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journalismism
Now That's a Real Bestseller
Earlier, we snarked that being on the "extended" NYT bestseller list doesn't really count, re: David Carr and his August 24th showing on the extended list. But we've just learned that he made the August 31st "regular" bestselling list—at #12 for nonfiction.
Earlier, we snarked that being on the "extended" NYT bestseller list doesn't really count, re: David Carr and his August 24th showing on the extended list. But we've just learned that he made the August 31st "regular" bestselling list—at #12 for nonfiction.
books
David Carr's Shifty Definition of "Bestseller"
"The Instant New York Times Bestseller," trumpets the full-page ad for NYT reporter David Carr's memoir in the NYT today. We'll congratulate him for that, as we are fans of his brutally honest addiction memoir. However, it must be pointed out that Night of the Gun has only hit the expanded bestseller list, which is for the runners-up and isn't printed. (Update: that was the Aug. 24th Times bestseller list. We've just learned that Carr made the regular August 31st bestseller list, at #12 for nonfiction.)
dead trees
Edwards Scoop Won't Save National Enquirer
The National Enquirer is having an amazing week thanks to its coverage of John Edwards' philandering, but the supermarket tabloid is probably still going to die along with troubled parent company American Media Inc., the Times' David Carr reports for tomorrow's paper. It doesn't seem to matter that three of the best papers in the country all ran stories about how the Enquirer was right about Edwards and they were wrong or that the tabloid still owns the probably-not-finished scandal. AMI is so deep in the hole — nearly $1 billion! — that most analysts aren't even keeping track of the Edwards coverage or anything else about the company because they've written it off. One gave this fairly devastating quote to Carr, anonymously: More »
the night of the fun!
David Carr Invites You to Tour Beautiful Minneapolis
Heading to the Republican convention? You could do worse than follow the advice proffered in today's Times "36 Hours in" column on the Twin Cities, penned by Minneapolitan David Carr. It's full of good advice for restaurants, culture, and entertainment. And bars. There are really just a couple of our favorite places that he missed: you can get a good (for the midwest) pizza and a cheap pitcher of Summit at Pizza Luce on Lyndale Ave. If the lot's full, there's usually street parking readily available a block away on 32nd and Garfield. Just make sure to lock up! [NYT]
how things work
David Carr's Charming, Self-Promoting Spam
Everyone loves New York Times reporter David Carr, who's just published Night of the Gun, an excellent reported memoir about his years of crack addiction and bad behavior. That's why the self-promoting spam e-mail that he sent to everybody he knows this morning is so easy to swallow. Most authors self-promote while falling all over themselves, trying to apologize. Not David! "As you can see from the non-customized hello, I am spamming you out of self-interest." More »
media
James Brady Shocked To Find David Carr Was On Drugs
Hawk-faced elderly man James Brady, the name-dropping veteran of 600 media outlets who has now eased into his retirement job as Forbes' "media columnist" (ha), is primarily skilled at being befuddled about the point of things (though he hasn't lost his name-dropping talent). So faced with an early copy of former crackhead-turned Times columnist David Carr's (well-reviewed) new book—which is not, as Brady hoped, a volume of media name-dropping—Brady panics in print like the senile Uncle Junior in The Sopranos: shoot the bad man and run hide in the closet! More »
books
Timesman A "Creep" To Women In Memoir Cuts
Jennifer Senior's affectionate profile of former coworker David Carr examines what the Times media reporter left out of his tell-all memoir of crack addiction, drug dealing and physical abuse: Being a big jerk to many of the women he drew into his orbit. Carr's many female friends, Senior said, were shocked to read about him choking his girlfriend, and probably also would have had trouble imagining with some of what got cut: More »
books
Speak, Memory, Then Fact-Check
Leon Neyfakh at the Observer reports on David Carr's fastidiously investigated druggie memoir The Night of the Gun and thinks it's just the rehab an ailing genre needs: "After years of abuse, the memoir has found its white knight, galloping in to show how a personal story can be engrossing, shocking and true. Mr. Carr’s book...practically issues a challenge to those current reigning kings—David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Ishmael Beah—of the memoir genre: You get a video camera and tape recorder, and retrace the steps of your life. Will your story sound the same?" Carr even hired a reporter to help him reconstruct the evidence of his forgotten crackhead years, which raises an interesting question: Will he be credited for bringing journalistic rigor to the memoir, or will a superabundance of facts and sources — "No, this really happened, I have affidavits to prove it!" — baptize the next big thing in literary narcissism? More »
Stop the Insanity
Even serious, proven journalists like David Carr are reduced to defending themselves in the blog comments. [City Pages]
Even serious, proven journalists like David Carr are reduced to defending themselves in the blog comments. [City Pages]
feuds
Mid-Market Gossip Columnist Invents Media Feud From Thin Air
Minneapolis Star and Tribune "gossip" columnist (there is no gossip in Minneapolis) C.J. has a kind of hilarious "item" about how Times media columnist and addiction memoirist David Carr is now feuding with Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz. How does she manage this? She quotes a Kurtz column in which Kurtz sums up Carr's assesment of himself as a lousy junkie, then calls Carr to ask if he'll be on Kurtz's show. Carr, probably befuddled at receiving a call from C.J., says something kind of confusing about how they are not that close. Then, FishbowlNY picks it up? Best entirely nonsensical made-up feud ever! Team Junkie! [Strib]
It seemed like fun at first
David Carr Potato Metaphor Scandal!
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 use, an even bigger scandal threatens to overwhelm him: his incurable fondness for potatoes. More »
books
Doing Crack With David Carr
A memoir worth reading? Imagine that! New York Times media reporter David Carr's Night of the Gun comes out next month, and it's been treated to a nice nine-page excerpt in today's NYT Magazine. After detailing how he became a crack addict and how his dealer/girlfriend prematurely gave birth to his twin daughters (which you should totally read) he tackles the question of memoirs, which have been so sorely tarnished in the last few years. More »
books
Ex-Cokehead Times Reporter Shares His Rejection Letters
Here's New York Times culture reporter David Carr, pictured with his rehab group in 1988. (We told you about him earlier this morning.) His forthcoming book, The Night of the Gun, re-creates his crack-shooting past through interviewing people—he's admitted that memories, especially his, cannot always be relied on. Thus, we are treated to a history of mugshots, medical records, and awesome rejection letters from the New Yorker. "There I was, less than a year sober, pitching my tale of woe," Carr writes in the book about this 1989 pitch for his cocaine-addiction story. (We scanned it; click to see.) More »
books
Times Reporter: "I Was A Fat Thug Who Beat Up Women And Sold Bad Coke"
How does David Carr pull this off? The Times media critic writes in his forthcoming memoir of drug addiction that he kidnapped his children, smacked around his girlfriends and left two babies in a near-freezing car on the street for hours while he got high. This in addition to dealing drugs and fathering crack babies, which we already knew about. It's all in his book excerpt from next Sunday's Times Magazine. And yet, after reading the account, it's remarkably hard to detest the guy. More »
Public relations
Fox News Plays Nice With Times Reporters It Hasn't Yet Smeared
Is the Fox News PR machine trying to get back in the good graces of the New York Times—and slyly drive a wedge between reporters there at the same time? The network's famously vicious media relations operation was ravaged in a David Carr column in the Times on Monday. But now that they've let Bill O'Reilly take his obligatory on-air shot at the paper, the network seems to have decided to play nice with Times reporters—at least, with some of them. More »
evil corporations in action
Last week, Fox News aired nasty Photoshopped pictures of two Times journalists responsible for a story about Fox losing ground among younger viewers. But it sounds like the cable network may have done much worse to another Times reporter, Tim Arango, who wrote a similar article in March. In his column for tomorrow's paper, Times media columnist David Carr recounts tales of Fox's dirty-politics-style PR tactics against journalists from his paper, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and others. One story, in particular, stands out:
More »
Did Fox News Smear Timesman Tim Arango?
Last week, Fox News aired nasty Photoshopped pictures of two Times journalists responsible for a story about Fox losing ground among younger viewers. But it sounds like the cable network may have done much worse to another Times reporter, Tim Arango, who wrote a similar article in March. In his column for tomorrow's paper, Times media columnist David Carr recounts tales of Fox's dirty-politics-style PR tactics against journalists from his paper, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and others. One story, in particular, stands out:
More »
corrections
