After the initial pleasantries were exchanged (Julia: "I thought I was off your radar. It was quite peaceful." Sheila: "It was peaceful for me, too."), Julia denied that Bravo, the network said to be producing a reality show starring the Nonsociety girls, was financing the space. But were they looking for a space that is... filmable, let's say?

"Let's put it this way," Julia said. " We need office space that is ... unique. Cameras are a part of our everyday lives, and we anticipate significant filming. I will also be living in the space. Mary may be. Meghan owns a place already so she'll simply be working there."

But what about the money? "If you look at it logically, most businesses pay about 5-6k for office space for 5-6 people, which is what we have. Add that to what I already pay for my rent ($2,500/month — Ed) and you have a financially sound decision."

So, is Nonsociety—meaning the website's investors—footing half the bill? "Yeah, but it's money we've made, not investors." But how does the website even generate revenue? It's sort of impossible. We'd go so far as to say there is no revenue yet.

Well, whatever—genius! They are about to score a sweet live-work pad (tax write-off!) and we're not. Fine, JA—you win this round.

"You're going to request meeting with Charlie on three separate occasions in his hometown of Los Angeles. First, a standard in-person interview of a couple hours or so. Second, you'll be a fly on the wall as Charlie conducts some business related to the film’s release. If there’s any postproduction left, that would be ideal—would love to see him in the editing room, for instance. Maybe even riding along with Kaufman as he heads to the grocery store. Then you do a follow-up interview—by phone if necessary. I'm confident once you meet him and form a rapport, you will come back with plenty of material and we'll strategize from there."

Well, the grocery store part sounds fun! You know there are a bunch of journalism professors out there making their students read this right now.

[The Process]

For this week's examination of the ideal surgically-enhanced face, New York's Jonathan Van Meter spoke with the publisher of a fashion magazine. 'When I told her I was working on a piece about plastic surgery, she leaned in and whispered, “You must talk to David Rosenberg.” Then my friend, who will turn 60 next spring, confessed that she had just plunked down a $4,000 deposit and will be going under Rosenberg’s knife for a face-lift later this year. All told, it will cost her $30,000, including recovery in a fancy hotel and a private nurse attending to her every need.'

The source's name wasn't explicitly revealed in the piece, but there simply aren't that many fashion magazines; there are fewer female publishers; and a basic Nexis search shows that Elle's Carol Smith (pictured here next to New York's plastic-surgery cover) turns 60 in May 2009. In case there was any doubt, Van Meter's "friend" was once his colleague at Vibe magazine, where he was editor and she was publisher in the early 1990s. It didn't take long for Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici to make the connection, and extract an embarrassing admission from the Elle publisher that she was the one with the birthday plastic-surgery plans.

According to Bercovici, Van Meter declined to confirm whether Smith was the publisher in question. Given the obvious clues he so carelessly left, his belated discretion is redundant.

He goes on to say, "I'd apologize for that, except there is an easy way to solve — don't hit 'send.'"

So he spams us, shamelessly. Used to being spun, we're dazzled by the lack of pretense. Apologies are insincere—as everyone already knows, addicts are experts at talking their way out of their sins. So, damn it: we'll bookmark Night of the Gun.

From: david carr
Sent: Tue 8/5/2008 12:41 AM
To: david carr
Subject: putting a bookmark in Night of the Gun

greetings,

david carr here. as you can see from the non-customized hello, I am spamming you out of self-interest. I'd apologize for that, except there is an easy way to solve — don't hit 'send.'

My new book from Simon and Schuster — : "The Night of the Gun: A reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. His Own"— goes on sale
today. I tried to take the trope of the addiction memoir and add value by interviewing people from my past, pulling documents and doing legwork. It was an exercise in fact-checking my memory that stumbles across some significant surprises.

Of course, I'd love you to buy it. From what I have read, "no memoirist who has more skillfully used journalistic tools to reconstruct his own life"
and the effort resulted in " a remarkable narrative of redemption as manipulative as it is
compelling."The book, which took a couple of years to report and write, had been called "a great read," "an arresting tale of pleasure paid for with pain, rendered in "sharp and sometimes poetic
prose."

In a nice bit, someone said the " book practically interrogates itself, questioning its own right to exist" (Many
people have also pointed out that the guy who wrote it seems to be a jerk, but
why put such a fine point on it?)

So, if you are so inclined, please buy today to give the book a nice little push out the door. (A few caveats: Even though the story ends in a hug, it's not the kind of book you would want a teenager to read. Or someone in your life — maybe you — who is brand new to sobriety.)

I'm proud of the book, if not always the story it tells. Please buy and read, and let me know what you think. (*And please forward this message to folks you know who you think would be interested. A little viral love can push a book into just the right hands.)*

*The metadata:*

Buying it offline at Barnes and Noble and Borders, both of which have given it major space and love, is a great way to go. And of course, you neighborhood indie will have in stock and deserves your business.

You can easily buy online at Amazon—which made it one of its seven featured books for August — or Powell's.

I am incredibly proud of the website we have put together for the book. It has archive interviews, documents, pictures and produced video segments. It's a quirky wonder, if you ask me.

And of course, there is the inevitable Facebook page. Join in the frolic. if you wish.

Regardless, please know that I am grateful to everyone who helped this book find light, including those of you who made it this far.

all best personal and professional regards,

david

"I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don't know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i'm assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it's only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't have happened.

"...This is someone thinking, 'I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and I know best.'Well, you fucking don't. This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons..."

The precious copy change that offended him so mightily?

"I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."

became:

"I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."

(Coren's lengthy explanation of how wrong this is can be found here.)

Let's "examine" the fine print. Looks like someone else thinks it'd be novel to pay by the pageview, too! (But at least you'll have the chance to become a blogging STAR.)

No Hollywood agent would ever approve this deal, believe me.

From: Julia Allison <julia@juliaallison.com>
Date: October 26, 2006 9:16:58 PM EDT
To: Nick Denton <nick@gawker.com>
Subject: Halloween Party

Am bringing Brooke Parkhurst, of Belle and the Big Apple blog fame.
Acceptable?

Also, am bringing 200 condoms.

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From: Nick Denton <nick.denton@gmail.com>
Date: October 29, 2006 6:53:12 PM EST
To: julia@juliaallison.com
Subject: last night

You were much admired, by a friend of mine.

Nick

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From: Julia Allison <julia@juliaallison.com>
Date: October 29, 2006 8:30:45 PM EST
To: Nick Denton <nick.denton@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: last night

Oh really? Do tell.

Attached is a photo I'm sure you'll want to frame. ;) Along with a few I'm
sure you won't.

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From: "Nikola Tamindzic" <nikola@ambrel.net>
Date: October 30, 2006 12:41:31 PM EST
To: "Chris Mohney" <cmohney@gawker.com>, "Lockhart Steele" <lock@gawker.com>, Nick Denton" <nick@gawker.com>
Subject: Saturday Halloween photos

Here are the three batches of photos — post as you like, I sorted them by party, and I'd suggest three posts out of this, milking the bitch dry, Gawker-style.

www.ambrel.net/temp/halloween-robotrock.zip — Robot Rock party at Movida. No particularly interesting names, other than #08, of Merlin Bronques / Lastnightsparty.com, me, and Nicky Digital / Radar / Nickydigital.com. My gallery is at www.ambrel.net/2006/1028-movida

www.ambrel/temp/halloween-ratedx.zip — the usual insanity at Rated X, The Panty Party. Hosted by Michael T and Theo (ex-Lunachicks) — they're in #10 with some zombie dude, and Theo is with Tricia Romano (as Madonna) in #09. Some NSFW stuff. My gallery is at www.ambrel.net/2006/1028-ratedx

www.ambrel.net/temp/halloween-nick.zip — and finally arriving at Nick's around 4am, to find only the most hardcore people remaining, and Julia Allison all condom'd out. My gallery is at www.ambrel.net/2006/1028-nickdenton

Have fun — I'll see you guys tomorrow at the shoot, n.

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From: "Ricky Van Veen" <ricky@connectedventures.com>
Date: October 30, 2006 10:21:07 PM EST
To: "Nick Denton" <nick@gawker.com>
Subject: julia allison

I’m getting a lot of people asking me about her today (obv from her pic at your party).

Do you know her?

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Team Party Crash: Pre-Halloween Weekend Triple Play

4:10 PM on Mon Oct 30 2006
By Chris Mohney


Dating columnist Julia Allison, wearing condom armor to Nick Denton's party, proves that there is life after commenter execution.

This past Saturday night, Gawker lensman Nikola Tamindzic worked like a slug in a salt mine to gather the best in Halloween party zoological photography. Thus, we have three different galleries of hipster degradation to thrill your loins. First, there's the Robot Rock party at Movida to get you in the mood with generic costumery and tomfoolery (Nikola's full gallery here). Then, fully aroused, it's time for the Rated X Panty Party, which sports a few most definitely NSFW shots (full gallery here). Lastly, our very own Nick Denton throws a shindig for the few and fortunate, and don't you wish you got to lounge around on those famous couches (full gallery here). If you like, you can review all three galleries' worth of photos simultaneously for maximum 'weenage. More to come of course, but this should keep you in ass cheeks and garter belts till Tuesday.

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Harold Ford's Ex Finds Fame on the Web

by Jeff Bercovici, Radar

Republican smear ads notwithstanding, most Americans born since World War II would agree that black Democrat Harold Ford didn't do anything shameful when he dated a white woman.

Where Ford, who is running for Senate in Tennessee, did go wrong was in his choice of white women to date: He picked a blogger. Worse, he picked a blogger who writes a first-person sex-and-dating column for AM New York, in which she discusses such matters as her desire to have a threesome. Worst of all, he picked a blogger who loves publicity and is given to posting scantily-clad photos of herself on her site.

Her name is Julia Allison.

Ford's relationship with Allison first became news in 2003, when it was reported in the Washington Post's Reliable Source column that he was dating the then 21-year-old Georgetown student. (In that article, she was identified as Julia Baugher; she later adopted Allison as her professional name.)

It made headlines again two weeks ago, when the National Republican Senatorial Campaign issued a press release about "Ford's Fancy Fling." Allison responded with a post on her blog, filled with photos of her and Ford on a ski vacation. The post caught the attention of conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. On Monday, Limbaugh read from Allison's blog on the air, citing it as evidence that a controversial Republican National Committee ad implying Ford likes Caucasian women was based on fact, not innuendo.

For her part, Allison—who also wrote about Ford, without naming him, in the July issue of Cosmopolitan—says she considers the attacks absurd. "My whole point is that he didn't do anything wrong," she tells Radar. "I really didn't think it was relevant, and it shouldn't affect anything."

But while Ford would no doubt rather his ex disappear for a while than defend him, that's not looking likely. "I was sort of annoyed that the New York Times didn't interview me," she says. "I'm the only person who has been publicly linked to him, ever. I'm sort of surprised no news producers have called me yet."

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From: Nick Denton <nick.denton@gmail.com>
Date: November 1, 2006 11:46:21 AM EST
To: Chris Mohney <cmohney@gawker.com>
Subject: Re: I'm really pissed we didn't have this, or even mention it for the party crash report

oh, come on — Balk knew the backstory. And the backstory required no reporting. Wasn't like a party reporter was going to ask Julia Allison about her dating history.

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Field Guide: Julia Allison

by Chris Mohney

"I was sort of annoyed that the New York Times didn't interview me ... I'm sort of surprised no news producers have called me yet."

That's amNew York sex columnist (or "effing sex columnist" as one source describes her) Julia Allison in Radar, lamenting the insufficient media attention she's received lately. Specifically, Allison figured she'd get more ink from her 2003 relationship with one Harold E. Ford, who happens to be running for a Senate seat in Tennessee. Their thang came back to the surface as part of a Republican smear versus Ford regarding his past attendance at "Playboy parties" and supposed penchant for white chicks (Ford is black). Rather than go for potential Mandingo-mongering, the Republicans actually used a hilariously tawdry TV commercial bit with a sexed-up (white) woman imploring Ford to call her. So anyway — as that imbroglio fades back into the pre-election churn, let's turn our attention back to Julia. For someone who's merely a columnist at a free paper, many New York media types know her — and have a few things to say about her.

When we ran a party photo of Allison earlier in the week, we immediately received the following in the tipline:

"Ew, please, do not give that attention-seeking girl any more of the coverage she so desperately seeks. We (Georgetown journalism students) were thrilled when she was suspended from the Hoya and given an F in our journalism course for plagiarizing one of her columns. Haaaate that she's screwed her way up here as well."

A (further) trip down memory lane is in order. Julia Allison used to be Julia Baugher, a sex-dating-relationship columnist for the Georgetown paper Hoya. Way back in December 2002, she wrote a listicle detailing holiday gifts for your lovah, and what those gifts secretly mean. Unfortunately, it appeared that most of the gift ideas (and some of the prose) had been cribbed from iVillage, of all places. Despite complaints about this, Baugher wasn't kicked off the paper; she recalls the paper's internal review as concluding that "I did not plagiarize in any way." The haters were just trying to advance a "personal agenda" of some kind.

Baugher soldiered on, and it was in April 2003 that Lloyd Grove (then still at the Washington Post) wrote her up as sharing a table with Harold Ford. Mini-media celebrity began to accumulate almost immediately, with sex- or politics-commentary (or both) in various national outlets. In July 2003, Baugher (according to Post reporter Frank Ahrens) attempted to get out of paying for grapefruit at a hotel by throwing the Post's name around, claiming she worked for them. Confronted, Baugher said she was actually (and inscrutably) name-dropping the Hoya. In reality, Baugher had some early discussion about contributing to the Post's free Express tabloid, but nothing was set up yet. Regardless, after a few more laps around the media appearance track, Baugher quit the Hoya as of January 2004, supposedly because her sex column (in a Jesuit university's paper) couldn't be graphic enough to suit her tastes. Not long after, Julia Baugher became Julia Allison, decamped to New York, and began writing another sex column for another free paper.

And she's been riding the grapefruit train ever since. (Though it hasn't helped her get recognized by event photographer Patrick McMullan, who couldn't ID her for the pic at right.) In New York, Allison has a whole ecosystem of media industry horny toads to romp among, as opposed to those charming but rather conflicted political types. Eligible men are her favorite playtoy — and eligibility is very generously interpreted. Her habit of purring and flirting with taken or married men frequently brings the claws out from those menfolk's significant others. For a time, she even enjoyed a public companionship and rumored private dalliance with none other than Lloyd Grove. If you happen to be one of the few people who doesn't know about her affair with Harold Ford, she'll certainly fill you in — all the while wondering aloud if she really should go on Fox News again. And don't even get her started about when she dumped a guy in a Jamba Juice, after supposedly stealing him from away from his wife.

Allison's easy to spot at most any media party of consequence — she's everywhere, it seems — and she's famous for laying it on thicker than a toddler spreading peanut butter. She's so excited to see everyone she meets, she just loves you, you're so great, she really wants to be best friends, and so forth. All this is delivered along with self-deprecating complaints about her own bad habit of relentless self-promotion, but no matter how unsubtle the hint, she's not getting the message that she herself is sending. Who knows, perhaps dialing it down a bit might make that longed-for threesome happen sooner, or make that Silver Bullet finally obsolete.

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Comment by Nick Denton at 07:05 PM on 11/01/06

Um, what's the point here? Okay, okay, so Julia Allison seeks attention. She's a sex columnist, for god's sake; she's supposed to promote herself. And JA doesn't just seek out attention; she gets it. Mainly because, surprisigly rare for a sex columnist, she's extremely attractive.

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From: "Alex Balk" <alex@gawker.com>
Date: November 1, 2006 9:32:48 PM EST
To: "Nick Denton" <nick@gawker.com>
Subject: Julia Allison

That was an incredibly douchey comment to leave, considering you essentially dictated the item. Chris can pretty much defend himself, so I'm not writing this for him, but if you're going to demand coverage of something you need to fucking talk to us before you ream someone out in the comments for essentially doing what you asked. Congratulations, Nick, you've finally managed to piss me off.

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From: Nick Denton <nick.denton@gmail.com>
Date: November 2, 2006 3:57:55 PM EST
To: "Alex Balk" <alex@gawker.com>
Subject: Re: Julia Allison

Didn't want you to think I was avoiding your email. If you think that comment was a ream, you're more sensitive than I thought. I held myself back. Yes, I thought that Julia Allison warranted an item, and I was dismayed that we hadn't drawn that Harold Ford connection. I also thought that the field guide was, as all too often in articles on Gawker, lacking in generosity.

Random IM, from five minutes ago...

ps—dont even get me started on julia allison gawker post
mean and undeserved, really, even though she is crazy and it was mostly true
are they just going to pick random people and rip on them?

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From: "Alex Balk" <alex@gawker.com>
Date: November 2, 2006 4:03:35 PM EST
To: "Nick Denton" <nick.denton@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Julia Allison

That's fine, and I probably overreacted a bit in the e-mail in the first place. I just feel like we're working extra hard and rarely, if ever, refuse to cover specific items, and I'd prefer to be addressed directly about it rather than through the comments. But, you know, Chris' item anyway. Thanks for responding.

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From: Julia Allison <julia@juliaallison.com>
Date: November 3, 2006 2:26:03 PM EST
To: Lockhart Steele <Lock@gawker.com>, Nick Denton <nick@gawker.com>
Subject: Alternatively ...

I was thinking of posting this photo on my blog with the subtitle “Gawker, Kiss My Ass!”

But then they’d never be friends with me.

xx

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From: Nick Denton <nick.denton@gmail.com>
Date: November 3, 2006 3:29:37 PM EST
To: Julia Allison <julia@juliaallison.com>
Cc: Lockhart Steele <Lock@gawker.com>, Nick Denton <nick@gawker.com>
Subject: Re: Alternatively ...

Oh, but you should! Is that outside our offices?

Last year, you'll recall, it was Lynn Dolnick's son Ben who was the recipient of a helpful Times notice — one he wrote himself, in the form of an op-ed piece. The scandal made Gawker, and was then picked up in Page Six, but the Times shrugged off the incident, setting aside its normally delicate ethical sensitivities.

How could there be a conflict of interest, the Times asked the Post, if "members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family have no more or no less opportunity to appear in the pages of the Times" than anyone else? In other words, Times editors are such ethical superheroes that there doesn't need to be so much as a disclosure when they handle a book from a member of the clan that writes their paychecks.

Later, Ben Dolnick's agent was quoted in a friendly Washington Post feature saying that it was not a challenge or big deal to get his op-ed published, as though that wasn't precisely the point.

In either Ben or Edward Dolnick's case, disclosure would at least have let readers discount the paper's praise as they saw fit. Such was the case when Times vice president Alyse Myers received both a glowing review and room for her own magazine essay this past May in connection with the publication of her book about her mean mom — and even with the disclosure, we heard, Times staffers were still in an uproar.

Readers aren't the only ones with reason to feel cheated by the way the Times has handled Ed Dolnick's latest book. A tipster — who from the sounds of things has a dog in this fight — puts forward the name of a competing author as another aggrieved party:

...a serious, competing book [is] coming out in four weeks from
Harcourt. "The Man Who Made Vermeers" by Jonathan Lopez is based on
years of archival research conducted in Dutch and English, as well as
interviews with descendants of Van Meegeren's accomplices. (Dolnick
neither speaks nor reads Dutch.) Parts of "The Man Who Made Vermeers"
have already appeared as major articles in the London-based Apollo
Magazine and as a cover story in De Groene Amsterdammer, the oldest
continuously-published news magazine in the Netherlands. The book has
already been praised as "remarkable" by major museum curators. But
it's absent from the New York Times.

The Times has had advance readers' copies of "The Man Who Made
Vermeers" for months.

...By placing Dolnick's title in so many
outlets – Sunday Book Review, daily paper, blog – it has
effectively blocked the competition from being covered in any of them,
the general topic having been so recently treated.

Unlike his son Ben, Ed Dolnick is an established writer. He is former chief science reporter at the Boston Globe and author of at least three other books. His work on van Meegeren might do just fine without all this notice in the Times, and perhaps he would have recieved some — maybe even all — of it without being part of the extended Times family. Which is precisely why the newspaper should handle his book more transparently. Keeping his extensive connections in the dark makes them look all the more sinister.

"I think it’s important for the public to hear the other side of the truth." [From Us' letter]

Translation: We already have the other side of the story. So speak now, or don't complain when you see a one-sided slam piece. (The trick: the truth actually only has one side!)

"There’s nobody who can provide that information better than you." [From Us' letter]

Translation: We think you're special. Really! We are simply dying to hear what you have to say. Hopefully, you are narcissistic and believe that we want to talk to you because we admire your intelligence. In reality, random fate has cast you as a player in a story, due to no merit of your own. Either way, let's talk now, okay?

"[We] would be honored to provide an outlet for you to share your account of the situation." [From Us' letter]

Translation: We're on your side. Our competitors, though—there's no telling how those shady fuckers might screw you.

"We could speak on or off the record — it’s completely up to you." [From Us' letter]

Translation: We know you feel safe speaking "off the record," so let's do that. First. After that, we will harangue you to go on the record, or, alternately, use the information you gave us on background. (Only applies when dealing with civilians. Savvy media operators can usually make "off the record" stick).

"I'm on deadline, so please let me know as soon as possible."

Translation: I'm on deadline. I may just wrap this story up at any moment. I may just cut you out completely. I may just make assumptions about what your side of the story is and include that. I may just let your sworn enemy speak for you. This may happen any minute now. Hurry up and talk!

"My editor feels that [x], but I [y]."

Translation: I'm a nice guy. But my editor? Heartless prick. Doesn't give a shit about you, your reputation, or anything else. He just wants to wrap this up and shove it out the door. I'm your friend here. You don't want my editor to have the last word on this, for god's sake. (Addendum: Reporters blame editors. Editors blame reporters. This keeps everyone guilt-free).

"There are many rumors floating around that I'm sure you'd like to clear up."

Translation: So many rumors. What are they about? I'll leave that to your imagination. But you know how rumors have a crazy way of sneaking into print, when certain people don't talk to reporters.

"We've always had a good relationship in the past."

Translation: But not in the future, if you don't give me some quotes. You bastard.

Laura Banks! She wrote Embracing Your Big Fat Ass (with Janette Barber and Rosie O'Donnell), which is on Amazon's bestseller list (as noted in her ad) and was on the Tyra show around June 9th.

Anyway! Here's the link to the original ad and requirements; send your resumes (or whatever!) to LauraB3480@aol.com.

Not afraid to be servicey!

Make sure to build up momentum by getting progressively more caustic and revealing. Your eventual firing will be a blessing. Make sure to publicize it—the resulting news bump will add your name to the "fired for blogging about work" folder. This is also a good time to get in touch with a couple of agents, if the more Internet-savvy ones haven't called you already. Remember—you're part of a trend now.

Oh, and save IM logs. They'll serve as great notes when you're writing your book. Just remember, your boss is probably logging and saving your IM convos, too. I know mine is.

Also: dungeons and sex clubs. Your boss probably goes to one or the other. Make sure to get its name.

Be creative and think outside the box! There are all kinds of ways to screw your boss over, 2.0-style. One or two embarrassing party pics can go a long way on the blogs these days—and annoy him or her on Google Images for at least the next year.

Got any other suggestions?

It appears that Violet Blue's works were systematically removed from Boing Boing's archives. This was no mistake. So while BB would seem to be a great symbol of the blog revolution—that dreamy ideal of everyone in the world freely expressing themselves to all, with no corporate filter—they're also just another in an endless line of quirky media startups that found success, and then started acting just like the big establishment players to which they were once opposed. It's only natural. Like growing up and deciding that you'd rather work a nine-to-five than be a dirty Phish-following hippie, media outlets take on the trappings and responsibilities of success and find themselves writing rules and editing severely where once they would congratulate themselves on being outrageous.

This effect is more exaggerated in the media world than elsewhere. There are very few media outlets that will happily and openly stand up for the same scrutiny they routinely apply to others. That's because intense public scrutiny is a pain in the ass! Duh. It's also because people who go into the media tend to have an elevated level of narcissism, combined with a thin skin. We all want to be loved and adored, and fear rejection. Love me! Only me! I'm special!

I was a low-level "media reporter" for a couple years after covering several other beats, and I invariably found that, as a group, media people are the most insanely sensitive sources to deal with. Politicians love to talk—they're equally narcissistic, but with far thicker skins. Corporate people tend to have a cold, well-honed, and practical approach to being covered. But many reporters, editors, and media executives are guarded in interviews, reluctant to answer basic questions, and prone to relentless "follow-ups" with you to make absolutely sure they're quoted the way they want to be.

My theory was always that media people assume the rest of the media are like them. If they're a lazy hack, they're terrified of placing their reputation in the hands of another reporter, who they assume is also a lazy hack. If they're unscrupulous, they assume you are too. And if they're used to bending the rules—well, they better check on those quotes with you one more time.

Maybe a third of media people fall into this group. The rest are fine. And you know who the best of all are, as sources? Media reporters! They feel your pain. And hey, at least we're not in England, where newspaper editors routinely sue each other for libel. Christ.

Before you know it, Boing Boing will have lawyers, offices, corporate policies, a softball team, and everything. Just like Gawker Media and other evil corporations! In Autumn of the Moguls, Michael Wolff summed this whole phenomenon up pretty accurately:

Also, you definitely have to be a girl. But a girl without a criminal background.

1. Be a Temp Slave!

From BK_KT:
"Temping temping temping. There are agencies that specialize in media/entertainment companies, and you can get your foot in the door and prove yourself in person rather than on paper or email. I had 3 long term (several months) temp positions before being hired for the position I am in now. Granted, most offices treat temps like shit, there's no hand-holding, and you can get let off at a moment's notice."

From it takes a train to cry:
"I'll second the recommendations that you temp. Many jobs, formally or not, are temp-to-hire. Don't worry about the 20 jobs at Time Inc. that you applied for - in many cases, the person who's doing the hiring has already picked someone within the company for the job, and the posting is just a policy requirement. So, you probably never had a chance to begin with on most of them."

From Cannot Find Server:
"To reiterate: Temp. Unless you're very, very lucky, you won't get that job at the big media company right out of the gate. I did eight terrible months as a personal assistant before landing a real job at a real company with real benefits. Almost everyone has that shit job in New York their first year. Just don't get stuck in it."

2. Freelance
Because practically nobody's on staff anymore!

From sunnyciegos:
"Otherwise, as others have said, freelancing is the way to go. I was surprised to learn that few writers are on staff anywhere. That's just the nature of this very crappy industry. I eventually left to get a better-paying, more rewarding job outside the magazine industry and can freelance on my own time. It's just better this way."

From HK_Guy:
"Kid, no one in NY "applies" for a job. You freelance, you get known by the company, and you get hired. I get resumes and cover letters all the time, and most of them are so poorly written they go straight to circular."

3. Have Some Totally Important Connections Already (In Which Case You Wouldn't Even Need to Ask)
Rich parents, famous parents, parents in media... you get the picture.

From ADismalScience:
"Part of the problem is that you even have to ask. This means that you don't have the familial or interpersonal connections to fill the desks currently filled by those kids. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is all of them."

From ian spiegelman:
"Magazines are totally, totally lost to the children of the rich and connected now as far as entry level is concerned. Magazines, as this site illustrates again and again and again, are for and by rich dupes, trust-funded babies..."

4. Start a Blog

From Yazz Flute:
"CVs are for kids. Clips are currency. My first clips were from an online e-zine (which I cofounded so that I could get some clips). I used those to get an internship at a newspaper, and voila, foot was in the door."

From Nick Denton, the boss around here:
"I think the value of connections is wildly overstated. Certainly on the web. We're always looking for writers with a track record of productivity (a personal blog is just fine), flair and an area of interest. And it's even better if they don't have connections, because then we get the satisfaction of discovering them, and a little bit of gratitude before the inevitable entitlement settles in."

5. Referrals

From TheHonJudgeSmails:
"Most companies in this town, media or otherwise, won't even double-click to open your resume, unless it was submitted by someone who already works at said company. Referrals are often the ONLY way to be even considered for a job."

From LatestBy:
"Meet anyone at the company you want to work for, and with their permission drop their name like a atomic bomb in the first letter of your cover letter to HR. I got a job within two weeks of doing this."

6. Intern (Also see: Don't intern)
Oh, the time-honored internship. Better hope you can be "subsidized" or working another job while work for media-peanuts—or for nothing! Or, as Adelle Waldman says in the New Republic today: fuck that. Don't intern. Internships simply reinfornce the status quo herd mentality of the already-provincial media jungle:

For one, most journalism internships discriminate on the basis of financial wherewithal... The rule of thumb, when it comes to internships, is that only the well-heeled bother to apply. (Newspapers may be a bit exceptional in this regard, as historically they have paid more.)

The other big problem with the internship culture is that it rewards young people who know exactly what they want to do and immediately begin strategizing about how to get there. Wouldn't it make sense to do the exact opposite? That is, create incentives for people who have wider experience in the world?

There's a social good problem at play when news is delivered by people who harbor such similar ambitions and come from such similar backgrounds, people who have spent their summers in the same cities and have worked at the same types of organizations. Naturally, they are likely to keep spotting and writing about the same types of issues—and keep missing different ones. What would it be like to have more education reporters who'd spent time teaching in struggling public schools or metro reporters who'd been cops or social workers?

From xxlobster:
"The way I got my first job in book publishing was incredibly easy (but pricey): the summer after graduation I signed up to do a summer publishing course at one of the big universities in the city. Two months of classes (that I skipped out of, for the most part) and $5,000 later, I did a mock interview with a major publishing house as a part of the course, and they liked me, so they gave me a job. This happened to lots of people I know from the course. By the way, even though I'm in book publishing, it was a course for magazines too...but I'm not sure how successful the magazine people were getting jobs out of the program. But seriously, best investment ever."

From seedy:
"That is how I got my gig at a book publisher as well. I know people that used the course to segueway into mags, but most were doing non-editorial jobs like sales. I know having clips + the summer publishing program tended to work for those that wanted to write. Both Columbia and NYU have these summer publishing intensive programs."

8. Gain Experience in a Smaller "Market"
"Market" is a jargony word that scares us. We'll replace "market" with "a place that is not New York, say, San Francisco."

From ian spiegelman:
"That said, everyone who suggested starting out in a smaller market I tend to agree with. If you hit NYC fresh from college looking for media work, you're kind of screwed from the jump. Some colleges like Northwestern and NYU have—or had—cozy relationships with places like New York magazine and can hook you up with a paid internship as a fact checker or editorial assistant, but otherwise, if you you can't afford to work for free, you need clips from a smaller, out-of-town thing. I did my small-paper reporting while I was still in college as a paid reporter for the Queens Courier and that helped a lot. But I only got my paid internship at New York through a professor who was friends with Maer Roshan.

"Newspapers, however, from weekly to daily, still seek eager kids who will bust ass for a story and who can understand why they are being made to make copies and type up called-in reports from older reporters while they learn the trade. Every single town in America, and in NYC, has a local paper and all those papers have a job that pays garbage for working for the local weekly. Do that for a year and then apply to a bigger paper. You'll be amazed at how much an old Time-y newspaper will respond to a young kid with newspaper experience rather than some recent grad who wrote for a personal blog or interned at Conde Nast."

From shanghaibaby:
"Go international!

Find a place where there's a big expat population and English is not the native tongue.

I went to Shanghai and within 1.5 years I was the senior editor (by law the editor-in-chief, although not a 'working' editor, has to be a Chinese National) at the largest English entertainment magazine in the city (about 300,000, weekly.)

Now, this is by no means big by international or NY standards, but I did get to interview and meet people that otherwise I would have never have access to in NY (or any other Western city). From The Rolling Stones to Terence Koh to Giorgio Armani to Mikhail Gorvachev to Olympic Athletes.

Eventually, you'll be well connected in the small (but influential) world of expat media and you'll start getting asked to contribute for larger, foreign (US, Europe) publications who need content from wherever you are."

9. Miscellaneous Advice

From mitchel_stevens:
"-Claim you're an expert in "New Media." No one knows what the fuck it is anyway.
-Don't say "Web 2.0"
-Do say "I subscribe to [X] feeds..."
-Realize editorial assistants positions bite.
-Demand at least 30 k. they'll claim 22-28 k is good; if they do, make sure you can still "freelance" and make sure you never freelance for a website—unless they are corporately owned."

From Aaron Altman, who's not afraid to be servicey:
"From the TV news side: intern at a non-union news operation. Usually the 24-hour newsers (NY1, News 12) are just that. There you can actually do some of the stuff only union-ers usually do - handle the camera, shoot standups (!!!), conduct interviews, etc. True, it will take a while - and internships being a five- or six-month stint, there ain't much time - but you'll get there.

Work the assignment desk. If you're going in there with the hopes of going on-air, forget it. Even the "minor leagues" like NY1 - i.e., those that serve as sort of "farm teams" for the likes of WNBC, WABC etc. - have enough talent sending in resume tapes for the news director to sort through. (And the blowjobs thing that eleanor and narnio mentioned earlier? Unfortunately, in some cases, true. But DO NOT BLOW ANYONE. It's not worth it.) If they see you doing well at the desk - taking calls from tipsters and publicists, weeding through the BS until you get that kickass story you see on the air - then you'll do just fine. You MUST want to do behind-the-scenes stuff. And no, not BJ's.

Also. WRITE WELL. There is a difference between copy for papers and copy for air. KNOW who you are writing for, and you do that by watching them. Sue Simmons has a different, expletive-free voice than Pat Kiernan, who has a different voice from Steve Bartlestein, who has a different voice from Roseanna Scotto. If you aren't writing for air, then you are taking in info at the assignment desk. THIS IS CRITICAL. The quality and integrity of notes from the police department, from a tipster, yadda yadda is important in whether and how a story makes it on the air. The assignment editor, as I see it, is the central nervous system of a TV newsroom. (Empahsis, most of the time, on "nervous.")

Last but not least - you will deal with a whole buncha jerkdom at these places. DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY. The good ND's, assignment managers, EP's and producers know TV news talent when they see it. They see that someone consumes the news, lives and breathes it, as a good newshound should. Here in NYC, it is not enough to know about the latest ep of Gossip Girl. You must know how to get a reporter into deep Brooklyn, or the fastest way to Hasbrouck Heights to cover a three-alarm fire, or the names of the press people in Mayor Cory Booker's office. You need to know the difference between Fairfield, CT and Bergenfield, NJ. You need to know how many bridges lead to Staten Island (three) and how many of those come to and from Jersey (two) and which one was named after the Port Authority's first chairman (the Outerbridge Crossing). You have to read Gothamist, the Times/Post/Daily News/Newsday and yes, the Sun, and listen to 880 or 1010 online. In short: BE the news. There is no better way to put it."

Whew! That's a lot of info. We're putting our noses to the grindstone—or as Allen Ginsberg said, "America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel."

"I interned for a cable news-parody show, did great in school, and I find that down here, doors are just slammed in my face for reasons I cannot understand. I have tried every avenue, e-mail, job websites, regular mail, knocking on doors, and now e-mailing strangers to see if anyone has any advice. Do you have any advice? It would be much appreciated."

"I also majored in journalism and political science if that's of any interest... I guess my biggest problem with the job search is these websites that all of the major media companies use, especially Time Warner. They post about 20 jobs a day, and I apply for every single one I am qualified for and I never hear a thing. Same thing with NBC. I actually followed up my online applications with a mailing of my resume and cover letter to them. Five days later I got this postcard back that told me to use their website and that they couldn't help me. It's infuriating. I think a lot of people go through college doing a great job thinking when they graduate, a job will fall in their laps. Clearly not the case."

The WSJ reports that there's an internal battle at Live Nation right now over whether to press ahead with more of these monster deals, or slow down. If they did 15 more at $100 million per (a lowball estimate), that's $1.5 billion. If the company lays out that much scratch, you better believe they plan to see their profits. Ultimately it could mean that the 99.9% of less-than-mega artists that get shut out of deals like this have even worse financial career prospects than they have now, if such a thing is possible.

Homogenization forever! The entire music industry is now riding on: Madonna and Jay-Z, along with the Jonas Brothers, U2, the Rolling Stones, and maybe Shakira—Live Nation's roster. Not everyone is a fan of the company's strategy, though. Their stock is down 44% since they started signing these deals. Also, "profit margins in concert promotion are perilously thin, and a bad tour could undercut the overall value of a package deal."

So if you don't want the Jonas Brothers to be considered cutting edge music by the next generation, please boycott the next Madonna tour. This has been a public service message.

[WSJ]

All of the people working on these homegrown projects are already established celebrities. People like Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen.

The Golden Rule

Media outlets can only steal outright from other media outlets that are not their direct competitors, and do not fall in their same class. First-class outlets: National TV news networks (including the big three on cable), the top five national newspapers, top-level weekly news magazines, and a select few websites like Drudge. Second-class outlets: Niche TV networks, local TV news affiliates, smaller metro papers, smaller but still well-respected news magazines, well-known internet news operations that don't fall in the top handful. Third-class outlets: Trade magazines, niche magazines, smaller local papers, niche internet news sites. Fourth-class outlets: Others.
When stealing from one's own class, it must be acknowledged that you are doing so, and that you have been scooped.

Explanation

The Times' mistake was stealing from the WSJ, another major paper in its same class. Had they stolen their story from, say, a trade magazine, it would have been perfectly acceptable. Likewise, a trade magazine can steal from the Times, and a tacit acknowledgment or small link is fine. If a trade magazine were to steal from a directly competing trade magazine, it would be a shameful theft.

Everyone understands these rules. Big papers, because of their sheer resources, provide most of our news, period. Everybody else follows their lead when dealing with major news. Lower-level outlets are expected to give their own take on the news of the day. Papers like the Times set the agenda; everybody else feeds off of it. This is fine. A local paper can put a local angle on a story that originated in a national newspaper; a trade magazine can put an industry-specific angle on the same story. Neither need feel guilty. If the Times picks up a story from a small paper, they will likely put so much re-reporting into it that their version is far deeper than the original. To the extent that you steal original material from direct scoops, though, you must give acknowledgment to the original scooper.

Television news operations are less likely to give credit to print outlets that break stories; of course, TV news produces visual packages for their stories, which they can argue constitute a completely new story. Again, the most stringent need for acknowledgment comes with direct competitors. If one news network steals an original story from another, it must explicitly credit it. Inter-platform theft is a looser matter.

Examples Of How To Steal Properly

Newspapers
Direct competitor: "In a story first reported by the LA Times, scientists have confirmed that Scott McClellan is an android."
Other: "Scott McClellan is an android, scientists confirmed today."

Magazines
Direct competitor: "Is your kid drinking Lysol to get 'high?' It's a phenomenon that's been reported by Time and others, but...."
Others: "Your child may be drinking Lysol right this minute. To get high!"

Blogs
Direct competitor: "Hipsters eat magic fruit, then eat each other. [Curbed]"
Others: "Crazy Williamsburg hipsters are berry-munching madmen—with a taste for flesh!"

Television
Direct competitor: "CBS News has reported that Hillary Clinton is dropping out and joining a nunnery."
Others: "Rumors have emerged that Hillary Clinton may be dropping out to join a nunnery."

See how simple?

The Penalties

Those who foolishly flout this rule by stealing the work of other reporters in their same class with no credit can expect to be ostracized at media parties; have vicious gossip about them leaked to Gawker; and, one day down the road, to be the subject of a gratuitous backhanded smear in the outlet that they stole from (this goes double if you're dealing with tabloids).
Reporters are small people, and we never forget an insult. Play smart.

[pic via Corbis]

Remember this article, "The Language of Loss for the Jobless," by Jan Hoffman?

The neighbor, a jovial suit-and-tie presence at the school bus stop in the mornings, disappeared for a while last fall. Nobody saw him for weeks. Finally he began to venture out — at afternoon pickup, in jeans and a T-shirt. A senior manager of a technology department, he had been laid off. Neighbors didn't know what to say to him.

Across the soccer fields of leafy suburbia, conversations are stilted these days; the bravado has a tinny ring, the gallows humor is more prevalent, the deft change of topic more abrupt. As classes let out at a city private school, a normally chatty top-of-the-heap woman, whose banker husband was recently escorted out of his office building, rushes in, sweeps up her child and dashes off, avoiding glances.

The neighbor [what neighbor? please put in full name per our style manual], a jovial suit-and-tie presence at the school bus stop [what bus stop? can you put in cross streets to orient the reader, or at least the neighborhood name] in the mornings, disappeared for a while last fall [why are we leading with 6-month old news? can't you lead off with something fresher than last fall's layoff?]. Nobody saw him for weeks [nobody? you mean he never left his house? have you verified with the homeowners association?]. Finally he began to venture out — at afternoon pickup [unclear: is that a pickup basketball game, or picking up a take-out pizza?], in jeans and a T-shirt [of what relevance are these clothes? get to the point and get out of the way]. A senior manager of a technology department [company name please], he had been laid off. Neighbors didn't know what to say to him. [how many neighbors did you interview to substantiate this general assertion?]

Across the soccer fields of leafy suburbia, conversations are stilted these days [can you cite an expert to back this up? the reader doesn't care about your impressions]; the bravado has a tinny ring [says who?], the gallows humor is more prevalent [more prevalent than what?], the deft change of topic more abrupt [huh? what government agency, what nonprofit study, what journalistically accepted official source is the basis for these claims?]. As classes let out at a city private school, a normally chatty top-of-the-heap woman [is this a real person? if so, please name her], whose banker husband was recently escorted out of his office building [name of firm, please, per style manual], rushes in, sweeps up her child and dashes off, avoiding glances. [did you, or anyone, witness this sweep-and-scoop maneuver?]

If Seinfeld episodes like "The Soup Nazi" had aired ten years later, think of how much more grating the reaction would have been. Millions of images of Jason Alexander emblazoned with the caption "I LIEK SOUPS." Millions more pictures of the Soup Nazi, posted in retaliation: "NO MOAR SOUPS." Naruto music videos based on the joke. Soup references in every webcomic. Soup Nazi cosplay. Peak Oil reached. Ron Paul elected President. The world's volcanoes erupt in unison. All because the Internet ruins everything.

In real life, references live for a short time but only rarely invade the public consciousness; original humor has an advantage. But online, the cost/benefit ratio of quoting, "sampling" or "remixing" someone else's fad outweighs that of coming up with something on your own, so everyone just parrots catchphrases on their t-shirts and blogs and webcomics. Because the Internet lets normal people make as much noise as funny and original people, the lame humor that usually dead-ends in offices instead spreads like crazy.

Of course the same thing happens more and more in other media; MTV makes whole series revisiting a past decade or an old band. Is this just something that happens every generation, or are we really drowning original humor in a sea of catchphrases?

By the way, the article pokes at several other truths, like "The worst of [Internet humor] is 'random' humor" and "Because if you scream a joke as it's being told, it's like you're telling it yourself!"

Post hack Steve Dunleavy, of course, was a legendary drunk. Page Six chief Richard Johnson had his own DUI, complete with a refusal to take a Breathalyzer test—a wise legal move known to many veteran drunk drivers. Staffer Hasani Gittens, we hear, "drinks like a fish," is an incessant gambler, and carries the nickname "Handsome Lyle" (all of which are things to be respected).

Further: Page Six's Chris Wilson is a boozer, his colleague Paula Froelich carries on with drunken midgets, and we've always suspected that the entire paper gets so soused on New Year's eve that they just toss any old thing in there the next day.

But the man who sets the tone is the paper's top dog, editor Col Allan. He must have been drunk as hell when he decided it would be a good idea to take the Australian prime minister to Scores for a night of booze and strippers. Of course, Allan is impervious to hangovers, as well. He should be, since his reputation as a lush is legendary:

At the Post, the party is slightly out of control, which is part of the fun, both for readers and reporters. The paper is aggressive, uninhibited, unpredictable, prone to anger and sometimes juvenile comedy in equal measure. Heroic consumption of alcohol has long been a part of this equation, but even in this tradition Allan stands out. "Col is a very engaging man," says his sometime dinner companion Graydon Carter. "And he can drink just about anybody I know, with the exception of Christopher Hitchens, under many tables. He's got real Aussie blood in him."

So, Sue Simmons: don't feel too bad.

Novelist A.L. Kennedy doesn't "blog or Facebook." Journalist Isabel Hilton has "so far resisted Twitter." Writer Maud Newton confesses that "the very ADD impulses that enable me to blog the way I do tend to hamstring larger projects, like the novel I'm writing, the review that's coming due, the day-job work." Filmmaker John Ryle doesn't read blogs. Journalist Jonathan Derbyshire doesn't know how to use an RSS feed.

Noticing a pattern here? The habits of highly (well, relatively) successful people involve avoiding all things 2.0. You want to get work done? Well, to paraphrase an esteemed colleague: the internet is good for looking up movie times and all, but in general it should be shut down.

The Web Habits of Highly Effective People [Granta]

Patterson writes in the review,

Harry bears indignities of the gut, bladder and bowels throughout the book. We see his face slammed by fists, his clothes muddied by a sheepdog, his lunch violently coming back up. At one point, trying to prove his rigor to Anna by working out on a stationary bicycle, he slips and suffers a faint-inducing crunch of the testicles. The effect is of the Farrelly brothers shooting a remake of "About Schmidt" and leaving it to be cut together by an unemployably cynical editor.

Harry, Revised [NYT]

I'm sure it is in that spirit that online gossip site Jossip is sending off Widdicombe. 'Ben Widdicombe Exits Gossip Industry, Leaving Gaping Aussie Void,' runs the headline. Har har. There's only one problem: the Daily News gossip writer used to bed Jossip's wide-eyed young founder, David Hauslaib—and one could easily take his reference to Widdicombe's gaping void as the bitchy recollection of a former lover, rather than collegial ribbing.

Incidentally, Hauslaib also dated Patrick Healy, Hillary Clinton's persecutor at the New York Times, who was in turn the former boyfriend of Chris Rovzar, the ethereal young reporter who took over from Widdicombe at the