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.

As soon as the New York Times broke the news of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's habit of patronizing high-end call girls on the afternoon of March 10, 2008, his communications director Christine Anderson pretty much knew she was out of a gig. But along with managing the media frenzy surrounding Spitzer, she also had a new boss, Gov. David Paterson, who almost immediately stirred up his own press storm by disclosing past affairs and drug use.

But before all that happened, Anderson was getting buried with requests for Spitzer. Among the first out of the gate was Matthew Zimmerman, Matt Lauer's booker at the Today show. He didn't land the exclusive Spitzer interview everyone was clamoring for—that went to CNN's Fareed Zakaria a year later—but in the course of pursuing the get, Zimmerman casually mentioned to Anderson that he'd be more than happy to help her find work at NBC News. He also turned up his nose at a shot at Paterson just hours before news broke of Paterson's past infidelities, at which point Zimmerman immediately did a 180 and begged for an interview with Paterson. Because governors are boring unless they're fucking people they shouldn't be fucking.

Read on to see how the exchange unfolded in e-mails, which we obtained by filing a public records for correspondence between the press and Spitzer's communications office during the crisis.

This is Zimmerman's first e-mail seeking the interview that every news producer wanted, just a few hours after the Spitzer story broke. It has the standard expression of sympathy common to television bookers ("I'm sorry to be reaching out to you in such circumstances") but reminds Anderson that he's not your run of the mill news lackey: "I am Matt Lauer's producer at NBC." Anderson politely brushed him off with a terse "will get back to you as soon as I can," which considering the circumstances could be a way of saying don't hold your breath.

Two days later, Zimmerman and Lauer decided to up their efforts and go the direct route. Lauer had written "a personal note" to Spitzer, and Zimmerman wanted to know if he should it "walk it over" to Anderson's office or leave it with his Spitzer's doorman. Anderson says, "Feel free."

Five days later, on March 17, Spitzer's resignation became effective and Paterson was elevated from lieutenant governor to become the first African American governor of New York. Zimmerman circled back to thank Anderson for "all her help" during the crisis of the previous week, and to let her know that he's thinking about her. Anderson wrote back to say she heard Today was interested in talking to the first African American governor of New York, and she seemed to be willing to entertain the idea. How about it? At this point, though, Paterson was, in national news terms, the previously unknown politician who had replaced the celebrity governor who had been accused of sleeping with a hooker. Zimmerman's response to the offer is underwhelming and puzzling: "Believe it or not, I think it might have been related to the weather for Gov. Paterson... I'll check with Missy Dunlop who would be handling that request." The weather?

We're not sure what Zimmerman's "weather" comment referred to, but it could have been to this request of March 15 from another producer for Paterson to appear on the weekend edition of Today to talk to Lester Holt about the crane collapse that had killed seven people in Manhattan that day. Weather, cranes—both involve things falling from the sky, right? In any event, Zimmerman didn't exactly jump at the chance to book Paterson for Lauer, and Dunlop's request was for Weekend Today, which has a different staff. The Spitzer story had sex, scandal—the things people want to see Matt Lauer talking about at 7 o'clock in the morning. Paterson was kind of boring.

And Today has shown that it can be picky about the governors it books. We know they spurned an interview with some another lame boring governor who would become newsworthy because of scandal just a few hours later. Back in December 2008, Today had booked Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on what turned out to be the morning of his arrest by FBI agents. But they bumped him at the last minute in order to make room for a segment flogging the announcement of Jay Leno's 10 p.m. show.

But back to the conversation Anderson and Zimmerman were having on March 17. Once Anderson told Zimmerman that she wouldn't be sticking around the governor's office, Zimmerman—who seemed to be aware that Anderson once worked as a producer for Good Morning America—thoughtfully offered to help her secure a new job: "If you ever want to get back into tv (and not ABC!) let me know and i can see about openings here."

Gosh, that was nice of him, wasn't it? Then, in the very next sentence after he offered to help her get a job, he got back to business, letting Anderson know that he'd been in touch with a flack at Sard Verbinnen & Co., the PR shop that Spitzer's law firm hired to handle media requests, and expressing doubt about his chances. But Anderson promised to keep Zimmerman "apraised" of Spitzer's thinking, and thanked him for the "kind offer."

Was it a generous and human thing to do for Zimmerman to offer to keep his ears open on the job front? Yes, it was. Was he also trying to get Anderson to help him secure access to Spitzer at the same time? Yes, he was. Both things are true, and the casualness with which he made the offer speaks volumes about the relationships between flacks and—oh, who are we kidding? It's Today.

Anderson's quip about how dealing with a hooker disclosure is nothing compared to working for Shelley Ross, the legendarily horrible producer who was her boss at GMA, gave them a chance to gossip together. Zimmerman joked about how awesome it must be for Spitzer that former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey's one-time aide recently claimed that he'd engaged in threeways with McGreevey and his wife. There would be more news to take the pressure off Spitzer in just a few hours....

...when the Daily News story detailing Paterson's past marital troubles hit the web that night. All of a sudden, Zimmerman was much more keen on having Matt Lauer talk to the first African American governor of New York on the Today show, because he had screwed state employees in the past. Anderson hadn't even seen the story yet, so Zimmerman sent it to her.

Anderson promptly forwarded it along to political consultants Ryan Toohey and Jeff Pollock to brainstorm how to spin it. Hilarity ensues: "Unreal." "Ideas?"

Neither Spitzer nor Paterson ended up appearing on Today during the height of the scandal, and Anderson wound up getting a job as vice president of communications at the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm. But eventually Today got their man: Spitzer sat down with Lauer this past April as part of his public image rehab campaign and told the nation that there were "no excuses" for his behavior.

Zimmerman didn't respond to requests for comment, and Anderson declined to comment.

On March 10, 2008, few people on the planet had more difficult jobs than Christine Anderson and Errol Cockfield. They were the communications director and press secretary, respectively, for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and at roughly 1:07 p.m. on that afternoon, the Times went live with a story documenting their boss' entanglement as "Client No. 9" in a federal investigation of a high-end prostitution ring. We were curious what the inside of a PR meltdown looks like, so—following in the footsteps of The State's investigation into the media's efforts to land an exclusive interview with Mark Sanford while he was hiking the Appalachian Trail—we used New York's open records law to obtain e-mail traffic between Anderson, Cockfield, and the dozens of reporters barraging them with inquiries in the days following the Spitzer revelations.

The e-mails total 1,300 pages, and we're still reading through the stack of paper. Any other interesting finds will be going up in subsequent posts. But what we've seen so far has been surprising: You'd think that, with blood in the water, the traditional coziness that develops between official flacks and the beat reporters who have to talk to them every day would break down into some kind of last-man-standing slugfest. But in the Spitzer case, the opposite happened. The revelations upended the worlds of both reporter and flack alike, and the uncertainty, long hours, and breakneck pace of the scandal actually seemed to throw them together as they worked toward what seems, if you read the e-mail exchanges, like a common goal of getting the news out and behind them.

Which makes sense on a human level. But sometimes good reporting—especially of the government watchdog variety—requires an inhuman suspension of compassion. The infractions documented in these e-mails are misdemeanors, but—in addition to being an unvarnished peek inside the media machinery—they're indicative of the creeping social and professional alliances that inevitably develop between PR handlers and their overworked, easily manipulated charges in the press corps. And they give the lie to the myth of the vigilant watchdog press that keeps the government on its toes. Next time you hear New York Times editor Bill Keller claim that newspapers are uniquely situated to do the "hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work [of] quality journalism," remember that his reporter broke the story of Spitzer's dalliances with prostitutes. But also remember the time his reporter e-mailed Gov. Paterson's flack to request permission to call Paterson's former mistress.

This first installment documents the shocking amount of control that Keller's Times allowed Anderson, a former Good Morning America producer and PR veteran of the Clinton White House, to exercise over his paper's coverage. After bringing Anderson's world down around her head by breaking the story, Times reporters previewed portions of their stories with her before publication, asked for her permission before contacting sources, and let her tell them how to characterize its reporting in the paper.

We'll begin at the beginning: On March 9, 2008, Anderson had not yet been informed of Spitzer's transgressions. Which makes this e-mail exchange with Times reporter Danny Hakim, who broke the story along with William K. Rashbaum, almost painfully poignant in retrospect.

Clueless, Anderson tried to sniff out what Hakim was up to, apparently to no avail (Spitzer himself broke the news to his staff early the next morning):

Hakim and Rashbaum's story went live the next day at roughly 2:08 p.m., using the Drudge Report Archives' timeline as a chronological guide. At 1:34 p.m., Hakim was still working his scoop, and e-mailed Anderson to make sure he had a detail right about how Spitzer broke the news to his staff. The subject line was, "can i do this?", and the message body appears to be the actual text Hakim planned to write—in other words, he appears to have been previewing his copy for the woman charged with managing Spitzer's image crisis, and seeking her signoff.

Anderson had a minor quibble with the facts—there was no single meeting at which Spitzer made the announcement—but she objected to the idea of repeating the phrase "ensnared in a prostitution ring," and asked Hakim to simply say Spitzer told his staff about "the matter."

The original Times story has been repeatedly updated, but the current version renders that detail thusly: "The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement."

Two days later, Spitzer announced his resignation, and the media scrum's attention turned to then-Lt. Gov. David Paterson. Paterson had his own press aides, but Anderson stayed on while Spitzer was still nominally in office and managed the coverage of the transition. On March 14, Times reporter Jeremy Peters was working on a profile of Paterson's chief of staff, Charles O'Byrne. He interviewed O'Byrne for the story, apparently working under an agreement that any quotes had to be cleared through Anderson.

Anderson replied that none of the quotes could be used, and recommended some of O'Byrne's friends for Peters to call for (presumably positive) quotes, a fairly routine practice.

Peters didn't push back. He simply asked Anderson how best to characterize O'Byrne's refusal to be quoted. "Say he declined to be interviewed?" asked Peters. Of course, O'Byrne didn't decline to be interviewed—he just declined to be quoted, a distinction that Anderson caught:

It's a bizarre world where flacks are more vigilant than reporters when it comes to trying not to mislead readers. The exchange continued, with Peters trying to gather competitive intelligence from Anderson and Anderson trying to make sure Peters spoke to the sources she wanted him to speak to.

Peters' O'Byrne profile eventually ran on March 20, including a proviso that "Mr. O'Byrne would not comment for this article" and several positive quotes from Ethan Geto and Eric Schneiderman, another source recommended by Anderson.

The PR disaster didn't end with Spitzer's resignation: Just days after Paterson ascended to the governor's office, the New York Daily News reported that both Paterson and his wife had engaged in multiple infidelities. The question of the hour on the afternoon of March 18 was the identity of the governor's office employee mentioned in the Daily News story as one of the new governor's ex-flames. Hakim knew who it was, but the Times would never stoop to delve into someone's private life so tastelessly. Unless the Daily News does it, in which case, yeah, maybe they would. So Hakim checked in with Anderson to find out if some filthy tabloid was getting ready to be first out the gate with Kirton's name, in which case he'd try to beat them.
Worried, Hakim sheepishly—"again, if others are calling her"—asks Anderson for permission to make the call.
Astonishingly, Anderson gives him the go-ahead, and provides him with her phone numbers.

Kirton's name came out a few hours later online. The Times never ended up mentioning her name, because only filthy tabloids do that.

For a sense of the differential treatment that flacks dole out to reporters, have a look at how Anderson responded to Daily News political correspondent Celeste Katz's request for confirmation about Kirton after the name came out—Anderson confirmed it off the record, but offered no contact info unbidden. Perhaps Katz should have asked for permission to call Kirton.

Newsday's Melissa Mansfield made the same request of Anderson's deputy Errol Cockfield, and got even colder treatment:

Mansfield didn't mind the brush-off, and responded with the same sort of sheepish, we-don't-do-gossip ass-covering that Hakim employed:

LOL, indeed. This is just from our first read of the batch of e-mails. There's much more to come. We contacted Hakim and Peters for their responses, but neither reporter agreed to comment for the record.

UPDATE: Diane McNulty, a New York Times spokeswoman, responded in an e-mail to Poynter's Jim Romenesko:

Any suggestion that the Times went too easy on the Spitzer administration seems a bit absurd in this context.

Our goal, always, is to get the facts right. Dealing with sources responsibly and professionally serves that goal, and that is what our reporters did in this case.

Kristin Davis was allegedly the second Spitzer prostitution connection after Ashley Dupre, but who really knows? The important thing is that she has an opinion on this "Spitzer comeback" business, and that she posted it on her blog last week:

There is far more to tell about Eliot Spitzer, the ladies and the way he treated them. There is also far more to tell about Spitzer's relationships with multiple New York Escort services including several of my competitors when I was in the business. I'm sure if he and I both ran these facts would come in during a spirited campaign...

Yes indeed, if Eliot spitzer throws his hat in the ring, I may just have to jump in the race myself. After all, how I could I do worse than the clowns we have in Albany now?

You should, scary lady! This prostitute-ring runner is in favor of legalized prostitution and legalized marijuana and says it's preposterous that she went to jail while Spitzer didn't. In other words, she's right about everything.

[Pic: AP]

This is what happens when you don't listen to us, Ashley. We told you not to play footsies with the New York Post. We told you to take the money and run! Or do whatever you like, as long as it does not involve speaking publicly, or singing. You disregarded us and wrote your fancy "blog" about ladies in NY hooking up with rich guys for the luv of money and how is that very much different from being a hooker? That's all the angle the Post needed to go stand on a random NYC street corner speaking to ladies for maybe 20 minutes and turning their idle comments into a citywide hate feud:

"I don't agree with what she said — I would totally never do anything like that," sniffed Justyna Cichon, 29, of Long Island City.

And on top of that the Real Housewives of New Jersey were asked to comment on you, of course, and Andrea Peyser was brought in to provide the sexxxy outrage. Tell us, Andrea—how do Ashley Dupre and Eliot Spitzer go together?

Like Eliot's pasty, white legs and those kinky, black knee socks he couldn't quite lose before doing the nasty.

Thanks, Andrea. So you see, Ashley: You need us. We can be there for you.
U no we just want 2 luv U, gurl.

What did we tell you about this, Ashley? If you had followed our advice you would have already built your trashy faux-media empire and stacked enough cash to drop out of the public eye forever by now, via porn. We told you specifically to give up the music. Your music sucks. But what do we see, today? You, writing on a blog, for free, playing right into the hands of the bloodsucking tabloids, and plugging another god damn song!

People think I made money off music that was exploited when the scandal first broke, that I am doing reality television, and that I made millions posing nude for magazines... I never sold any photos of myself - but people who I trusted did. And the "millions" for the nude pics? I was offered that, repeatedly – and turned them down because I didn't want to perpetuate the problem or feed into the stereotype.

We know, that's the problem! You could be rich by now! Look, Ashley, the fact is that you are right, morally. You are doing the right thing to retain your humanity. But then you let the devil, in the form of the New York Post, sneak in through the back door because you think it will help your music career, of all things. Not only did you start "speaking out" right on schedule for the tabloid, but they also ran your entire Global Grind blog post in the paper, and did a review of your new song. We're not saying you struck some sort of deal with them, but if you did, you got conned. The tabloids will cover whatever you do no matter what. Your reputation is not going to change substantially. And you will never get rich off music—because, as we mentioned, your music sucks (but not in a lucrative way).

So sell out like the evil world wants you to, or just fade into obscurity. One's good for your soul. The other's good for your wallet. Playing footsie with the Post will only lead you off the cliff. Trust us here. We are your friend.

Based on the fact that they want to! Yesterday the Post ran an "exclusive" cover story about Spitzer "eyeing a comeback." That's all it takes to reignite the entire news cycle! Today there's a follow-up cover story. And surely many more to come. So what was the breaking news that started the rehashing of this whole tabloid gold story once again? This, basically:

"He's weighing it," said one source.

Followed by denials! It doesn't matter. All that matters is that the Spitzer story is back now, which gives the media the chance to re-explore and update all the angles that have been sitting dormant for months. Today's angle for the Post: Ashley Dupre's mom doesn't think Spitzer should do the thing that the Post's anonymous source says maybe he is thinking about doing, although he says he is not! Which is also a good excuse for the paper to dig out those sexxxy bikini shots of Ashley and her surprisingly fit mother. Endless updates on Ashley Dupre's post-prostitution career, complete with more sexxxy photos, TK!

Need to bring back a story that's just too sweet to let go of? It's easy.

1. Dig up and/ or fabricate a single speculative new piece of information about the story's protagonist. Anything will do.
2. Pad this piece of information out with reaction quotes until it reaches full story length. Splash it across your cover. Be sure to choose a good photo! The story itself doesn't matter. All that matters is that people will see the new headline and be reminded of that sweet, sweet scandal.
3. Commence to re-interview all the tertiary players in the original story. Write new stories about their new reactions to the "new" information. This can also lead to feature pieces about "Where are they now?" Use lots of photos!
4. Continue as long as the public's interest holds out.

Eliot Spitzer can look forward to a lot more time spent shooting the shit with cameramen outside his apartment.

For those of you who don't know, Gravity Summit describes itself as a "bridge" between social networking media and business leaders. Basically, it smacks business leaders upside the head and tells them to use Facebook, Twitter and all those other sites to help make money. We're not sure what kind of money MC Hammer makes these days, but he has amassed more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter.

Perhaps it's because of his reality show, perhaps it's because of his camp value — regardless, people are getting regular updates about his happenings. And he knows what that means: there has to be a way "to sell those people something." Indeed.

That's why we've compiled a list of seven famous people from all walks who would be well-advised to get their tweets in gear to sell something, reclaim their formerly glorious profile or simply satisfy our selfish desires.

First up, Pete Rose. The former coach of the Cincinnati Reds was banned from baseball for betting on his own team. Pretty shitty. And against the rules. There were rumors recently that the ban, which prevents him from Hall of Fame entry, would be lifted, but those rumors were put to rest by baseball commissioner Bud Selig. If Rose were to get himself online and sell himself to the masses — maybe, just maybe he can get back into America's good graces.

Remember Michael Alig? Alig, the club kid who became infamous for killing his drug dealer and hacking him into tiny little bits, used to know about all the trends. (And, more importantly, be known all over town.) If he could somehow convince prison officials to grant him internet access, Alig could get a tidy online following ahead of his scheduled March 2010 release.

Oh, Burt Reynolds. He was hot, then not, then hot again and now, well, he's appearing in Not Another Not Another Movie. Sad. Now, Burt actually has a twitter page, but it hasn't been updated since November 25, 2008. For shame! One of the keys to Twitter is regularity. Considering the inactivity in your career, we're sure you have time. Go forth and tweet!

Okay, let us explain: most of the people on this list are infamous for one reason or another. Jo Beth Williams, the star of Poltergeist I, its sequel, The Big Chill and many other wonderful movies, is not necessarily infamous. Nor is she as famous as she should be: the most recent thing in which we saw her was an E! special on horrific Hollywood murders, on which she discussed poor Dominique Dunne (Dominick's daughter, who was strangled by an estranged boyfriend). Yes, there are other projects, but there should be more!

Rather than focusing on regularity, she should instead use Twitter to spread her political and/or cultural views. We suggest she start with a memory from her former soap, the soon-to-be-late Guiding Light. Time it with the news, Williams, grab a small headline or two, and then start letting your tweet flag fly.

Joan Collins remains a household name, yes, but so does Burt Reynolds. We guarantee that if Ms. Collins were to start tweeting about her private life, which we assume remains quite titillating, she would be all over the gossip rags, where she belongs. Plus, we're sure this woman can think of something to hock.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer pops up every once in a while to offer some thoughts on the current economic situation, but we know he loves the limelight. And Spitzer, who hired whores, as you know, would do well to get on Twitter and start offering pithy political opinions. If you do that, Spitzer, you'll be back on top in no time. Just stay away from Collins. She'll eat you alive.

Finally, Paul Reubens. The former "Pee Wee" has been working relatively steadily since getting out of prison and, in fact, has another Pee Wee movie set for a 2011 release. Regardless, "twitter" could be the magic word for him to claim a new fan base and ensure the world never forgets. Or, at least, remembers until the next person spouts out their 140 character musings.

Blodget, whose career as an analyst ended in 2003 with a $4 million SEC fine and a lifetime ban from the securities trade after then-Attorney General Spitzer publicized e-mails showing that he knew the stocks he was promoting for Merrill were worthless, asked Spitzer to sit down for an online Q-and-A to talk about Wall Street, redemption, and old times.

The two men got back on their feet by doing almost precisely the same thing: Writing for Slate and leveraging the honesty that only people who have nothing left to lose can afford.

It's a fascinating and good-natured conversation between two guys whose public humiliations have reduced their egos to manageable proportions (for now, at least). A smiling Spitzer tells Blodget: "It was never personal for me."

The video is chopped up into segments for Yahoo!'s TechTicker site. Start here.

Because we are on his delightful blast email list, we were alerted to today's StoneZone post wondering why Spitzer didn't face criminal prosecution for sleeping with prostitutes, with his socks on. Sure, most johns aren't prosecuted, but Spitzer violated the Mann Act!

What do Chuck Berry, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charlie Chaplin, and Eliot Spitzer have in common? Answer: All of these men violated the federal Mann Act, but only one - Eliot Spitzer - was not prosecuted.

The Mann Act prohibits taking women across state lines for immoral purposes. It was mostly written to prosecute black people who slept with white women.

And what do Berry, Wright, and Chaplin have in common? Unlike Eliot, they all violated the Mann Act more than fifty years ago, when the Mann Act was actually enforced.

But why bring this up now? Well, Vanity Fair is apparently on the case and Mr. Stone would presumably like to be a part of whatever that story ends up being.

Arianna Huffington crowed after the 2008 presidential election that her website is "more participatory" than publications that practice journalism "the old way." But she's a favor-trading traditionalist when it comes to distributing money: Even the best contributing bloggers are unpaid, while paying gigs tend to go to VIPs.

Some have earned their status. Others were born into it.

Which isn't to say the well born are necessarily unqualified for their jobs: HuffPo is notoriously hard to work for, with famously high turnover; couple this with the site's national expansion and it's easy to see why HuffPo is hungry for young talent. But aren't there, like, some laid off journalists out there, with actual experience?

Here are some of the well-connected VIP spawn Arianna's taken on:

Ethan Axelrod

Ethan Axelrod is the son of Barack Obama's longtime adviser David Axelrod. The 22-year-old has written and edited for his student newspaper at Colorado College, according to the Washington Post, and apparently has no other professional journalism experience. He will edit HuffPo's Denver edition.

Mediaite quotes insiders saying he's modest about his killer genes:

"He's a very nice, unassuming guy," one staffer told Mediaite. "He's smart, obviously – he comes from good stock."

Funny that the Post's Howard Kurtz didn't mention his newspaper's own family connection to the HuffPo (see next).

(Photo via Axelrod's Facebook profile)

Nicholas Graham

Nicholas Graham is part of the same Graham family that owns the Washington Post. Formerly an Associate News Editor at HuffPo, Graham appears to have recently become Associate Video Editor. One insider tells us his predecessor, Patrick Waldo, was well liked inside of the company but was recently pushed out. (Pic via NCAA YouTube)

Elyssa Spitzer

It's hard to begrudge Elyssa Spitzer her HuffPo internship for at least two reasons. One, as the daughter of disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, she's been through a lot of family trauma in the past year and a half. Two, we're not even sure if her internship is paid. (Pic via Cityfile)

Liz Hanks

In 2007 and 2008, Liz Hanks worked as Associate Living Editor at HuffPo. We've heard actor Tom Hanks' daughter had two other jobs, as a news and blog editor, and that Arianna Huffington eagerly publicized her name and presence after she joined the staff (to a degree some on staff found unseemly).

We imagine working in the living section was scary: It was home to a wide array of true believers from Arianna Huffington's culty religious group, the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness. Hanks' supervisor, Anya Strzemien, was, according to insiders, forced by Huffington to attend a seminar run by a group closely tied to MSIA.Despite the hubub around her, Hanks seems to have been generally well regarded within HuffPo for keeping a level head.

Matthew Palevsky

Matthew Palevsky is Arianna Huffington's godson. His father Max was a billionaire computer entrepreneur. Palevsky was in January appointed to oversee HuffPo's OffTheBus citizen journalism initiative. He hardly seemed qualified:

The effort was a crown jewel, breaking two major scoops during the 2008 presidential campaign. It was previously headed by big guns: a Howard Dean and John Kerry organizer who formed a Web volunteering institute at Harvard Law, and a Nation editor and longtime magazine writer who teaches journalism at USC. They were of no relation to Huffington; one was later hired by Pro Publica.

Katherine Zaleski

Katherine Zaleski's father is said to be close friends with Ken Lerer, Huffington Post's co-founder. Further, we're told she has her own apartment in the El Dorado luxury co-op at 300 Central Park West; her dad is said to live in a separate penthouse of his own and Lerer a few floors down.

For four years, Zaleski controlled the coveted front page of the Huffington Post — as much as anyone besides Arianna does — but later moved into a special projects role. She took over the New York section after Dan Collins abruptly quit (Huffington later claimed he was always supposed to leave the job just after launch, but that's not what she told us just before launch).

Gawker has learned that Vanity Fair's Craig Unger and John Connolly are currently looking into the prospect that the banking and financial interests that Spitzer took on during his tenures as attorney general and governor of New York tipped off the feds to Spitzer's proclivities and launched the investigation.

While we'd love to see Spitzer emerge tormenter-in-chief for Goldman Sachs, this is not good news for his ongoing rehabilitation. First off, it casts his burgeoning anti-Wall Street crusade in a different light. Is his anti-bailout populism a function of his experience as the Sheriff of Wall Street, or of his desire for revenge against that bastards that brought him low?

Second, it only reminds people that Spitzer is a hooker-banging ex-governor. And no matter how the investigation got started, Spitzer's culpability on that count isn't in doubt. But if it is true that representatives of the Wall Street interests Spitzer tangled with handed the case to the Department of Justice, then the case takes on quite a different hue: A prominent Democrat's political enemies handed damaging intelligence to a Department of Justice that happened to be serving under a Republican president during a presidential campaign, and the FBI turned it into a prosecution for a crime that federal law enforcement agencies usually don't get involved in.

So far, no one knows precisely how the FBI came across a little operation called The Emperor's Club VIP, which was supplying high-end prostitutes to Spitzer and other bigwigs from New York to D.C. to London and beyond. According to the criminal complaint [pdf] against the prostitution ring's proprietor—the complaint in which Spitzer famously made a cameo as "Client-9"—the case began in October 2007 as a joint investigation between the FBI and the IRS. But what, exactly, the FBI was doing looking into prostitution, a crime usually handled at the local level, isn't clear. And

The New York Times is also interested in how the Emperor's Club crossed the FBI's radar—the paper has filed a request in federal court to compel the Department of Justice to release its applications for wiretap warrants in the case, which have so far remained under seal. The application, and other sealed documents the Times has been trying to lay hands on, might shed light on how the investigation got started, and the Times has argued that it wants to see the documents because "because the public has a legitimate and understandable interest in reviewing and monitoring the decisions made by the Government in determining to pursue this case, which involved at least one high-level public figure, and then to not seek charges against any clients." A federal judge sided with the paper in February and the government appealed; the case went to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last month and a decision could come at any moment.

Spitzer's rehabilitation into public life has aligned cosmically with the economic collapse: He first dipped his toe into the waters with a Washington Post op-ed last November that leveraged his reputation as the deposed "Sheriff of Wall Street" to urge Obama to impose tough regulation over the banking sector, and he launched a column at Slate a month later. His first television interview after leaving office was cunningly—or perhaps just fortunately—scheduled for a week last March when the furor over bonuses to AIG executives was at its most intense.

Since then, Spitzer has worked himself into semi-regular rotation on MSNBC and the network morning news shows as a stern voice of populism when it comes to the bailout of the financial industry. His tarnished past has in some ways enhanced his credibility—he's a damaged man who has been through the crucible and who can, by virtue of his having lost everything, only now afford to speak the complete truth. And speak he has: Last week, his scathing indictment of Goldman Sachs and the New York Fed on MSNBC made the blog rounds, largely because he is the most prominent and knowledgeable public figure who has been willing so far to state the obvious fact that the AIG bailout was a "Ponzi scheme" and an "inside job" designed to benefit Goldman and other banks without forcing them to surrender equity stakes to the American taxpayer.

The positive reaction to Spitzer's eagerness to take on Goldman—whom he had previously prosecuted, along with a bevy of other investment banks, as attorney general—points to a way forward for him. He's got his villain. The emerging resentment of Goldman as the bete noir of the banking crisis has largely coalesced thus far around Matt Taibbi, the author of a Rolling Stone takedown of the firm that gained widespread attention but has been criticized for, among other things, trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. Taibbi is an entertaining writer and reporter, but he's just reporter. Spitzer's embrace of the anti-Goldman banner lends the cause a legitimacy that elevates it beyond conspiracy-mongering, and lends Spitzer something with which to identify himself beyond his love of hookers.

So what next? Spitzer should refashion himself as a shadow prosecutor, or shadow inspector general—he should be to Goldman Sachs what Ralph Nader was to General Motors. (Goldman isn't the only bank that profited wrongly from the AIG bailout, but it stands as a clear and handy surrogate for a vast and difficult-to-comprehend industry; Nader's auto-safety campaign focused on GM's Corvair, but all cars now have seatbelts.) The New York Post has reported that Spitzer is planning a run to retake his post as New York's attorney general, a fantastically stupid move that displays the same sort of hubris that it takes to engage the services of a high-end prostitution ring while you're a sitting governor.

We hope he's learned something from his trials and stays in the private sector—he should launch a nonprofit focused on monitoring the bailout along the lines of CREW or any of Nader's organizations and apply his prosecutorial gifts to civil litigation in the public interest, aimed at getting documentary evidence through the discovery process of how banks like Goldman gamed the system and harvested our money into profits. It'd be the best way he can do penance for his misdeeds and satisfy his own desire for glory and attention.

Yeah. When Spitzer wasn't shacking up with hookers, he played it pretty straight - or made a career of playing it straight - which is what got him in office, thus making it all the more heartbreaking when we found out he was just like the rest of us: a fuckup.

But appearing on MSNBC's Morning Meeting on Friday, a blogger points out Spitzer being back to his old rhetoric of taking Wall Street banks to task, in full force. Here's what he had to say about the Federal Reserve:

"...they gave tens of billions of dollars that went right through - conduit payments - to the investment banks that are now solvent. We [taxpayers] didn't get stock in those banks, they didn't ask what was going on - this begs and cries out for hard, tough examination. You look at the governing structure of the New York [Federal Reserve], it was run by the very banks that got the money. This is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job. It is outrageous, it is time for Congress to say enough of this. And to give them more power now is crazy. The Fed needs to be examined carefully."

The same blogger's quick to point out that the federal agents' very public busting of Spitzer wasn't a coincidence, and that the shaming of Spitzer was done very intently by the Bush administration:

...the principle of "prosecutorial discretion" is often used to keep the names of high-profile persons out of the media when they are tangentially linked to a criminal investigation. In the case of Spitzer, the Justice Department chose not to invoke prosecutorial discretion.

Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't, but Spitzer's legacy - both working for the government and talking in the private sector - is still a stark reminder, conspiracy theory or not, of all the bad shit Bush caused that we're not entirely aware of. And, of course, of a well-intentioned politico who got busted with a hooker. Steam on, brother.

Spitzer: Federal Reserve is ‘a Ponzi scheme, an inside job' [Raw Story]

Before we get into the reckless speculation, some background from the Rush and Malloy item detailing the tales of gubernatorial sex provided by a hooker named "Annie," who also serviced Eliot Spitzer back in the day. She says that the first time she met the mystery governor was on a date with a client named "Michael":

"We went to a restaurant where the governor was dining at another table with two or three other men. Michael said the governor was a client of his. He introduced me to him. I thought it was odd that he'd introduce someone he'd hired, but the governor was very gracious. It was a brief meeting. Later, Michael and I went to an apartment our agency kept. We had sex.

"A couple of days later, Michael booked another appointment. He was supposed to come to the same apartment. I buzzed him in. When I opened the door, it wasn't Michael. It was the governor. He was smiling. I knew what was happening. I was okay with it.

"He was a very standard client. He didn't take the full hour. There was no exchange of money. Michael handled the payment.

"I had two more dates with the governor. Never in public. Always for just an hour, around dinner time. He'd arrive at the apartment in a suit. I never had a problem with him, like I did with Spitzer. He was always nice. There wasn't a lot of conversation. It wasn't a girlfriend experience, but he was relaxed. He was very appreciative, like I was giving him a sort of affection he wasn't getting elsewhere. Later I found out he was married. His wife is quite prominent in her own right."

So, if the story told by Annie is true, there's another hooker-nailing governor running around out there. Even worse, he may have accepted sex with a prostitute as a gift from a lobbyist. Now, taking into consideration what we've learned from "Annie," that the mystery governor is a man who is married to a "prominent" woman, let's take a few educated guesses as to who this may be and assign some Vegas-style odds as we go.


Arnold Schwarzenegger (10-1) Knowing everything that we know, that Arnold's wife is indeed "prominent" and that he's a noted lover of ass, Arnold is an obvious front-runner in this contest. However, what he does have in potential hooker-nailing credentials he lacks in geographical proximity, otherwise he's probably be a 2-1 or 3-1 favorite, though Arnold has made trips to New York during his time as governor of California.


Ed Rendell (15-1) The thought of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell having sex is utterly horrifying, so he's one we'd rather not even think about. However, he's only a hour or so away from New York City by train and his wife, Marjorie Rendell, is a federal judge who sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, so he sort of makes sense.


Jim Gibbons (25-1) The Nevada governor's wife divorced the Republican after she busted him for carrying on with the wife of a Reno doctor, which she claims was only one of many affairs he had during their marriage. A few months after the divorce, Gibbons made news for stepping out with Playboy model Leslie Durant. So yeah, outside of the geographical proximity disadvantage thing, Gibbons is an obvious candidate. But with all of that said, aren't there hookers in Nevada he could have sex with, you know, legally?


Deval Patrick (50-1) The governor of Massachusetts, whose wife is a "prominent" attorney, appears to be quite spry for a 52 year-old man. And like Rendell, he's not that far away.


Tim Pawlenty (75-1) The Minnesota governor is considered by many to be a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, thus he merits consideration. Period.


Mark Sanford (100-1) Sanford, a former Wall Streeter with roots in New York, obviously loves to bone women not named Jenny Sanford, but he seems to be more of a lovey affair-haver. The fact that "Annie" said that this governor wasn't interested in talking or a "girlfriend experience" all but eliminates him. Sanford would definitely want to talk about his feelings. And cuddle.


Bobby Jindal (500-1) There's actually no way we could ever conceive of the Louisiana governor sexing with whores (We tend to think of him as an amoeba...he just splits in order to reproduce), but we had to throw him in here, just because.


Charlie Crist (1,000,000-1) There's just no way.


If there are any potential whore-mongering candidates we've missed that you feel strongly about, feel free to offer your own suggestions in the comments.

Eliot Spitzer Not My Only Governor Says Hooker Who Worked For Kristin Davis [Daily News]
pic via

He was 24 minutes late to the podium and then he rambled, just straight-up rambled, apologizing to literally everyone he's ever met, talking about dinosaur sheets and "Adventure Trips," becoming tearful, and wasting a full ten minutes of rambling before finally admitted to cheating on his wife. He cheated on his wife for a year with some friend from Argentina, and his wife has known for five months, and the affair just continued, while he worked on his marriage, and it was not until he disappeared on Fathers' Day (to spend "five days of my life crying") and the media caught wind that something might be up here that he decided it was time to apologize to his family and maybe stop the affair.

It was a bravura live political meltdown. Though it was dissimilar in tone, it was a cousin to Blago's classic presser. Not the first one, with the poetry, but the classic Friday afternoon performance about the children with cancer. Or maybe the one about cowboys? But while Blago filibusters and mugs and grins, Sanford just bared way, way too much of his soul.

It blew away Spitzer's one minute apology—He took questions! His wife was at home!—and Clinton's initial denial and eventual apology were, in comparison, boring.

It was Terrell Owens-esque, actually. Sure, he could've blamed outside forces, like when Mark Foley's attorney blamed booze and priests. But no. He had no excuses. That made any sense.

It was reminiscent, especially with the wife's glaring absence, of the pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani classic, "I am telling the press about my separation from my wife before I tell my wife."

Sanford didn't have a single sound bite as classic as Nixon's "last press conference" (well, maybe "the biggest self of self is indeed self"), but it will provide us with many days of joy, until Tim Pawlenty's "I am addicted to meth" conference next month.

Sanford's instant classic in full: