts (or in Ignatius' case, a partisan). But it's interesting, to us at least, to see laid bare the role that flacks can play behind the scenes in managing the tone and direction of talking-head coverage during a PR disaster.

Yes, that Joel Stein, Time columnist, blowjob expert, and sworn enemy of Doree Shafrirs near and far, has had a disagreement with his wife over how best to medicate their child. See, there are people out there that think vaccinations are bad. Like Joel's wife:

Unlike Cassandra, I feel it's important to overload our child with toxic levels of chemicals, risking permanent damage to his nervous system. At least that's how she saw it.

Note the past-tense saw. Because, of course, over the course of this after-school special, Joel convinced Cassandra otherwise. Before then, unfunny Jew joke regarding trayf:

And I know almost no one who is willing to get the swine-flu shot, and not because everyone here is Jewish.

Zing! And The New Yorker!

It's freaked people out for more than a century, often for religious reasons, causing riots in England in the 1850s, a huge uprising in Brazil in 1904 and a polio-vaccine boycott in Nigeria in 2001. Such rebellions against vaccination typically lead to disease outbreaks that put unimmunized kids at elevated risk, and, unless someone does something to stop it, endless New Yorker stories.

...and then, tossing all of Cassandra's new-age-y friends under the bus, too, when Joel, the pragmatic, straight-man in this story, goes to deal with this, uh, long-haired hippie bullshit face to face:

I went to a seminar about inoculation at Cassandra's yoga center. Along with about 50 other people, we paid $30 each to listen to Dr. Lauren Feder. I was doing a pretty good job of distracting myself until Feder told us that a good case of whooping cough can protect your child from asthma, that measles cure eczema and that only 1% of the mere 15% of prevaccine kids who got polio became paralyzed. Feder really sees the good side of life-threatening diseases. I bet she believes Ebola cures wrinkles.

But Joel does get to one wonderful thing:

I asked...whether putting off the vaccine for hepatitis B until puberty was completely safe, or if a child could get the disease from being bitten by another kid. "You go with what feels right," Feder told me.

Yes: there's a doctor in L.A. telling patients—or rather, customers—to go with "what feels right" when vaccinating their kids. Not being a medical expert, I'm not entirely sure how safe or unsafe vaccinations are. But I do know: I was born, and my parents had me needled until I was everything but sterile, and I'm pretty sure I turned out fine (and probably: sterile).

Stein managed to talk his wife out of not getting the kid his shots—as long as they're low on aluminum?—so I guess we can thank him for throwing his wife under the vaccination tank and helping the Public Cause one day further. But this mostly just reminds me of what all parents say when their kids take the car out: it's not you we're worried about, it's the other drivers. Now normal parents in L.A. have legitimate reasons to be scared of the parents of non-normal, bougie parents in L.A.: not only because their children are possibly disease-carrying/spreading germ vessels that are simply mechanisms of their parents' well-intentioned destructive impulses in the name of being progressive, but because the sequel to Outbreak's been waiting to be made forever, and if there's anything more frightening than a disease-carrying monkey that could destroy civilization, it's a brat sprung from the loins of West Hollywood.

Citing numerous anonymous Bush White House sources, Time's Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf constructed a piece that reads like a gripping political novel. Most compellingly, the two central characters', Bush and Cheney, views on pardons, particularly the pardoning of Scooter Libby, couldn't have been more diametrically opposed, with Bush being distrustful of the whole pardon process, believing firmly that pardons were little more than vehicles for the politically connected to save their asses when and if they ever get into trouble, while Cheney labored almost obsessively to secure a pardon for Libby. In fact, Cheney's pardon crusade became so obsessive that it caused many within the administration to speculate that perhaps Libby had taken a bullet for Cheney in the Valerie Plame case, and that Cheney's dogged pursuit of a pardon was rooted in a personal debt of gratitude he owed Libby.

Petitions for pardons are usually sent in writing to the White House counsel's office or a specially designated attorney at the Department of Justice. In Libby's case, Cheney simply carried the message directly to Bush, as he had with so many other issues in the past, pressing the President in one-on-one meetings or in larger settings. A White House veteran was struck by his "extraordinary level of attention" to the case. Cheney's persistence became nearly as big an issue as the pardon itself. "Cheney really got in the President's face," says a longtime Bush-family source. "He just wouldn't give it up."

In the waning days of his presidency, Bush gave Cheney the opportunity to present one last case for the pardoning of Scooter Libby.

The Vice President argued the case in that Oval Office session, which was attended by the President and his top aides. He made his points in a calm, lawyerly style, saying Libby was a fall guy for critics of the Iraq war, a loyal team player caught up in a political dispute that never should have turned into a legal matter. They went after Scooter, Cheney would say, because they couldn't get his boss. But Bush pushed past the political dimension. "Did the jury get it right or wrong?" he asked.

In that meeting Cheney went on to make the argument that a liberal Washington jury and a maniacal prosecutor had teamed to criminalize Libby for having a faulty memory. Bush then spent a few days thinking things over.

Bush would decide alone. In private, he was bothered by Libby's lack of repentance. But he seemed more riveted by the central issue of the trial: truthfulness. Did Libby lie to prosecutors? The President had been told by private lawyers in the case that Libby never should have testified before the grand jury and instead should have invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Prosecutors can accept that. But lie to them, and it gets personal. "It's the difference between making mistakes, which everybody does, and making up a story," a lawyer told Bush. "That is a sin that prosecutors are not going to forgive."

A few days later, about a week before they would become private citizens, Bush pulled Cheney aside after a morning meeting and told him there would be no pardon. Cheney looked stricken. Most officials respond to a presidential rebuff with a polite thanks for considering the request in the first place. But Cheney, an observer says, "expressed his disappointment and disagreement with the decision ... He didn't take it well."

Earlier today, in response to the publication of the Time article, Dick Cheney released the following statement:

Scooter Libby is an innocent man who was the victim of a severe miscarriage of justice.

He was not the source of the leak of Valerie Plame's name. Former Deputy Secretary of State, Rich Armitage, leaked the name and hid that fact from most of his colleagues, including the President. Mr. Libby is an honorable man and a faithful public servant who served the President, the Vice President and the nation with distinction for many years. He deserved a presidential pardon.

Yeah, there's some bad blood here. Now go read this piece.

Inside Bush and Cheney's Final Days [Time]

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]

As editor of the late Time Inc. title Business 2.0, Quittner once employed Valleywag emeritus Owen Thomas (as well as your current Valleywag). But somewhere along the way, Quittner soured on Thomas.

Thomas jumped to Valleywag and Business 2.0 folded. When Quittner landed at Fortune, Thomas wrote about Quittner's inflated title, covered Fortune's suspension of his blogging privileges, and quoted the Scrabulous-playing columnist saying he had "too much time on my hands."

Quittner seemed to take it personally. After jumping to Time, he used the magazine as his personal burn book, noting in January that a Sony virtual world wouldn't create an avatar "as fat as your average tech-gossip blogger."

Now Quittner's at it again, with a Sims 3 review in which he creates a "Loser" character named "Thomas Woodchuck" and burns him alive (see clip above). As several tipsters have noted, the resemblance between Woodchuck and Thomas can't be missed — nor can the creepiness of teaching his daughter to drown an enemy in the pool.

It seems early to get too alarmed; there are worse things than being called an "unredoubtable... woodchuck" in an anonymous comments, or killed virtually in a videogame. We're just a little surprised Time indulges Quittner's grudge — or that the reporter, after all this time, still holds it.

Just like the image of a man standing in front of a tank brigade became the lasting image of the Tiananmen Square protests in China, the video of Neda, her eyes growing ever more vacant by the second as her spirit leaves her body and climaxing with blood pouring from her orifices, is destined to become the image that few of us who saw/see it will ever forget. What happens next in the movement is the question. Will Neda's death galvanize the Iranian revolutionaries who've spent the past week protesting against the religious conservatives who control their government and rigged the recent presidential election in their favor, or will Neda's death scare enough of them into submission to allow the government to effectively squash the movement?

Time speculates on this very subject:

Although it is not yet clear who shot "Neda" (a soldier? pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat - a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles.

The first clashes in January 1978 produced two deaths that were then commemorated on the 40th day in mass gatherings, which in turn produced new confrontations with security forces - and new deaths. Those deaths then generated another 40-day period of mourning, new clashes, and further deaths. The cycle continued throughout most of the year until the shah's ouster in January 1979.

The revolutionaries exploited the deep passion about martyrdom as well as the timetable of Shiite mourning in whipping up greater opposition to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. With the deaths of "Neda" and others, they may now find the same phenomena used against them.

On a personal note, I first saw the video of Neda's death on Sunday afternoon at around 2PM. For the remainder of the day and up to this point, I've failed every effort, and there have been many, to get it out of my head. Even when I went to the gym late in the day, a place of solace where I'm usually able to blast music in my ears while exercising and just forget about everything going on in the outside world, I found myself unable to remove Neda from my mind. Now, I realize that this doesn't make me unique as I'm sure that many have felt overcome with the same feelings after seeing the video, but it's significant beyond Iran for many reasons, not the least of which being because I think it causes everyone who's seen the video to contemplate their own lives in their own country, just like it did and continues to do with me. Would we Americans be willing to stand up to our government under the same circumstances? I sort of doubt it.

Regardless, here's the video of Neda's death for benefit of those who haven't seen it. I suppose at this point it goes without saying, but this is extremely graphic, disturbing footage.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Our sisters at Jezebel also have a post on this that includes links to many thoughts/opinions on the matter. [Jezebel]

In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences [Time]

Park Sloper and Gawker hobby horse Steven Johnson delivers that depressing punchline at the end of his Twitter cover story, out tomorrow:

It was the Japanese who would destroy us in the '80s; now it's China and India. But what actually happened to American innovation during that period? We came up with America Online, Netscape, Amazon, Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, Craigslist, TiVo, Netflix, eBay, the iPod and iPhone, Xbox, Facebook and Twitter itself. Sure, we didn't build the Prius or the Wii, but if you measure global innovation in terms of actual lifestyle-changing hit products and not just grad students, the U.S. has been lapping the field for the past 20 years.

That's right: America might not make actual things any more, but at least we've learned to occupy our time talking endlessly and unprofitably to one another, in an entirely massless location, about which other entirely massless things deserve our time and/or increasingly worthless borrowed dollars.

It's a sort of self-eating economy only slightly more sophisticated than the financial services orgy of the prior 10 years, which ended disastrously. We just can't stop doing this sort of thing. Yay?

This is what I ultimately find most inspiring about the Twitter phenomenon. We are living through the worst economic crisis in generations, with apocalyptic headlines threatening the end of capitalism as we know it, and yet in the middle of this chaos, the engineers at Twitter headquarters are scrambling to keep the servers up, application developers are releasing their latest builds, and ordinary users are figuring out all the ingenious ways to put these tools to use. There's a kind of resilience here that is worth savoring.

That's the sort of sweeping, certain conclusion sure to please Time's Economist- loving editor Rick Stengel. How's it doing on the media platform of the future, though? Time's James Poniewozik reports:

Yes and with cookies. See, because he's diabetic! So it was cruel to force-feed him cookies, right? It got him to talk!

No, not really.

"The most successful interrogation of an al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or ‘walling' and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies."

It's really weird that we even need to have a debate about whether or not torture "works" (while simultaneously denying that we tortured still, right?), as if that was the relevant question, but, you know, Obama wants Guantanamo prisoners to hug your teenagers or something, so whatever. America!

How to Make Terrorists Talk [TIME]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.THE HEF is reportedly floating his Playboy Enterprises empire for sale, for a bargain-basement price of $300 million. That's way more than the company's actually worth—porn is free, nowadays—but THE HEF needs all the extra cash to continue paying his concubines until he collapses. Seriously, that's why he's asking for so much.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Michael Kinsley says that the new Newsweek redesign hasn't changed the fact that the magazine is a waste of time, which is true, and that Time is also a waste of time, which is true, but that Time is a waste of time mostly because they canned Michael Kinsley, which is false. The Historical Jesus is not mentioned.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.All those projects that are hacked-to-the-bone online relaunches of local news outlets by refugees from folded newspapers? Those are all going to fail. We're calling it now. Sorry.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Ha, the San Diego paper sold recently, astoundingly, to a private equity firm. A big investor in that firm is the pension fund of LA police officers. Now the pension fund demands that the paper fire its editorial writers because they hate cops or something. It will only take a few more incidents like this for the acquisition of the San Diego paper to go down as the last great failed newspaper acquisition. It has a good chance!

Time media critic James Poniewozik experienced intra-Time Warner corporate stupidity.

Chicago Tribune schadenfreude beat reporter John Keilman bragged about his marriage.

Wired editor Danny Dumas did not pimp his ride.

Financial-advice yeller Suze Orman Twittered at her girlfriend.

Senator spawn Meghan McCain represented the filthy-mouthed, sleepless future of the GOP.

Special thanks to Twitter tipster Matt Cherette for today's tweets! Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Wired UK editor Ben Hammersley had a meltdown in Heathrow.

Time media critic James Poniewozik pointed out the obvious flaw in the great Kindle swindle.

Improbably named Chicago blogger Blagica Bottigliero flaunted her City Hall connections.

Martha Stewart had to call 911 when the power went out, and declared it not a good thing.

Insincerely sarcastic Guardian columnist Paul Carr put the "college" in "collegial" when he went off on colleague Seth Finkelstein.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames. (Special thanks to Matt Cherette for today's picks!)

Presumably she actually wanted to go to the Met Costume Gala but was forced to settle for the more plebeian Time function. But now there is exactly one reason to attend! Seeing our beloved First Lady may help you get through the mugging of emcee Jimmy Fallon, who is taking any microphone offered him these days. (He will also be at the Webbies. The Webbies! That's even more embarrassing than attending the damn Ellies. Which Fallon hosted.)

Heroic television short-hair Rachel Maddow has been losing viewers, ever since the election! What the hell, America? Too busy watching Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior to care about public affairs? Cause that's what I'm doing. Deadliest Warrior.


Ha, the young internet idiots at 4Chan hacked Time.com's "100 Most Influential People" online poll and voted 4Chan's founder up to #1 and also, we quote, "the hackers apparently rearranged the top 21 names so that the first letter of their names-looking down the list-spelled out the phrase 'Marblecake Also the Game.'" Joke's on you, hackers. There is no way to make Time's list of Influential People any more bullshit than it already is.


More on today's Chicago Tribune layoffs, via Facebook updates:

10:45am [redeacted]: "Two people who sit at adjacent desks just got laid off. Good, good people. We're all waiting at our desks hoping not to be called next."
10:47am [redacted]: "A lot of tears..."
13 minutes ago [redacted]: "I was told to stop writing about this, because it was upsetting some people. OK, I'll stop. But this is bigger than work. This is about real people and real friends."

New-media-overtaking-old-media-symbolism-UGH.


Elsewhere in declining audiences: the Seattle P-I. They killed the print paper and went online-only, but now their online traffic is down 23% from a year ago. There's no good angle on that whatsoever.

Time's cover story this week: "The New Frugality." Businessweek's cover story, 10/20/08: "The New Frugality." Hmmm.


On a panel last night, media beef-starter Michael Wolff said the following things: 80% of newspapers will be dead by the end of next year, TV networks will soon have minuscule audiences, Time Warner and all other media conglomerates will cease to exist in five years, and photographers are talentless hacks. We'll throw in one: Michael Wolff will be voted "Most Popular Guy in Media" in the next seventeen minutes.


Following a disastrous first quarter, the NYT Co's CFO says that "a good part" of the company's job cuts this year are "behind us," and severance cuts shouldn't be as bad as last year. Which, upon review, means very little.

The publisher of Portfolio explains that if you think the magazine is not doing well just because it lost half its advertising and cut back to ten issues, you're not looking at the big picture: "Versus our initial audit statement, total circ is up 19 percent and paid is up 43 percent. And the rate base is up 14 percent. Our success is not judged on ad pages. The questions we respond to are ‘Is the magazine relevant? Is it becoming a part of the culture? Are readers renewing?' That's what we're being judged on." If circ ever declines, look for Li to say they're being judged on good binding, glossiness of paper, and the mere existence of the magazine.


Former Conde Nast editorial director James Truman has taken a new gig consulting for a custom publisher, but his real passion is his magic circus company. Good for him, we say!

A finance blogger thinks that Esquire will fold before the end of next year. We don't think he's right, and his reasoning is incomplete, and we'd like to defend Esquire here, but then they have to go and issue an apology for telling guys to learn how to curse well by calling someone a "shit-sniffing faggot." Which is just not acceptable in 2009, unless you can sell advertising against it.


A true outrage at Newsweek—a tipster writes: "I work in the Newsweek building on 57th street. The bathroom on my floor has a noxious odor coming from it and despite multiple complaints to building management, we have been told that they will not address it because we will be moving...in over a month. The odor is a combination of sewage and gasoline.
The building has already changed the address so that mail does not arrive and does not seem concerned that we are working in a construction zone, which requires security guards to wear face masks; but this is unacceptable. We work for 9 hours a day, and to not be able to go to the bathroom is unheard of!" Hey just hold it in, we're in a recession!

Erstwhile checkout-line tastemaker Bonnie Fuller found someone who made her seem less loathsome by comparison.

Time writer Karen Tumulty ended up on the wrong side of Texas.

WebMediaBrands mogul Alan Meckler touted his company's stock.

CNET social-media beat reporter Caroline McCarthy subverted the dominant media paradigm.

Bay Area exile Alex Blagg advised Gawker alumna Doree Shafrir, in San Francisco for a book reading, on his former haunts.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

The Boston Globe may have found its savior: the dude who owns the Boston Red Sox. John Henry says that if he buys the NYT Co's stake in the Red Sox, he might be willing to take the paper off their hands too. Which is actually not a bad deal at any price, since the paper is just leaking money out of every orifice! Do it, NYT Co: Just clear the fuck out of Boston, totally. That's never been a bad move.


Journalists get PTSD too, you'll be sad to hear.

Crazy news about newspapers, the roundup: The Daytona Beach News-Journal may go bankrupt. Rick fucking Santorum, gaybashing boy wonder, gets paid $1,750 per dumb column by the (bankrupt) Philly Inquirer. Media General's financial results were dismal. And newsroom employment at US newspapers fell more than 11% last year, to its lowest levels in three decades.


Time magazine did not defame former Indonesian president Suharto in 1999, you'll be happy to hear.

The big Newsweek relaunch is coming! Control yourself. "A prototype of the redesign that will be launched in early May is a cleaner take on the old, with more white space and bolder photographs. The launch will coincide with a relaunch of Newsweek.com that will replace wire copy with links to the best sources of online news, even if published by rivals." Everybody wanna be the HuffPo, but nobody wanna pay like the HuffPo. On general principle we must also say: "The Historical Jesus."

Daily Show producer Miles Kahn griped about overcharging.

Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich doubted the value of looking for work on Twitter.

MSNBC gossip Courtney Hazlett analogized.

Time media critic James Poniewozik tried to save Twitter from itself.

Talking Points Memo blogger Matt Cooper worked on his daddy issues.

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Self-described "popologist" Lyneka Little took a ride on Ikea's wild side.

Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback, the man responsible for inflicting Kevin Rose's Diggnation on the world, apparently couldn't afford a rental car in L.A.

CNET News oversharer Caroline McCarthy filled us in on her food preferences.

Time columnist James Poniewozik watched CNN Fox News shoutyman Glenn Beck play Jenga on live TV.

Formerly important media person Bonnie Fuller made the Lance Armstrong collarbone-break story all about her.

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You see, Time's argument is that since Gawker grew up chronicling media barons, we're now doomed to go down with them. It's the sort of pat logic you might find in a newsweekly pitch meeting: "All that's left for Gawker is to report on its own demise."

The expansion of our coverage beyond the Manhattan media world —- and into entertainment, politics and, after last year's merger with Valleywag, technology — has been paying off. In fact, traffic has been booming around here: With nearly 23.5 million page views last month, according to our public traffic numbers, the site had its second biggest month ever. And last week on Quantcast we passed the 3 million unique visitors mark, a better than 50% increase from December.

America apparently forgot about 9/11, because President Obama is rolling back all the important and effective new national security policies of the Bush administration, like secret CIA prisons and extraordinary rendition of uncharged terrorism suspects to foreign countries where they'll be conveniently tortured. And he's closing Guantanamo! This means there is no more "War on Terror," and we lost, because there is still terror, obviously—specifically we are still terrified of bats, and the very real possibility that there will never be an Arrested Development movie. (Curse you, Cera!)

As the Washington Post points out, we can all retreat back into this pre-9/11 fairy tale of not needing to betray the fundamental principles of law and order and the founding document of the country because those unconstitutional policies kept us safe enough to, as we said, forget about 9/11. Welcome back, 2000! We're psyched to use Napster again!

Oh, also it being 2000 again means that Senator John McCain of Arizona is a maverick, and liberals and journalists can all love him, again. He is a "maverick" because he bucked his party and demanded the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. The balls on him! Only all the other Republican senators excepting two actual mavericks had the guts to do that!

This is what is so wonderful about being back in 2000—we can go back to our comforting naivety and unquestioning acceptance of established political narratives. John McCain is a maverick, adhering to the Constitution is a luxury of safe times, and Gladiator is a great movie.

So far, Time has already tried:

Straight-ahead head shot (2)
Straight-ahead head shot, half black and white
Barack in montage of other influentials (2)
Barack with political opponent (3)
Semi-profile head shot
Semi-profile head shot, as painting
Semi-profile head shot, as Shepard Fairey poster
Arms-folded upper body shot
Back-of-head shot
Photoshop as former President.
Baby picture

And there at least four more solid years of Obama covers on the way! Either Time is going to start repeating itself (even more), or they're going to have go deep into the bag of tricks. Standing on one foot? Playing basketball? Screaming angrily at staff? Surreptitious smoking photo? The paparazzi have their work cut out for them if America is to be free of fifty months of Barack's same old face.

Elliott "spends much of his life jetting between New York (where he lives), London (from where he edits the Europe-Middle East-Africa edition) and Hong Kong (from where he edits the Asia edition)," according to a 2007 profile in the UK Independent.

That sort of travel can be taxing. But it brings career advantages. And according to one tipster, Elliott revels in it. "He likes to be everywhere at once," a plainly disgruntled staffer wrote.

And Elliott purportedly will travel only in business class. This produced, it is claimed, a 2008 Elliott travel expenditure of $250,000 — "about two-and-a-half [full-] time journalists" in the eyes of a rank-and-filer.

It is a measure of the anger among Time staff that business-class travel could produce such resentment. The magazine's layoffs have fallen especially hard on its international editions, and Elliott has been given hatchet duty. In November, amid the layoffs, one angry staffer described Elliott to us as the "international editor who has managed to bamboozle [Time Inc. Editor In Chief] John Huey into thinking he knows what he is doing."

Another tipster, the same one upset about Elliott's travel, wrote, "now he gets to be tallest dwarf in the room."

It's not hard to imagine Elliott fitting snugly into the future of the magazine. In press interviews, he has repeatedly made it known that he is the only journalist who has served as an executive at Time, Newsweek and the Economist, the three major international newsmagazines. The Economist was Elliott's starting point and, as it turns out, Stengel's model for the cheaper, more opinionated future of Time.

But Elliott's resume can' t insulate him from ridicule among the proud journalists at Time. The editor did not get his start in media; he was a lecturer at the London School of Economics and a would-be management consultant when he was lured to the Economist, which contains as much viewpoint as news. He also tried his hand as television host for ITV. "He has never been a proper reporter," writes our disgruntled tipster.

Sour grapes, sure. But relevant; if Elliott wants to show he can lead an organization racked by cutbacks, this is precisely the sort of anger he'll need to overcome. It will take more than high-handed gag orders. The fast-tracked jet-setter might just have to slow down.

Calling the dress the worst "fashion faux pas" of 2008 is, of course, a shameless publicity stunt by Time, which is publishing a listicle orgy called "The Top 10 Everything." Sounds very Digg-friendly!

The Wintour-hating Europeans have already taken the bait, but Britain's Daily Mail was kind enough to concede that the dress "stole the show" at the gala, which Wintour hosted.

Wrote Time (emphasis in the original):

When the history of modern fashion is written, this will be its Waterloo moment. The unimpeachably stylish Vogue editor Anna Wintour turns up at the premiere fashion event of the year, the Met Costume Gala, which she is hosting — it just doesn't get any better than this — in a dress that makes her look like she's encrusted with ammonoid fossils.

An "ammonoid," in case you don't know, is a vicious, near-extinct cephalopod predator of the "fashionrag" family, requiring for survival a lush environment of glossy wood byproduct, generous expense accounts and masochistic assistants, and generally agreed to have been suddenly endangered by the rise of reality television, the internet and bitchy roman a clefs. (If seen in the wild, do not approach.)

"We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood," said one official.
...One terrorist used the drugs to keep on fighting despite suffering a life-threatening injury.

Drugs are commonly used in India by workers in jobs where a lack of sleep is demanded, such as truck drivers and security guards.

Time hasn't been able to corroborate the Telegraph report, but it's all over it nevertheless. One expert told them they were crazy for even asking about the report. But this one French pundit said the Manson-family-esque drugged-out psycho-killer scenario could have happened!

Jean-Louis Bruguière, who retired this year as France's chief counterterrorism investigator... believes that discounting [the report] out of hand would be naive.
"Why wouldn't attackers do something forbidden by their religious practice — to take drugs or anything else — that could help them achieve what they consider the far more important goal of their plot in striking a blow for God?" Bruguière asks. "Adepts of the Takfir wal-Hijra sect will adopt what Islam considers impure behavior of enemy societies, like drinking alcohol, eating pork and wild living, to better prepare attacks for those same societies. That's what Mohamed Atta and the other 9/11 attackers did while plotting in the U.S.

Proof! But really, this vital and scary new aspect of the terrifying terror attacks requires much more horrific examination and analysis by other U.S. journalists before we can be 100% sure. Preferably with more awesome photos like the one used by Time above! (Awesome how they left in the red-eye. Pro move right there.)

Iconizing Obama is likely to harden some opposing voters against him, feeding the perception his supporters are blind cult worshippers and, perhaps, that the token-hawking media are complicit. But then someone will remember it's possible to create "Obama the secret muslim" dolls or somesuch, and actually do it, and we'll all finally rejoice that capitalism is working like it's supposed to again.

A tipster writes:

"The rumour is now that the Editor Stengel is going to leave and has completely turned his back on some of the magazine's most talented and loyal staff. He has made no effort to try and save some of the people who have spent years making the magazine the best at what it is some in very dangerous places. The whole thing is a complete mess. What everyone is wondering is who is doing the cuts and why. They make no sense.
The company is alienating some very good journalists and you know what journalists do when they get angry about something - they write."

The last bit is demonstrably true.

In addition to the aforementioned layoffs of editors William Green and James Graff, we hear editor Charlotte Greensit's job was eliminated, though she's expected to be kept on and relocated. Surviving senior editor Simon Robinson is expected to take the top spot in London.

Lev Grossman fellates Updike with a knowing look as Updike cradles his bald head in a three part essay that also addresses Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. Grossman's highest praise is for the man from his alma mater:

It's a cruel irony: in an age when straight talk and authenticity are all anybody wants from writers, Updike is cursed with the unfashionable gift of eloquence. His prose is so effortlessly fluid, it gets him tagged as a lightweight, a silver-tongued devil: all art, no matter. But who has written more intelligently or more ruthlessly about sex and the suburbs than Updike?

Richard Yates. Leonard Michaels. Robert Coover. Thomas Pynchon. Evan S. Connell. Richard Ford. Hell, even Tom Wolfe. Then again, what is a Harvard guy going to say about another Harvard guy? Seriously:

One wonders whether anybody has ever described the small physical indignities of the aging process with as much tenderness and good humor as Updike.

We have to hope that by asking this many inane rhetorical questions about John Updike's greatness, he is taking a bullet for us all so that no one will wonder sincerely, "Have anyone described a blowjob better than that old SOB?"

Even non-Ivy leaguer and New York Times Books Review editor Sam Tanenhaus can't keep Updike's balls out of his mouth this Sunday.

Sam Tanenhaus and John Updike Do 69 [NYTBR]