The New York Times—a place full of people who pursued Journo Career Path #1—takes a look at the case of Amanda Lindhout, a wild and fancy-free young would-be journalist who saved up money from a waitressing job in Canada to fly off and report from Somalia, freelance. Hardcore! The she was kidnapped and held for ransom and "abused" for 15 months. Not so cool!

So the story is all, "on the one hand, [blah blah journalism training and preparation and a big news organization are all so important and you can't have amateurs running around, blah blah], and on the other hand, [obligatory nod to the pep of the young go-getters]." But all the wavering is unnecessary. To be a journalist, you don't need fancy training, or fancy technology, or a fancy news organization, or fancy "intelligence":

[Amanda Lindhout's] limited finances also restricted the number of armed guards she was able to hire. Journalists from large news organizations will hire up to 10 gunmen, a private army of sorts, at a total cost of $300 to $1,000 a day.

All you need to be a journalist are plenty of guns.
[Related. Pic via]

After former D&G flack Ali Wise got charged with four felonies yesterday for electronic eavesdropping and other fuckery, the New York Post asked itself: "Will her friends and colleagues stick by her crazy ass, now?" Which was itself a response to the question, "How can we keep this story going another day, in order to run another photo of Ali Wise in our newspaper?"

Anyhow the answer to the first question is "No," obviously. Nobody in their right mind would hire her for a similar PR position now, which is what everyone told the paper, duh. But the story was worthwhile for this paragraph alone:

Wise's spokesman disputed that she was unhireable, noting she "has been approached about many different opportunities and is currently serving as a consultant on several high-profile, philanthropic events in the media and entertainment industries."

MMM HMM. Haha. We hope so!
[Pic: Getty]

Jayson Blair is now a certified "life coach." Which one could argue is just as fake a career as his time in journalism was. Or maybe not! "Life coach" of the Blair variety sounds like it has elements of "substance abuse counselor" and "shrink," both of which are real careers—but when they roll up into "life coach," we start to doubt the expertise at work. Then we remember that this is Life Coach Jayson Blair. He tells the AP:

"People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense,'" says Blair, the ex-journalist best known for foisting plagiarism and fabrications into the pages of The New York Times. "Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'"

We were with him through the first part there, but when he got to the "It does make sense" part, we lost him. But we should not judge! He's been doing this for two years, and he now works for "one of the most respected mental health practices in northern Virginia." (Strangely, his long bio says nothing of his years at the New York Times). Oftentimes the most fucked up people do make the wisest counselors once they get cleaned up. Jayson Blair could certainly fall in that category. [Ever been life coached by him? Email us.]

Here's a little-known fact about Jayson Blair's post-NYT-meltdown career: After he wrote a (not well-reviewed) book, he was a bookseller! On Amazon! Jayson ran Azure Press Books, selling stuff from home. He was just another guy up in the Amazon Seller forums, discussing postal rates. He apparently let his bookselling domain name expire in September of 2007, just as his life coaching practice was really taking off.

So, Jayson Blair's career: The world's most famous sham journalist, author of a maybe-not-so-well-thought-out book, Amazon bookseller, and now life coach. We're not mad at ya, Jayson. Redemption is possible for anyone.

But not in journalism.
[Pic: Getty]

Sure, Laura Ling could have written her own book about her harrowing ordeal in a North Korean prison. But that would never make Oprah. Speakeasy reports:

Ms. Ling, together with her sister, Lisa Ling, a special correspondent for "The Oprah Winfrey Show," is offering a book that will examine the meaning of sisterhood and journalistic ideals. The issue of Laura Ling's captivity will be discussed, but in a larger context.

Fellow recently freed journo Euna Lee, who does not have a famous sister, can maybe write a book about dogs or something? People love dogs.

Steve McGookin was a journalist for 25 years—FT, Forbes, and many more. He's been laid off. He's going down to play in the subways. Fuck it:

June 8th is the one year anniversary of the day I quit my job, and 14th Street is the station I used to ride to every morning to go to work.

A hundred feet above my head, people will be going about their daily lives, but I'll be starting a new musical journey underground.

I'm planning to play on the platform for a while to get a sense of what the city's buskers face every day and be able to tell their stories a little better. Then, for the price of a Metrocard, I'll go wherever the music leads me; I'll talk to the musicians it leads me to and I'll introduce them to you.

I'll do the same thing at a different station around the MTA map, at different times of the day, for forty-eight days.

We, for one, will definitely break off some change for Steve. And for that jammin one-legged guitarist at Union Square! This may be the wave of the future! Contemplate this quote from David Carr:

I think one thing that people do not understand is, as recently as four or five years ago, to be a member of Manhattan media, you weren't rich, but you lived as a rich person might. You went to the parties that a rich person would go to, you ate the food that a rich person would eat, you drank the vodka that a rich person would drink, and you'd end up in black cars, and you'd end up sometimes on boats and in helicopters. We lived as kings, and it convinced us, I think, that there was a significant underlying value to what we did. And I think we're finding out now that the real, actual value of journalism in the current economy is not that high... I feel as if media has become a kind of reverse roach motel, in that once you're out, you're probably not coming back in.

Better to have never known the good times at all. Uh, right?

Or is he? She also mentions that the actor—who lost ground with fans because of a) getting older b) becoming crazy and c) lashing out against people who don't cotton to his wacky Scientology cult—may be on the delusional side when it comes to realizing his slipping position in the ol' Q score department.

A source close to Cruise acknowledged then that he was "teetering on the brink of a certain kind of trouble that no star like him has ever been in before." But this knowledgeable source said Cruise still hadn't gotten the word. "You've got to be very careful in conversations with him," he explained. "Tom is not ever going to face facts."

And the facts seem to be that no one is willing to pay him as much money as they used to. Though he still demands his elite "20 against 20" salary, no one will give him Mission: Impossible or Minority Report money anymore. Fox is reportedly considering him for Wichita, an action-comedy maybe costarring Cameron Diaz (so it must be good!), and payment negotiations are stalling.

The studio is apparently willing to promise Cruise $20 million but it wants him to hold off on his gross participation until its costs are recouped. So far, Cruise's representatives have responded that the star won't do that. And that's left some at Fox fuming that Cruise still hasn't gotten the memo.

This is all to say that Cruise's Please Still Love Me Tour, with its Tropic Thunder and Jimmy Kimmel appearances and soft-touch sit downs with Oprah to explain that wacky couch jumping, has been calculated since day one, even if Cruise himself doesn't really understand what's going on. And though Masters' equivocating gets a bit irksome—he's rehabbed! Or not. He's back on top! Or maybe not—she does have a point that maybe Cruise hasn't been such a disaster of late. Valkyrie, though panned by critics and easily mockable because of the crazy eye patch, did respectable business and really, even though he's a lunatic ringleader of a batshit cult, we still kinda like him in movies, don't we? I mean, I kinda do, at least.

This is really just bizarre, so we're gonna stick to the facts here: Victor Munoz is SPEAKING OUT about the month he spent guiding Octomom's, uh, media relations campaign, or something. He hooked her up with Dr. Phil and Radaroline and other bloodsucking media outlets, in return for undisclosed fees. But he had to take a step back from the Octomadness eventually; she simply wouldn't listen to this publicistrealtor's advice.

As for their split, Muñoz said Nadya, "Wasn't listening to me anymore and her and her attorney (Czech) thought they could do what I did. She second-guessed lots of opportunities I put in front of her.

"Nadya is her worst enemy. I'm not going to call her stupid but her father (Ed Doud) said she was a 33-year-old woman, book smart, with a 13-year-old mind," he said.

But hey the OctoMom thing actually landed him his current job as sales manager over at All American Real Estate Mortgage Co., so, silver lining. We swear this is all true. [Whittier Daily News]

The Media Group was the victim of layoffs last week. Bad economy and fewer ad pages mean bad times and fewer employees. Beckman's also been publisher, at various times, of Vogue, GQ, and Conde Nast Traveler. Now he's gone from those prestigious perches, hobnobbing with the classy types, to overseeing WWD and Footwear News. THAT SMARTS. [Or maybe there's a better explanation? Email us.]

Perhaps this was just a subtle way to urge Beckman to start taking the subway with the other money-saving Conde types. [Pic via]

We hear (unconfirmed rumors) that Widdicombe is out at Star, for unknown reasons. That would put him on the job scarcely six months. Even though he was far, far more qualified that Julia Allison to hold his job, it may be that Star itself just doesn't have enough clout to be a serious operator in the gossip world.

Ben said he was burned out when he left the Daily News, so, if this is true, maybe it's not all bad. Random fun photo below: Ben and a bunch of ladies presiding over the "STRATEGY ROOM".

UPDATE: Ben emails:

Hello gentlemen, yes I have left the Star and joined StyleList.com as a contributing editor. Society and celebrity is my beat but I'm trying to think of a title that sounds less ridiculous than "society and celebrity editor." And in February I'm starting a weekly online column for T, the Times style magazine. I was thinking of calling it "Gatekeeper," what do you think?

Retail workers refold shirts over and over, office workers clean their desks obsessively, and some just give up and spend their time goofing off online, which can look productive as long as the screen is not visible to the boss. And that's really the way to go. You can read blogs, keep us employed, and enjoy the bitter dwindling moments of the American empire. Trying hard—like this lawyer did—only leads to disappointment:

His time sheets increasingly read, “professional development.” Earnest, but nonbillable. He volunteered for the firm’s diversity recruiting program. Law firms have an ethical obligation to take on pro bono work, so he explored that, too.

“A lot of partners who were anti pro bono used to say, ‘If you do that, find another job!’ But they’re the ones who are sitting at their desks, twiddling their thumbs and doing pro bono to keep busy,” the lawyer said. He even read to a class once a week at a public elementary school in the city.

“I was busy not making money,” he said. “But because I was out there trying to do things for the firm that were valuable in a different way, I thought that might be enough.”

Three weeks ago he was laid off.

[NYT. Pic via]

The startup seeks a candidate who is an editor-in-chief at a top business magazine like Forbes, BusinessWeek, or Portfolio. All, mind you, based in New York. And yet he or she must live in San Francisco. Oh, and having worked at Yahoo, Google, or eBay is a "big plus." All of this to run a website targeted at "SMB" — advertiser jargon for "small and medium businesses." Most small-business publications fail to draw an audience, precisely because they think of their readers' businesses, contemptuously, as "small."

Too bad. In every other way, these guys are dreaming impossibly big. This job description is curiously similar to one posted in October with the same Gmail address as a contact. The main difference? The newer listing plays up the billionaire backers, and no longer mentions that it is "bankrolled by a respected 50+ year old offline company." A 50-year-old company? Sounds way too old media.

Here's the job listing:

Editor in Chief (San Francisco)

Date: 2008-11-18, 9:15AM PST

Calling all Business Editors

———————————————

Please read the following requirements before replying to this ad:

Looking for a super smart, and bursting with energy senior business editor to head up content for a super-stealth new online company backed and funded by some legendary billionaires. We aren’t raising money, we don’t need VCs, and we are hiring!

IDEAL CANDIDATE

EIC or very senior level editor at a top tier online business site/publication. (Think BusinessWeek, Forbes, Portfolio, etc.) Someone who can build and manage a team, and above all— someone who knows how to create a unique voice and product by combining original content, RSS and other 3rd party feeds, bloggers and user generated submissions into something smart and fast-paced and directed to the owners and managers of SMBs. (If you don’t understand that term, this is not for you.)

NOT INTERESTED IN

People who do not live in San Francisco, Regional newspaper reporters, tech writers, marketing specialists, freelancers who have never managed a team or worked each day in an office. This is nothing against you in any way, but all about the specific focus and needs of this role. We need someone who knows SMB/SME readers and can fashion an innovative new online property for them, and who can work in our downtown SF office building a team.

Sound like you? Good, please read the official description. We are hiring immediately.

To apply, just send your resume and salary requirements to mavensource@gmail.com.

Editor in Chief

Confidential, San Francisco, CA

Well funded early-stage startup is seeking an Editor in Chief to join its senior management team and help launch and grow an exciting new online network for business professionals. This new company, bankrolled by a respected 50+ year old offline company and some very famous board members, will leverage the assets of the parent company, while creating a ground-breaking new online service specifically for business leaders. This is a ground floor of an exciting concept and major new product launch.

The venture is seeking cutting edge start-up veterans to make the vision into a marketable and scalable product quickly and effectively. Team members chosen for this opportunity will be entrepreneurial in nature, visionary, well versed in online trends and technology, and ready to take a concept to product in record time using the many assets of the parent company for content and market advantage. Leadership experience at top online companies like Yahoo!, Google, eBay etc. will also be a big plus.

Editor in Chief

Description:

The Editor in Chief is responsible for managing development, production, voice, and presentation of all online editorial content. The Editor in Chief will create and execute a new vision for presenting relevant business information and advice to readers in a rapidly evolving online environment, making the site a trusted and valued source for the SME business community.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive content vision, voice, and style
• Develop and maintain the editorial calendar, working with contributors to maintain freshness of content aligned with long-term vision
• Recruit and manage a team of freelance writers, staff editors, and respected contributors
• Edit all submissions to meet publishing standards
• Generate original content
• Continuously work with production staff on presentation and quality control
• Ensure all responsible parties – design, freelance and others – meet necessary deadline requirements
• Pursue deeper understanding of the information needs of readers and tailor content to fit these needs and interests
• Pursue reader submissions, as appropriate, to complement internally-generated content
• Occasionally attend business networking events as editorial representative of the company

Education, Experience, and Skills Required:

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in journalism
• Strong background in business publishing and business-focused content highly preferred
• Experience managing a team of writers and freelancers in an online media environment
• 5-7 years relevant work experience, including writing for respected print and online publications, reviewing and editing the work of other writers, and managing an editorial staff and budget.
• Candidate must demonstrate a creative mindset, enthusiasm for online media, and an understanding of business leaders’ issues and information needs

Location: San Francisco
Compensation: DOE
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 924129721

He's a lover:

...and then to Paris, where the most famous woman in the world, Coco Chanel, developed a sort of crush on me—or perhaps on my beautiful, young American wife.

A persistent success:

I will now officially be "older than dirt," one of the oldest journalists still working a beat, interviewing movie stars for Parade magazine and its weekly audience of 70 million, and writing this media column each Thursday for Forbes.com, largest business news Web site anywhere.

An editing phenom:

Late in '64 I came home to succeed John Fairchild as publisher of WWD, a post I held for the next seven years, turning the little trade paper a Time magazine cover story had called, "plain as gingham and just as reliable," into a publishing phenomenon, a must-read for the rich and fashionable.

An author extraordinaire:

And I wrote a dozen more books, some serious work about Marines at war, including a memoir, The Coldest War, and a novel, The Marines of Autumn, which I can't read today without sobbing.

An active literary titan:

I'm finishing a serious non-fiction book for Steve Power of Wiley and will then embark on an amusing yarn for Tom Dunne at St. Martin's Press, When the Name-Dropping Was Fun.

And kind of a pompous bastard. [Forbes]

About this Job

This is a unique opportunity for an ambitious, multi-talented individual who wants to see the inside of a fast-moving startup and work closely with the founders. The ideal candidate is a future entrepreneur or executive who is willing to work hard and do a wide variety of non-glamorous tasks for a year or two in order to get their foot in the door, learn, and make connections. You will work directly with Twitter CEO Evan Williams and co-founder Biz Stone with the simple goal of saving them time. Which means: The level of work you'll do is only limited by your capabilities. Are you capable of: Designing a presentation? Researching a market? Creating a financial model? Great, as long as you're also willing to make copies and run errands. Essentially, you should be overqualified to be an assistant, but not have a problem doing assistant-like tasks. In exchange, you'll get unique visibility into a unique company, a great learning experience, and the chance to move on to do many other things (in Twitter, or elsewhere—with a strong endorsement).

Requirements

Excellent written communication skills
Strong computer skills (spreadsheets, word processing, presentations, email)
Highly organized and efficient
People person with tact and diplomatic instincts
Track record of trying things
Extreme trustworthiness
Strong interest in business and, particularly, technology startups
Broad knowledge of the Internet industry

(Photo by Jason Shellen)

I mean, he's still living pretty modestly. The first season of Mad Men, given that it's an AMC show, probably didn't pay much and his second season contract most likely didn't give him a huge raise. Last we checked, he was living in Los Feliz and driving a leased Audi. So he's not quite tooling around his own Clooney Manor on Lake Como yet. Nor is Mad Men an enormous success or the Hamm name a household one. Yet. Actually he sort of reminds us of those young lads from Good Will Hunting who stood, some 11 years ago, poised to conquer the world. One went one way, the other another. And that has made all the difference.

Mr. Hamm is, yes, about ten years older now than Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were when they broke out, but he's arguably at the same career crossroads. So now does he go the Affleck route and try to make his movie star name in cheesy blockbusters and just become a Big Famous Person? Or does he tread more stealthily, choosing diverse and difficult actor parts with fancy directors, like Damon did with The Talented Mr. Ripley and All The Pretty Horses. We know how all that turned out, so hopefully Hamm will take Damon route and do the art house pictures and become big ticket popcorn star.

Just like Mr. Clooney, really, who zipped his way through good schlock (the Ocean's movies) and bad schlock (Batman & Robin) before he could really exercise some muscle and get his own creative pet projects made. Clooney has, really, the perfect acting career—a mixture of dark, substantive work and fun lighter fare—and Damon looks to be following ably in his footsteps. We hope that Hamm can do the same. Right now he's got both an indie and a big blockbustery thing in the can, so... two roads diverge.

Developers/Senior Developers (Santa Monica)

Reply to: job-894125901@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-10-26, 10:07AM PDT

Do you know that you're amongst the very best, but can't find a company that appreciates you or gives you the opportunity you deserve?

Mahalo.com is a human-powered search engine. It is one of the hottest startups on the planet right now. We're well-funded by the same people that backed Google, Yahoo and YouTube (Sequoia), a well as Newscorp, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk (Paypal) and CBS. Our human-curated results are the very best starting page for any topic you can think of, blowing away machine-only search engines. And our growth curve has been phenomenal: this coming year ought to be downright amazing.

We're looking for top-notch Developers and Senior Developers to get us to the next level.

Skills we're looking for include the following (you should have a subset of these, all are not required):
* Python, PHP
* C/C++, Java
* MySQL
* Familiarity with MediaWiki
* memcache, squid
* Strong command of PHP5
* Familiar with general Internet technologies including HTML, XML, Javascript, HTTP, CSS, cookies, etc.
* Knowledge and experience in Apache, MySQL, Linux

Bonus:
* Hadoop / Hbase
* Lucene
* Nutch
* Spread

You are a HANDS ON implementor, a get-it-done kind of developer. The right person is a self starter with the "general get it factor". You work well with a team of like-minded engineers, and have a genuine desire for excellence.

We work with cutting-edge technologies. You will learn more here in a month than most companies will teach in a year.

Although we work hard, we offer a laid-back environment, competitive salary, benefits and stock options. This is a potentially life-changing opportunity — the kind that is usually only available in Silicon Valley, and is extremely rare in Southern California. If you're excellent, we invite you to come join us.

Please send a RESUME.

Location: Santa Monica
Compensation: Commensurate with experience + Options
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 894125901

If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your help. Please take a look and forward this job on to anyone you think would be interested in the position, or anyone else who could help me find a great candidate.

Thanks for your help!
-Frank

Company: the Rubicon Project

Job Title: Executive Assistant

Job Description: The Rubicon Project is looking for ambitious mavericks, entrepreneurial winners and A++ people. We are an online advertising technology company. In 2007, we pioneered the ad network optimization category with the goal of helping website publishers make more money from their unsold ad space.

In nine short months of offering our service we're now optimizing more than 11 billion ads each month for 1300+ customers (including some of the world's largest publishers) across 240 of the top ad networks, reaching more than 240+ million unique Internet users. We've been featured as an expert in our field by publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Fortune. And we've already been recognized with a number of awards, including: start-up winners of PricewaterhouseCoopers EntreTech, AlwaysOn OnMedia's Top 100 and Global 250, and as Favorite Show-off at LA's TwiistUp 3.

Our goal is to build a truly unique company. From the people we hire, our company culture, products we build, to how we reward our employees, we aim to make the Rubicon Project a place people are excited to come to everyday.

Because we work hard and always strive for perfection as a team, we also play hard as a team. Our environment is passionate, fast-paced, team oriented, creative and interactive. We go above and beyond to create a strong culture. In addition to standard benefits like health, dental, vision insurance, and 401K plans we also throw in perks like generous stock option packages, free gym memberships, catered lunch and dinner, a stocked kitchen with healthy snacks, dry cleaning, car washes, and even company happy hours, to name a few.

In addition to giving back to employees, we also feel it's crucial to give back to the community. Every quarter we have "community service day" and a portion of our profits are ear-marked to be donated to charities selected by the company.

We are in search of a sharp, self-motivated, detail oriented, organized and creative individual to assist our CEO. This is not your average executive assistant job. In addition to standard scheduling and coordinating, you will also be called on to work on special projects to propel the company forward. Every day will be a different day and you will be pushed to your maximum potential, guaranteed.

Responsibilities and Requirements:

• Great attitude!
• Extremely responsible, trustworthy, caring and fun!
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong organizational skills are a must
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Ability to take initiative and work quickly and independently
• Ability to manage multiple tasks
• Flexibility and willingness to adapt to changing priorities and accomplish projects in efficient and timely manner
• Must have reliable transportation to run errands
• Precise calendar coordination (Outlook)
• Presentation preparation
• Generating accurate expense reports
• Travel coordination
• Meeting arrangements and coordination - planning, set up, presentation preparation and minute taking, distribution and follow up
• Conference call arrangements
• Wide range of administrative duties as needed

We are looking for an extraordinary executive assistant who thinks on their feet and can work with minimal supervision, this is a one of a kind opportunity.

To get to know the guy you'd be working with a little better check out this video that our CEO, Frank Addante did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ola3ribSKKM

Paul Cloutier, the company's former CEO, has also left the company. Minor is famously erratic and distracted by his art collection and real-estate holdings. And 8020's current CEO, ex-Condé Nast executive Mitch Fox, commutes to the job from Long Island, despite telling the New York Post in March he'd be relocating immediately. For anyone brave enough to walk into the middle of this, here's Dutta's note about the jobs:

I'm the creative director of 8020 Media now, a mag/web media company backed by Halsey Minor. Mitch Fox is the CEO. We're potentially going to launch a fashion title, so we're looking for an art director to help create the visual identity AND a fashion editor (in-chief) to shape the direction of the magazine. The magazine is not high-end established fashion but independent and emerging fashion. Catch: they have to be SF/Bay Area based.

(Photo by Todd Lappin)