We started noticing that this commenter, more than anyone else, seems to post a response to any and all posts about the Times. And it's always something defending the paper. Hey, this is a fine thing—we like it when commenters can bring some expertise, some new information, a little intrigue. And you know, there's lots of stuff we like about the Times too. Or else we'd talk about it as little as we talk about the New York Sun!

But we've also noticed that, while this commenter often comes across as sarcastic and "biting," he also seems genuinely hurt over any criticism of the paper.

Here's what Urnidiot had to say on July 16, in response to a post about a Times article about middle-aged men who play Guitar Hero:

Could someone let the technicians know that the GawkerBot AutoPilot 3000 that's apparently been producing the posts on this site for the last several months is stuck in that mode where it only generates perfunctory, knee-jerk items about the New York Times? Thanks!!

In response to our post about where Times employees sit in the new building, Urnidiot had this to say:

Did you know there are also special chambers on each floor of the Times building where men and women are segregated by gender, and then made to enter individual containment units before they excrete solid and liquid wastes from their bodies? What a crazy, crazy company.

Urnidiot seems particularly piqued whenever we mention reporters or editors on the Culture desk. Take this response to a post about TV reporter Bill Carter getting beat on the Sopranos finale story by Star-Ledger TV critic Alan Sepinwall, who got an interview with David Chase (Carter wrote that Chase wasn't doing interviews):

Um, maybe it's because the publicists at HBO are a bunch of #@!%ing liars? But yeah, Bill Carter did interview every single member of the Sopranos cast this weekend, so I guess his HBO contacts must be really weak. Or something like that?

Or his response to our post, "Who's Winning the Battle of Hollywood":

This post reads like a first-grader trying to explain where babies come from. You've obviously gleaned some superficial details about the process, but you still have no idea what you're talking about.

Your criticism of Edward Wyatt has no basis; he managed to break some big stories despite the fact that networks wouldn't make key people available to him.

You are dead wrong that Bill Carter "has trouble" with HBO stories — did you even bother to do a cursory Nexis search on him?

You are dead wrong again that Sharon Waxman lacks sources and has been "basically blacklisted" by the industry.

It's very strange you make no mention of Michael Cieply or Jacques Steinberg, who break stories regularly on both coasts — or would this refute your shaky thesis?

It's stranger still that you seem to think the LA Times has any esteem or prestige whatsoever in the entertainment industry anymore.

It's strangest of all that you are still pimping your theory that Nikki Finke is the only person in the world who knew on Friday that Kevin Reilly was about to be fired.

Seriously, where do you get your information from?

Finally, we have this comment, from yesterday, in response to our post wondering if Brian Stelter was going to raise the ire of the notoriously prickly Bill Carter:

Indeed, I wonder what Jacques Steinberg, Virginia Heffernan, Alexandra Stanley, Edward Wyatt, Brooks Barnes, David Halbfinger, or any of the dozens of other people who write about television for the Times think about the fact that there's one more article about television in the paper today.

Anyway, maybe that typo was some meta-commentary about the fact that Alessandra makes so many mistakes?

We'd execute this guy, but somehow it seems more fun, and more sporting, to keep him around.

Comments By Urnidiot

Stelter's first piece is about the popularity of the Game Show Network, and how the network has also used various online applications to expand its viewers' experience. Now, there are a few reasons why this wouldn't have been a Bill Carter piece in the first place. Let's go over them! 1) It's not a meh piece about HBO. 2) It's not a palsy piece about NBC and/or Ben Silverman. 3) It hasn't already been written about in the LA Times or the Wall Street Journal. But that doesn't mean that Carter's not reading it and shaking his fist at the young upstart. Good thing they got Stelter to agree to be in the intermediate reporter program! After all, as some people know too well, one wrong look at Carter and Stelter will be outta there faster than you can say "God these upfronts are dull, but such a great time to take old network friends out for beers."

Old Game Show Network Reinvents Itself With Interactivity [NYT]
TV Newser Stelter Joins NYTimes [Romenesko]

As evidence of his appropriately cool relationship with Silverman, Carter volunteered the fact that the two had never met each other's families. "We don't have the trappings of friendship," he said.

In fact, Silverman and Carter have met members of each other's families. As Carter acknowledged in a subsequent interview, Silverman once met Carter's son during a visit to the set of The Office, which Reveille produces. [...] And according to a reliable source, Silverman has told people that Carter has met his mother—a former television executive for Court TV and other networks—and his sister and has described Carter as a "personal friend." (Carter denied meeting Silverman's mother, and said he doesn't recall ever meeting his sister.)

In any event, should be an innaresting time on Monday, when NBC Uni co-prez Ben Silverman presents at TCA! Fun for all of T.V. land.

Times TV Reporter's Cozy Coverage [Radar]

Well! Probably not Larry Ingrassia and his Business staff—like David Carr, Joe "Near-Death Experience" Sharkey, and soon, ex-TV Newser Brian Stelter—who are stuck way down on 2 (maybe they sold it to them as "bad views, but a short way down in case of emergency"?). Sharing that floor are various research/administrative-y departments like contracts and news surveys and database reporting, but also fun desks like Escapes/Travel; Investigative, which is run by former "Our Towns" Metro columnist Matthew Purdy; the Science desk (presumably where counterintuitivist John Tierney hangs his hat); and the wacky dudes of Sports. Oh, and Week in Review also gets its own corner on 2.

On 3, we've got a real newsy smorgasboard: City Weekly (hey, Jake Mooney! What's up, Jennifer Bleyer!), the clerical staff, the Continuous News Desk (they still have those?), Alison Mitchell's Education desk (where we presume ethics-loving and Jew-struggling Sam Freedman probably has a cubicle), the Foreign desk (the editors, we assume? If everyone else is, you know, in a foreign country?), and hip-hop and memo loving Joe Sexton's Metro staff—like Clyde Haberman, overwriter Michael Brick, weather poet Robert D. McFadden, and Peter Braunstein-chronicler Anemona Hartocollis. We're not done, though—also crowded into the third floor are the National desk, led by Times lifer Suzanne Daley (though, like the Foreign desk, most of her reporters are scattered in various places); the News Administration, News Design, and the simply named "News Desk" desks; Obituaries, where advance writer Marilyn Berger toils away, presumably maintaining the office celebrity death pool; the limping Regional Edition; and WQXR, the Times-owned classical music station.

Most important, though, is that the "Masthead" also lives on 3. Who, or what, is the "Masthead" desk? Why, simply the Most Important Editors of Our Time, such as executive editor Bill Keller, managing editors Jill Abramson and John Geddes, and deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, who've clustered in a corner of the floor to protect themselves from the unwashed masses.

Up on 4, we've got Sam Sifton and his Culture clique—Alessandra Stanley, Bill Carter, Virginia Heffernan, Jon Pareles, Kelefa "K" Sanneh, etc.—who share space with a bunch of other features-y departments. We've got Trish Hall's Home section, which, of course, is not just for rich people! This floor is also where Pete Wells holds court over the Dining section, which is home to sometime bartender Frank Bruni, cheapskate Peter Meehan, and food-world gossipper Florence Fabricant; the Real Estate section, which hopefully will never again publish a front-page story printed at an angle like they did the other week; "Special Sections"; the TV Studio; and (drumroll!) WASPy Jew Trip Gabriel and his Styles minions. This, we imagine, is where the real decisions at the Times get made. It's where Stephanie Rosenbloom sits at her cubicle, calling her mom. Where Guy Trebay and Eric Wilson get into catfights over who's wearing the skinniest pants. Where Cathy Horyn swans into the office in a conceptual muumuu. Where "society editor" Bob Woletz has the power to decide which couples shall receive an announcement the paper's Weddings section, and which shall die a certain social death.

Moving on! On 5, ensconced with, undoubtedly, many bookshelves, we've got New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus and his staff, including Paper Cuts blogger and "Inside the List" columnist Dwight Garner, deputy editor Bob Harris, and assorted other book review staff.

On 6 and 7 is Gerald Mazorati and Alex Star's New York Times Magazine—plus the various incarnations of T, Play, Key, and whatever other one-word glossies they're incubating over there. The Art department also has space on 7. And most of the Editorial staff of NYTimes.com, including Digital News Editor Jim Roberts, lives on 9.

Our friends on the editorial page—editor Andrew Rosenthal, deputy editors Carla Robbins and David Shipley, and Letters editor Thomas Feyer—have taken up residence on 13, which they share with some ad operations people from NYTimes.com.

The Morgue has, sadly, been sent off-site, to the Times offices at 230 W. 41st St.

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis and her corporate communications cronies are on 17, which they share with the controller's office and part of the executive committee (scary!), part of which is also on 16. Now we're getting to some potentially good views. On 18, we've got the corporate secretary, the "forest products group" (uh, paper?), legal, blah blah. The 19th and 20th floors are home to Ad Sales (and a herd of mice). Then, on 22, which is the very top Times floor (the rest of the building has been leased to fancy law firm Goodwin Procter) are what, clearly, are the most important departments in the place: Circulation and Finance. Just remember that.

Youch! Guess Carter's sources at HBO don't get him unfettered access to popular mob series producers. Not great timing today, either—because the NYT Business section has hired Brian Stelter, the 21-year-old wunderkind behind the TV Newser blog, to be a T.V. "media reporter" on the web.

Young Brian's job sounds similar to the position that the Times had offered to former New York Observer TV reporter Rebecca Dana, but with less "what's this new media internet mobile thing the kids are into." When rumors of unknown provenance made the rounds that Dana had said—jokingly, and possibly years ago—that she was going to "kick Bill Carter's ass" or some such, her offer was quickly changed to a three-year intermediate reporter position, an unexpected and unappreciated re-offer that she wisely declined.

Stelter has been hired at this status, called 8i, which means he'll basically be a glorified intern for three years. (It seems unlikely that the Times would've offered a 21-year-old a real full-time reporting position, but stranger things have happened.) Stelter will report to media editor Bruce Headlam on the Business desk, while Carter reports to Steve Reddicliffe on the Culture desk.

Things will undoubtedly get very interesting very quickly. Stelter has a ton of sources in the industry, and is just the kind of hungry fellow who could show up his older colleagues. Unless he gets stabbed in the back!

TV Writers Were Also Watching 'Sopranos' [NYT]
'Sopranos' Creator's Last Word: The End Speaks For Itself [Star-Ledger]
NY Times Hires TV Reporter Stelter [NYO]

His most recent television articles—a piece on May 27 on the Fox sitcom 'Til Death, a story about Bob Barker's TV specials on May 15—were merely forgettable, but some of his pieces are eyebrow-raising for their cluelessness.

Before moving to Los Angeles last year to be with his wife, Jennifer Steinhauer, the head of the Times' Los Angeles bureau, Wyatt covered publishing from New York, and without particular distinction.

On Saturday, April 28, the New York Times ran an article, "Well-Known
Secret: 'Grey's Anatomy' Spinoff for ABC," by Wyatt. In the article about Grey's Anatomy, Wyatt wrote, "Like a doting parent trying to hide a child's Christmas bike under the bed, ABC has been pretending to hope that no one notices what could be its biggest winner in next fall's television season, a spinoff of its hit nighttime soap opera 'Grey's Anatomy... Despite the buzz being generated by a potential spinoff of its highest-rated scripted show, executives at the ABC network and its television studio have refused to talk publicly about the new venture."

The next day, Sunday, April 29, the front page of the Los Angeles Times' Calendar section was devoted to the Grey's Anatomy spinoff. It featured quotes from, among others, ABC's entertainment president, Stephen McPherson, and Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the series.

And in a piece of Wyatt's about Lost on May 8, he wrote, "ABC declined to make its executives and the show's creators available for interviews." But the LAT managed to get both of the show's executive producers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, to give quotes in the article by Maria Elena Fernandez that ran the same day.

"He doesn't have a tremendous number of contacts," said one L.A. executive in the industry of Wyatt. "I don't look at that as a failing on his part! It takes awhile to develop those relationships." Wyatt appears to have written his first story on his new beat in March, 2006 ("Smithsonian-Showtime Deal Raises Concerns"), though people out west had the perception that he had been on the beat for a much shorter time.

"Ask me in three months what I think of him, and I'll be able to give you a better answer," this executive said.

At the New York Times, as at the Los Angeles Times, television is covered by both the Arts and Business desks. At the NYT, Jacques Steinberg and Bill Carter report to Business editor Larry Ingrassia [they used to report to Ingrassia; they now report to the Culture desk]; Brooks Barnes will report to media editor Bruce Headlam, one of Ingrassia's deputies, on the Business desk. Wyatt, and Virginia Heffernan and poor Alessandra Stanley, report to Steve Reddicliffe, the culture TV editor, who's under Sam Sifton.

At the LAT, Maria Elena Fernandez, Martin Miller, Greg Braxton, Scott Collins, Lynn Smith and Matea Gold—all reporters—are edited by Kate Aurthur (who used to work at the NYT on the Arts & Leisure desk), while Meg James reports to Sallie Hofmeister on the Business desk. That's not counting the LAT's critics. Even as the LAT prepares to slim down, they remain bulked up on their home turf—a place where they think they can show up the NYT.

Wyatt's relative inexperience wouldn't be so noticeable if the rest of the NYT's entertainment coverage was strong. And that's why Barnes—who has a reputation as someone who breaks stories—has the potential to be something of a thorn in the LAT's side in writing about the film industry. For example, Sharon Waxman (who's on the Culture desk, though her stories often touch on business-related topics) has been basically blacklisted by at least a few Hollywood folk since September 2004, when she wrote an article for the Times, "The Nudist Buddhist Borderline-Abusive Love-In," about the director David O. Russell and his film I Heart Huckabees. The article was filled with details that Russell—rightly or wrongly; there's a lot of he-said, she-said here—thought were for Waxman's book Rebels on the Backlot. When they ended up in the Times, he was none too pleased.

Since then, Waxman's lack of sources has become a detriment to the paper's coverage of the industry—a very recent example is her piece on the box-office success of Pirates of the Caribbean which (very logically) speculated that a fourth Pirates had to be in the works, given the success of the first three. Waxman quoted Mark Zoradi, president of Disney Studios marketing and distribution, an anonymous "film executive close to 'Pirates 3,' and Paul Dergarabedian, who runs a company called Media by Numbers, which tallies box-office receipts.

Meanwhile, the LAT's story had quotes from Disney studio chairman, Dick Cook (better than the head of marketing and distribution); Sony Pictures studio chairman Amy Pascal; Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer; and anonymous Sony executives.

Then there's the NYT's Bill Carter. Recently, Carter—who's been on the beat since the dawn of time—has had a few slip-ups that make it look like he's phoning it in. Take the recent incident involving Chris Albrecht, the HBO chairman forced to resign after allegedly beating the crap out of his girlfriend in Las Vegas; the LAT's Claudia Eller was the first to report that Albrecht had been accused of assault in 1991.

Later, Eller reported that Time Warner president Jeff Bewkes authorized a $500,000 payment to the woman, a settlement that raised eyebrows on the occasion of the company's annual meeting—will Bewkes be passed over for the head honcho job when Dick Parsons resigns? The NYT had nothing on the story.

Carter has trouble with HBO stories, for one, and also in getting stories when there's any whiff of scandal to them. Carter is also notorious for not giving credit to writers from other publications who break stories; compare, for example, Carter's coverage and its lack of credit to that of his new co-worker Barnes, always quick to slip in an acknowledgment. (Of course, both the NYT and the LAT both sometimes fail to give credit where it's due—take the recent firing of NBC's Kevin Reilly, which Nikki Finke reported on Deadline Hollywood before either publication; neither gave her credit.)

So, pre-Brooks, L.A. is up in the struggle. But what will happen next? When asked to compare the two papers' TV coverage, one critic (from neither publication), called the LAT's coverage "kinda schizophrenic. Sometimes, it's as sharp and as insider-y as it should be. At other times—well, look at the lead of this story. Wouldn't it be more appropriate in the Kansas City Star?"

(Disclosure: Gawker's Managing Editor takes a small bit of money from the LA Times, via the Calendar section (and has previously taken money from the New York Times via the culture section). Defamer's Mark Lisanti was called in to review this item.)

This apparently put the TV beat fellas of the NYT in a world of pain. Sort of like that spaceship in "Event Horizon" where everyone has nails all up in their faces and stuff!

NYT.com was happy to run the credit-is-due-to-the-LAT wire stories until their folks could crap a story out. Then NYT biz TV writer Bill Carter came to the rescue, ready to give credit to.... "speculation."

Yesterday: "The board of NBC Universal has scheduled a meeting in New York tomorrow morning, fueling speculation that the long-awaited appointment of Jeff Zucker as the company's new chairman and chief executive...."

Today: Bill Carter's follow story to his follow story, as it arrived—with edits!—on RSS. "When Jeff Zucker is named As the new head of NBC Universal, he Jeff Zucker will have completed a spectacular ascent from part-time sports researcher need to corporate C.E.O. deal with rapid technological and financial changes that are throwing traditional media businesses into upheaval."

That's just how NYT biz section editor Larry Ingrassia rolls, West Coast bitches! It's Biggie and Tupac all over again.

[UPDATE: a thumbnail of the published photo of Chris Albrecht by Justin Lane was removed per Mr. Lane's request, because we're super-nice like that. We offered him twenty cents via Paypal, but I figure we can't afford him.]
He lit up HBO. Now he must run it. [NYT]