Was former Village Voice and New York Press editor David Blum—whose tour through New York's dying weeklies has, fairly or unfairly, been regarded as a kiss of death—behind the bright idea of firing 10 New York Observer staffers?
Crackhead-turned Times reporter success story David Carr is loved by media types for being a cool guy, and is basking in the generally positive public attitude towards his upcoming memoir. But everything is not well in Carr's world. Oh no. Just as Carr has found the strength to open up to the world about his past drug…
David Blum laments the internet and romanticizes Gay Talese in a story too long for anyone to read in this fast-paced modern world. [NY Press]
New York Press editor David Blum has some of the worst instincts we've seen when it comes to sex columnists. While at the Village Voice, he fired popular sex columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel. Then he hired two married women to replace her and they were sucktastic and they all got fired. When he got to the Press, Blum…
One day after her first column hit the streets, the New York Press has accepted the resignation of its sex columnist, after Jezebel pointed out similarities between Claudia Lonow's column and the work of Village Voice Media sex columnist Dan Savage. Lonow was "unaware that using questions from Savage's column was a…
Anal annal-er and New York Press sex columnist Kelly Kreth was fired Friday after just three months by editor David Blum, who hasn't been satisfied by any of the four three sex columnists he's fired in the last year. Neither Rachel Kramer-Bussel nor Kreth's Press-predecessor Stephanie Sellars did it for the ex-Voice…
Claire Danes "feels extremely violated" by this week's 4,000-word New York Press cover story, in which the actress is "stalked" by reporter Rebecca Tucker, according to her agents. So distressed was she, it was conveyed, that ICM chairman Jeff Berg, whose company represents her, called up the Press this afternoon to…
Left: Last week's New York Press cover story about how things are sorta sucky for Jerry Seinfeld. Right: this week's New York Observer cover (drawn by Drew Friedman) for a story about how things are sorta really sucky for Governor Elliot Spitzer. Two things: We had no idea that the stereotypical Hispanic immigrant's…
Howie Kurtz, Washington Post media critic and author of "Reality Shows: Inside the Last Great Television News War," tells blog BigHeadDC that he'd be glad to meet with New York Press editor David Blum over similarities between Kurtz's book and a 2005 afterword to Blum's 2004 book. (Both the Kurtz and Blum books…
We've been checking out Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz's new book, "Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War," an advance excerpt of which was posted Sunday with great hubbub on Drudge. That excerpt recounts a discussion between Dan Rather and '60 Minutes' executive producer Josh Howard…
The New York Press is carrying a breathless 3,000-word piece today alleging that Deborah Solomon, the awesomely tactless New York Times Magazine Q&A queen, redistributed and flat-out invented questions she hadn't actually asked in final versions of interviews that she conducted with "This American Life" host Ira…
From the mailbag: "Does anyone care that David Blum is going to be the new (managing?) editor at the New York Press?" Oh I'm sure someone does.
One of the final ties to the David Blum era at the Village Voice has finally been severed: We understand that the paper is dispensing with the services of Blum protégé Mara Altman, a young writer who has been regularly hated on in these parts. It's a bittersweet moment for us though. It's always sad to see someone…
Today's David Blum New York Sun ball of crazy—about how the internet has created an environment of permissibility for anonymity which has lead to an upsurge in literary fraud, or something—asks more questions than it answers. We decided to try to rectify the situation.
"The drunk driving arrest of Lindsay Lohan on Saturday reminds us yet again what lousy role models our culture offers its population of teenage girls. And that's just when that demographic group has proven itself more valuable than ever to the entertainment industry. Nearly every time Ms. Lohan appears on screen, it's…
Former Village Voice editor and J-school prof David Blum is confused about something. Why is Josh Ferris's Then We Came To The End not a New York Times bestseller, even though everyone—including Gawker!—thought it was "pretty good?" Blum puts on his reporter cap and discovers that sometimes even well-reviewed,…
Harvard alums Simon Rich, Bridie Clark and Keith Gessen sat down with the Crimson recently to talk about their lives as literary figures making a living in the harsh marketplace that is life after Harvard. As the interviewer puts it: "You all write in very different styles. Simon, you chose humor, Bridie, chick lit,…
David Blum once again demonstrates the rhetorical skill and journalistic integrity that marked his stewardship of the Village Voice with a review of Leslie Bennetts' new book, The Feminine Mistake, in the Sun. But wait! Is it a book review at all, really? It kind of reads more like a vitriolic ad hominem attack on…
So that recent Sun piece where former Voice editor David Blum tried to go all Arlene Croce on Joan Didion garnered what may very well be the saddest comment we've ever seen.
