The New York Times detailed Jenny Sanford's ongoing rise to prosperity through her husband's infidelity. The article is actually a cleverly disguised guide to capitalizing off of your cheating, no good, dirtball politician husband who didn't even care enough to cover his tracks.

Step 1: Book deal. Per the Times: "She is writing a memoir, "Staying True," to be released in April by Ballantine Books, about grappling with her husband's marital infidelity." Not unprecedented by any means, though, granted, Elizabeth Edwards has a slightly higher profile than Ms. Sanford in addition to, you know, cancer. Make sure your book touches on themes of survival and—yes—resilience. Make sure the everywoman can relate to your struggle, even though the reality of your wealth and privilege makes your story otherwise totally inaccessible to most people who've been through what you have. Dina McGreevy definitely did it right, though. I mean, that cover!
Step 2: Trademark that shit. Elizabeth Edwards and Hillary Clinton made a misstep here. Like the old Spaceballs line, moichendising! The Times notes that Jenny Sanford's taking the smart step of trademarking her name, so she can sell "clothing, mugs, 'other household items,' stickers, decals, notepads." I can't wait until Jenny Sanford's Locate-A-Husband GPS Tracker (Now With International Capabilities!) hits stores. She already missed Black Friday, but I've got faith she can get this bad boy out in time for Christmas, so wives may spy on their "bad boys" everywhere.
Step 3: Barbara Walters. Always Barbara Walters. If you don't get your catharsis on with Barbara Walters, you don't get your membership card. And take a guess who made this year's list of Babs' Ten Most Fascinating People. Hint: It's not the transvestite who "peed" on Adam Lambert. Sure, there are other ways to get on TV: if you're Brian Grazer's ex-wife, just rewrite The First Wives' Club as a USA mini-series. But did she make the Times today? Nope.
Step 4: Web Presence. Once you lock down THE_REAL_JENNY_SANFORD, get rid of those pesky fake Twitter accounts, verify your own, set up your own website, and get music recommendations via @ by Questlove, you'll know you've equipped yourself for electronic success. Be viral, be with the people. Or as Miss Sanford would have it: "She has set up a privately financed personal Web site, complete with news releases and photographs." Nice. Silda, we still await your Tweets anxiously, so you can throw down the subtle RT on free throws like this.
Step 5: Get into politics. You've already proven you can deal with both sleazeballs and scandal. Anyone who says you're not ready for politics is clearly a moron. And the best way to start: by endorsing the candidate who's going to win your Pussyhound Husband's position after his constituency gives that tail-chaser the boot. "[Sanford] has endorsed a candidate to succeed her husband, State Representative Nikki Haley, a Republican and the only woman in the race." Just like that, you come off as both a strong feminist and a dedicated party-line driver, setting yourself up for political support further down the road, when you....
Step 6: Run for office. "Genius" is right.

This is the same existential dilemma diet writers face. After all, there are only so many permutations of "eat less, exercise more" available in the English language. Likewise, we all know the basics for swine flu (wash hands, cover mouth) and are reaching critical saturation with the advanced stuff (tamiflu shortages, virus hot spots) which means medical journalists have to get creative if they want to send us into H1N1-induced panics these days. But don't give up hope! Here's a lesson from The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith on how you, too, can send the reading masses scrambling for the Purell:

1. Open with a banal fact that everyone takes for granted.

Neckties are rarely, if ever, cleaned.

2. Describe how said banal fact is actually menacing.

When a patient is seated on the examining table, doctors' ties often dangle perilously close to sneeze level.

3. Bolster the argument with expert consensus.

In recent years, a debate has emerged in the medical community over whether they harbor dangerous germs.

The British Medical Association already decided the issue. It recommended in 2006 that physicians jettison "functionless" articles of clothing, including neckties, "as superbugs can be carried on them."

4. Quell doubt with confusing quantitative evidence.

An 2004 analysis of neckties worn by 42 doctors and medical staffers at the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens found that nearly half carried bacteria that could cause illnesses such as pneumonia and blood infections. That compared with 10% for ties worn by security guards at the hospital.

5. Add a dash of controversy for flair...

But many doctors favor ties for the air of formality they lend the profession.

6. ...And a pinch of creative solutions to really dazzle 'em.

That has turned into an opportunity for April Strider, founder of SafeSmart Inc. The St. Augustine, Fla., company sells ties treated with a stain-resistant coating that the company says thwarts microbes.

Congratulations, you just wrote a scary and/or enlightening article about the swine flu epidemic. If you're lucky, you'll get top billing at the front of your publication and a stipple illustration to boot. [WSJ]

Lizzie's solution, according to Gatecrasher (late pass for us, but it's worth it!), is to drag Vince to all the fanciest Fashion Week events to be photographed with celebs. That's one way to go. Or:

• Get Plastic Surgery—It's useful not only for repairing the facial damage inflicted by a crazed, teeth-gnashing cannibal hooker, but also for subtly altering your look so that people who spot you in the future don't immediately point and say, "Hey—isn't that the guy who got arrested for fighting a cannibal hooker?"

• Flee the Country—Uruguay, Gambia, Micronesia. We've just named three of the dozen or more nations where ShamWow and SlapChop infomercials have not so saturated the television broadcasts that you could not take two steps without being recognized as that ShamWow guy—the one who had the bloody confrontation with the cannibal hooker.
• Become a Hermit—Throughout history, many of the holiest men on earth have made the decision to take to a cave on a windswept hillside, isolating themselves from society in order to meditate and get closer to god. This is also an effective way to isolate oneself from the prying eyes of the public and media, who are always eager to pigeonhole you as "The guy with the cannibal hooker problem." Although we have to be honest: God is not so great on forgiving cannibal hooker fights, either.

[Pic: Getty]

• Don't Deserve to Be Kidnapped: Being arrested for trying to smuggle heroin out of Thailand, for example, will not make you as sympathetic a figure as being kidnapped by extremists in pursuit of truth.
• Make Your Rescue as Dramatic as Possible: David Rohde actually escaped, from a Taliban prison! Ling and Lee were rescued by "Big" Bill Clinton, on an airplane! These are the types of high-profile rescues that make for exciting news stories. Being turned over quietly to a low-level embassy employee after quiet negotiations does little to get your name in the headlines. To the extent you can, keep your situation dramatically charged. If necessary, act as a double agent to make sure the whole thing doesn't go too smoothly.
• Pray For a Slow News Cycle: Ling and Lee were front page news for days—mostly because they had the good fortune to be rescued in the midst of the hot, boring, summer, when reporters will drag out any semi-respectable story as long as possible to fill the gaping news hole. Compare their fate to that of Ezterhas Rocococo, the E! journalist freed by the Tamil Tigers after seven years imprisonment. Why haven't you heard much about his story? Because he was set free on September 11, 2001. And because we made him up.
• Practice Your Humble Homecoming: You can't come back like some raving lunatic who went crazy on the inside. You also can't come back like some huge asshole always being the guy at the reporters' bar saying "Yea that Bloomberg press conference sounds crazy, reminds me of when I was eating bugs with an AK two inches from my ear in a bamboo cage, back in '06." You have to fake being humble. "I just want to get back to work," etc. Patently false, but still.
• Book, TV, Movie: That's the order. The book deal gets you the TV promos and then—hopefully—the movie. So write your book with Angelina Jolie's tastes in mind.
• Get the Fuck Outta Journalism: This is the endgame. What did you think it was? Pulitzer? Do you know how much a Pulitzer pays? Not much, my friend. You have to ride this kidnapping thing all the way up the ladder. Think about it: "From Helpless to Hollywood: My Journey From an Al Quaeda Prison Cell to Hollywood Squares." The next book writes itself.

What Will Happen?

We got some fascinating insight into the McKinsey corporate bulldozer process, from people who have experienced it firsthand. First, look for your chance to put your thumb on the consulting scale: "The McKinsey team and the management team will usually form a joint working group. That working group will often have several lower level people from the client working on it to gather facts, run analyses, and so forth. Get on that team. At least you'll see what's coming, and at best you might influence it."

But don't expect to feel too important: "The big firms don't bother interviewing individual employees (a la the Bobs in Office Space) - they'll gut entire departments that they deem strategically insignificant or issue edicts like 'cut out 50% of management at this level.' The actual firing is all done by the client firm's management (McK would never get their hands dirty that way)." Another vet confirms: "McKinsey doesn't give a shit, they are not interested in you. They want to get rid of entire divisions, not individuals."

What Can You Do?

Be Nice to the Consultants—It does not pay to be an asshole, unfortunately. One tipster advises you to "cooperate with the consultants (they always report back to senior management)." Another survivor says, " If interviewed by a McKenzie, answer everything question nicely. If you hold back, or are snotty, they fire your ass. Threee of my former collegues tried the stonewall approach and got canned."

Suck Up—Kiss ass, Kiss ass, Kiss ass. "Suck up to your own superiors, and their superiors, and theirs." It's just that simple. A brown nose could give you a minute edge on your fellow layoff-eligibles.

Practice Subtle Backstabbing—You don't want to be seen as a desperate bastard ready to sell out any and all of your colleagues to save your own job (even though you are). You just want to plant the seed. Take it from someone who's been there: " Don't talk shit about individuals, talk shit about DIVISIONS in a passive-aggressive way. Saying things like: 'Those fellows that work in [blank] division are really nice guys, but I've worked here for five years and I still don't know what they do' is a winner." Corporate espionage at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Watch Office Space—Several of you sent this tip. Har har. This will only have value if you can bribe a McKinseyite with, like, a hijacked truck full of Office Space DVDs.

Slut It Up—"If all else fails: Find out who the senior partner at McKinsey is, and fuck them." This is experience speaking, people.

Despair—You may find it strangely comforting to accept the fact that—even if you employ all of these countermeasures—you may still get fucked by McKinsey, and not just by the partner you fucked on purpose. "As a consultant for [firm] who's worked on several optimization cases, I wish the Conde Nasters luck. That being said, there's little they can do personally to avoid the axe," says one tipster. He should know! Need more proof? This comes from a former McKinsey consultant: "it's a good idea to release any sense of control you might have over your future. Being nice, being useful, and doing a great job all have nothing do with it - they will be deciding what the company should be doing, not making HR-type decisions about who's good at their job. If you work in a function that they decide doesn't need doing, it doesn't matter how nice/useful/great-at-your-job you are - that function will be eliminated."

Your job: Enjoy it while it lasts.

The Moment points out an entire collection of seconds-long Youtube clips offering the "correct" pronunciations of various fashion names. A selection:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Comme des Garçons: "Cum dee Gyair-so"


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Dolce & Gabbana: "Dul-chayyyyyyyyy (pause, go have an espresso) Gabannnuh"


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Fendi: (Inject self with thorazine). "findi."


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Louis Vuitton: "Oo-wee ee taw"


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Yves Saint Laurent: "Eve's on la Whore"

[via The Moment/ Fashion Doohickey]

Here's what you DO need:

• An unquenchable desire for fame: Obviously. It is what drives all fameballs.
• Shamelessness: Your desire for fame must be greater than that voice in your head screaming, "Stop; you look like an idiot."
• A lack of redeeming talents: This isn't the Nobel Prize, okay? If you're a shameless fame whore but you also, say, cured cancer, one could argue that your talent is being properly appreciated. This will not do.
• An abundance of non-redeeming talents: These may include, but are not limited to: oversharing, self-regard, delusions of grandeur, superficial physical attractiveness, a ridiculous distinctive personal fashion trademark, the ability to talk about oneself without end, conspicuously false modesty, and sluttiness and/or man-whorishness.

• Growing a conscience: It can happen to the worst of them. Instant death.
• A desire for meta-fameballdom rather than actual fameballdom: This is the key mistake that people make when they come directly to us, begging for coverage. We're talking to you, lady who keeps sending us emails billing herself as "The next Julia Allison." You see, while we do grow and cultivate fameballs, it's absolutely essential that those fameballs are not seeking our approval; they must dream of stardom (even micro-stardom) in the outside world, not simply with a knowing wink on Gawker. A fameball's famelust must be their undoing, not their doing. If you're deserving, we'll find you.
• Being a one-trick pony: Lots of people do embarrassing fameball-like things from time to time. But do they have the staying power to keep plumbing ever-greater depths of self-abasement? Only the greatest do.

For example: where Amato instructs you to memorize the URL of The Smoking Gun's transcript of the O'Reilly sexual harrassment suit, so that you can repeat it on camera, we'd recommend making sure they get no usable footage by simply shouting the following things:

• "Falafel."
• "FUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE."
• "Cup your hands under your breasts and hold them for ten seconds."

Also please consider this post our open invitation for Bill to sent Jesse after us! It'd be an honor. A hilarious honor. (Now it will never happen, of course.)

• Do not use the same meager handful of non-white employees over and over for photo ops: People notice this after a while. Specifically, your non-white employees.
• Do not act like the boss on The Office: Simply watch each season of that show in full, and see how he treats the subject of diversity, and then do not do that. Surprising how realistic that show is.
• Do not claim that your staff made up entirely of upper class Ivy Leaguers is 'diverse': It is not, we don't care what it looks like on the outside.
• Do not claim that your company is 'diverse' because you hired minority-owned vendors: Hiring a 'diversity consultant' or an 'urban marketing firm' is not in and of itself a mark of diversity. Sucks right!!!
• Hire a staff made up of many different types of people: Problem solved. (Though you may personally still be a jerk).

• Don't say 'If you were offended...'—Or words to that effect. Which is what the Post did, essentially. People aren't all that smart, but they're smart enough to detect the inherent insincerity in this formulation: "Sorry you're so sensitive."
• Don't let the lawyers write it—Lawyers do nothing but cover your ass (and theirs). Apologies are simply not what they're made for. Vicki Iseman, McCain's lobbyist friend, is now pissed at the Times for issuing a lawyer-crafted note about the story, then immediately crowing to staff that they didn't apologize. So how can you ensure that your non-apology is satisfactory?
• Exhibit a thin, perceptible veneer of contrition—A good non-apology must allow both parties to salvage their own pride. This is done by using insincerity coated in a thin candy shell of contrition. Overly broad words help everyone swallow the thing. "I am sincerely sorry for this incident." Why are you sorry? Doesn't matter! Maybe because the other party is such a chump, who knows. But don't outright imply that, see? "We sincerely regret that this ever happened." You can apply these to any situation, almost!
• Let it be known QUIETLY that you had no reason to apologize—Don't just blast out a note to the whole world mocking your own non-apology as some legalistic bullshit. Just drop that fact very smoothly in the course of conversations with people who you feel should be made to understand that you're not guilty of whatever. You can even wink, in real life, as you do so!
• Both sides must tacitly agree to accept that they won—The recipient of the non-apology is entitled to walk away telling everyone that he was proven right. The giver of the non-apology is entitled not to have their face rubbed in it to the extent that they're tempted to be honest about how fake it was. It's like playing basketball with a child, and graciously letting them win. It's fine as long as they're a good sport. If they start getting too proud of themselves then you have you REJECT them, and then the crying starts, and it's all a big mess. Just learn to get along with your enemies, and save everyone a headache.

We sincerely regret that you had to read this entire post.

1. Find Something People Were Doing When Times Were Good. Write the opposite of that. Just go find yourself a New York Times Style section from about two years ago. Three million dollar apartments for 22 year-old hedge funders! Luxury is the new ordinary! If your food doesn't come with gold flakes, you are unacceptable! Now practice remixing these for the present day: Hovels! Luxury is dead! All-cabbage diets are back! See? Easy.

2. Good Fake Trend Stories Can Support Equal and Opposite Conclusions.What is this recession doing to people's love lives? The Daily Beast's exclusive poll finds that "Americans' romantic lives are undergoing a meltdown of their own," because "the size of your bank account matters in the bedroom." Then again, the NYT reports today that the recession is romantic. And USA Today says the recession makes people buy condoms. Is that sexy or not? It doesn't matter, it can be either! Any good trend story could be switched to an opposite premise with no noticeable lack of quality. Tired of writing the opposite of boom time trend stories (see #1)? Then write the same stories, just change "rich" to "poor." Trendy!

3. Purely Anecdotal Evidence Proves Everything. Heard some people say they stopped eating expensive lunches? Trend. Can you locate three people in a single city who make a salary of approximately $500,000? You got yourself a trend, buddy. Try this fun game: think of the most ridiculous premise you can. Then track down three people—no matter how disparate—whose stories can be presented in a way that roughly hews to said premise. Write your trend up as a story, put in the Times, and watch it become conventional wisdom quicker than you can say, I don't know, 'Absolutely Nobody Eats Cheese Any More, Because of Money!'

4. Hate is Timeless. Even during the worst recession, there will always be some rich people left, doing rich people things. Write about what they're doing, and present it in stark contrast to what unemployed indigents are doing. People love that shit.

5. Do The Opposite of These Recommendations. In a recession like this, nobody can afford to follow advice.

1. Be honest: The worst thing a layoff can be is full of shit. At least have the common courtesy to tell the truth. From MTV's memo today:

We all know there's a fundamental restructuring of our entire economy going on, and it extends beyond our borders. This is not just about MTVN, Viacom or even sister media companies – it's happening in every industry, all over the world. This doesn't make it easier to say goodbye to people we love and respect, but it is the hard truth. In these tough times, we are responsible for sustaining and reinventing our company as thoughtfully as we can. The changes we're making today are necessary, difficult, and the responsible way for us to move forward.

This is true, straightforward, and not patronizing.

2. But not too honest: Perfect honesty demands admitting that the people you laid off are the ones you consider disposable. Don't do that. You must, must fellate your departing employees to the extent possible without seeming absolutely fake. Elsewhere in that MTV memo:

Everyone here contributes to MTVN and Viacom every single day and night without exception. We hate to see dedicated friends and co-workers leave us, and we say goodbye with care, gratitude, support and respect.

The first sentence is patently false for any large organization. The second sentence may or may not be true. Still, it's a nice thought.

3. Remember your audience: Your audience here—your most important audience—is people who are being laid off. Employees with safe jobs, the media, and the general public will all get hold of these memos and read them, but really, you have to cater to the dead here. From Viacom's memo today:

Viacom's long-term health will depend on our shared commitment to adapt, to innovate and to make difficult choices. To compete and thrive, we need to create an organization and a cost structure that are in step with the evolving economic environment.

Do you know how much newly laid-off employees care about Viacom's long-term health? Not much. They just got laid off. Keep the focus on the people.

4. Look like you put some thought into it: Being cold and perfunctory is almost as bad as being a see-through fake. Sure, executives and their flacks would rather be sniffing blow in a golf cart than approving layoff memos. But you people still have jobs, so suck it up and try to say something non-robotic. Universal Pictures' memo today is only four short paragraphs, the last three of which say this:

While much has been accomplished to find necessary savings, we regret that we must also reduce headcount by around 3%. No company likes to have to make these kinds of decisions, and certainly we are no exception. We want to assure you that everyone has done their best to keep job cuts to an absolute minimum.

The process of communicating with those individuals whose positions are affected has begun today and will continue for the next few days.

We appreciate the effort from everyone who has participated in this difficult process.

Yada yada. The tone is indistinguishable from an internal memo announcing that staplers must be signed out of the supply closet from now on. Shed a tear or two, fuckers.

5. Every time you use corporate doubletalk, an angel dies: Actual human sentences—try them! When ushering hundreds of people out the door, avoid standard management-speak, like this from Paramount's memo today:

Without question, the changes we implement today required us to make difficult choices. We take these steps after a careful analysis of our overall business and as part of a broader strategy to overcome the challenges of this unusual time in the market and to chart a successful course for the future.

As we look ahead, we are encouraged by the strength of our slate, the quality of our creative partners, the innovation we see on the lot every day and the projects we have in development. These assets, coupled with your talent and hard work, I believe will enable us to remain strong over the long term.

With that, your newly unemployed workers may leverage their strategic capabilities to steal a lot of stuff on the way out. [Pic via]

• Use sarcasm to mock the easy life that college students lead: Goodness, I hope these sheltered students will be able to bear the strain of a simulated version of "The stressful task of providing for one's basic necessities and shelter on a limited budget" during the course of "four 15-minute 'weeks.'" That's an entire hour of limited budgets!
• 
  
• Emphasize the gulf between college students' self-regard and their paltry accomplishments: I bet you feel real accomplished after "experiencing" poverty, eh? Eh?
• 
  
• Point out that the do-gooding activities of college students tend to help their egos rather than the actual problems at hand: Dartmouth students recently ended world hunger by challenging themselves to survive for one full day on only $2. They also got free t-shirts! Food surpluses are now flowering throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
• 
  
• Find an example that embodies the simultaneous disconnect from reality and excess self-esteem of the modern student: "Derek Lyon ‘11, who said his experience volunteering in the Ecuadorian rain forest compelled him to eat the $2 dinner Wednesday night, said he believes Dartmouth students are not truly in touch with global poverty and hunger on a daily basis." Dartmouth students outside Derek Lyon '11, that is!
• 
  
• Quote at least one student whose reasonable perspective makes his peers look that much more ridiculous: “'As a person who lives and sees poverty at home, I think it’s sort of a stupid exercise,' [Zimbabwean Dartmouth student Tanaka] Mhambi said. 'I mean, fasting for a day isn’t going to tell you what hunger is like.'"
• 
  
• Finally, acknowledge playfully that you yourself may have suffered some of the same defects of the character back when you were in college. (Don't want people to think you're self-righteous): But hey, we all did some ridiculous things back in the old college days, amirite? Can't be too hard on the kids. They're not half as bad as I was! Why when I wasn't getting heavily intoxicated, I was having sex with countless fetching coeds, who were attracted to my "bad boy" persona. Crazy times!

See how easy? And coming after my next birthday passes: "How To Make Fun Of 20-Somethings." [IvyGate]

1. Leave Alaska. You can't even get a media job living in Philadelphia, and that's just down the road from NYC. You have to move to New York, Sarah. You'd probably like the Murray Hill area.

2. Fashion Endorsements For Wal-Mart. Remember how you gave that speech and then all these people ran out and bought the glasses you were wearing? And then you spent $150,000 on clothes and everybody paid attention? It all adds up to two words, and those words are "Fashion icon." Is moose the next hot fabric for the fall season? Why don't you tell us, by appearing in middlebrow fashion advertisements for America's top discount retailer?

3. Have An Affair. That guy you're with, the snow racer? Yea, I'm sure he's nice and everything but he's not really sizzling tabloid material. Why not go and fuck A-Rod, or possibly be spotted going down on a male hooker in the bathroom at the Beatrice Inn? These are proven techniques that can work for you.

4. Ghostwritten Column For Ladies Home Journal. What are some Pretty Pillow Projects and Bad Hair Day tips that you learned on the campaign trail? Have your ghostwriter make some up, to be published. Republican housewives eat that shit up.

5. Join the cast of The View. This is where it all ends for you, Sarah. You were never going to be President. You never had a shot to be Vice President. You never even had the potential to be a serious political figure of any magnitude outside the strange and backwards frozen state of Alaska. But with a little perseverance you could end up on a couch, on daytime television, flanked by Barbara Walters and Joy Behar, arguing about Michelle Obama's wardrobe. Embrace your destiny, Sarah Palin. Elizabeth Hasselbeck can't hang on there forever.

Flacks: Is this person a real reporter? Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is he poorly dressed?

If so, you're probably dealing with an authentic journalist. Also a good option: Google the name on your little Blackberry, for chrissake. Do you find links to articles the person has written on the website of the news publication where he claims to work? Bingo, you've cracked the case.

For regular people trying to pose as journalists to score some of those sweet spring rolls, mini-cheeseburgers, and signature cocktails named for the event sponsor, just follow these simple rules:

1. Dress poorly.
2. Act haughty and self-important.
3. Walk right in, acting surprised that they don't know who you are.
4. Claim to work for a blog. They can't call your boss.
5. Claim to be a freelancer. They can't call your boss.
6. Gaze into the crowd; wave randomly towards the back and shout, "Harvey!" Chuckle. Turn back to flack and say, "Now what's the problem here?"
7. Threats, threats, threats.

If all else fails, pose as a UPS deliveryman. Those guys get in everywhere.
[AMNY via PRNewser]

Newspapers
Forget it. Really. This is the worst place of all to either be employed, or be looking for employment. An easy rule of thumb: only the very top and the very bottom of the newspaper industry even have a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel. National papers—NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, USA Today—at least have strong enough brands to possibly pull through and prosper in the future. Tiny local papers are okay, since they have no internet competition to speak of. But every city paper in the population range from Spokane to Chicago is going to get slammed hard for the forthcoming future.

Not the best job prospect. (Except in India. Print is exploding there! If you like naan as much as journalism, buy yourself a plane ticket).

Business and Tech Titles
These had a good run once upon a time in the tech boom days. No mas. These titles will be some of the hardest hit in the upcoming downturn. As you can deduce, by their target audiences. So while they're a fair prospect today, they won't be for long, generally speaking.

Alt-Weeklies
Alt-weeklies are great. I started at an alt-weekly! But they're a little like newspapers: big, chain-owned alt-weeklies are getting decimated. Smaller, independent, more far-flung ones have a slightly better outlook. A good place to get some clips. A bad place to build a career.

The Trade Press
Safer than mainstream news outlets! Though not totally safe by any means! Trade magazines, etc. thrive in relation to the industry they cover. When the industry gets slammed economically, the trade magazines get slammed even worse. So everything from advertising to finance to media (heh) trades: rough. Real estate trades: still have ad revenue for now, as developers try to clear all these suddenly unpopular properties off their books. Once they do that, though, ad revenue will crater. Trades are only a safe haven when compared to, say, newspapers. Choose with care.

Cable Networks
Many cable networks are doing quite well! Hey, CNBC will surely be popular for the foreseeable future! Cable news is a niche far less damaged by the internet than print media. And specialty cable networks like the Sci Fi channel or National Geographic seem to be doing fine. So if you can broaden your idea of "journalism" to include, say, being an assistant producer for some nature show, you just might be in luck!

"Good" Magazines
Oh, these are the jobs everybody wants. You want to write for the New Yorker. Or Vanity Fair, or GQ, or Vogue, or Wired, or SI, or the 50 or so other big splashy magazines that, you know, everybody wants to write for.

These jobs were always driven by connections. And guess what: they're still driven by connections, but there are even less jobs to go around now! So your chances are even worse than they would have been historically. These good jobs are never advertised, so you have to be well-connected enough to hear about them from an insider. Big magazine companies are cutting budgets and instituting hiring freezes. And every veteran magazine writer has a huge ego, so forget trying to cut in line ahead of them. Plan on getting to one of these places later in your career, as the icing on the cupcake of many years of experience, and you'll save yourself a bunch of heartache. Build up to these magazines from other, nonexistent entry-level writing jobs.

Online Ventures, new and otherwise
These are a mixed bag. Once upon a time young people worked for blogs as a way to gain exposure and land a good magazine job (Elizabeth Spiers). Now, in some cases, the two are viewed as roughly equivalent (our new editor is coming from a real magazine!). So you actually have to evaluate the specific title now to determine whether you're moving up or down. For example:

Editor at the Huffington Post > Police reporter at the Newark Star-Ledger
Writer for Slate = Writer for Washington Post
Writer for Tina Brown's new Daily Beast < Reporter for the New Republic, because Tina Brown's thing might fold in six months.

Use discretion.

PR
Oh, did you say you want a well-paid job involving the media, with good benefits and stability? One current well-established journalist says, "Here's some advice: take a job at a PR company. I was offered one recently and would have made more than 2x what I'm making now. And wouldn't have had to worry about whether the job would even EXIST in six months."

See, as the number of journalism jobs shrink, much of the work that reporters used to do gets de facto outsourced to flacks! So PR firms can offer harried, overworked, underpaid journalists near-complete story packages—ideas, angles, sources, art, photos, etc.—in return for a wee bit of client placement. Lots of laid-off editors and reporters go into PR, just like ex-soldiers sign on with private contractors and get sent back to Iraq with better guns and better to pay to do the same job they were doing before, but without any inherent "public service" element.

Still, we would never advise anyone to go into PR on general principle. If you want to be in journalism, be in journalism.

The takeaway from all this: the outlook is grim. If you're just getting into journalism, the job market is already flooded with people with far more experience than you who've been laid off, and are competing for the same jobs. If you're employed, moving up is treacherous—you never know when the new job you just took could disappear for reasons unrelated to anything you did personally.

But there's still a huge news hole to be filled with crap. Somebody has to do it. It might as well be you. It's mostly shoveling coal for Satan, anyhow.

Foreign Policy

This one's a gimme, because John McCain doesn't know a goddamn thing about the rest of the world except that he wants to bomb it. There was the "Iraq/Pakistan border" thing, which could maybe be explained by him saying Iraq instead of Afghanistan, and the Czechoslovakia thing, which is pretty much just explained by him being lol old, and mistaking Sunnis with Shiites constantly and also thinking al-Qaeda was training in Iran, which can really only be explained by not giving a shit about minor details like who we're "fighting" besides Muslims in general.

But now that his confusion has spread to Western Europe, his handlers should be worried. "John McCain doesn't know where Spain is" is basically a gift to the Democrats. Of course McCain can and will play off any debate question about his gaffes with a condescending "of course I know [blank]" statement, followed by a carefully coached recitation of lessons his handlers drilled into him, which defuses the issue, but it's a clear sign that he'll be tripped up by a different lame gotcha question about world leaders or geography. Do people actually care when a candidate doesn't know "trivia"? Not really, but if he plays further into the "confused old man" routine it'll hurt him way more than idiocy did Bush.

The Economy

Ask him just about anything about the current Wall Street crisis. Wait for weird disjointed pseudo-Democrat talk about regulation. Followup with any serious statement John McCain has made on the economy during his 100 years as an anti-regulation Republican. Watch him forced to either sell out his Capitalist base or deliver some decidedly not-populist rhetoric.

Torture

Ask him, Andrew Sullivan style, if he believes the CIA should be allowed to use "interrogation techniques" similar and in some cases worse than the torture inflicted on him by the North Vietnamese. Offer to demonstrate! (Though, of course, 24 viewers definitely think the CIA should be allowed to torture, and McCain is maybe helped by any mention of his POW years, but still, this shit was indefensible.)

His Commercials, Campaign, and Surrogates

Just ask him if he "stands by" or can defend almost any number of questionable things his campaign has done. As we saw on The View, he will not apologize, but he will look pissed off as he half-heartedly defends shit he used to hate. Which is way worse than apologizing would be.

Bonus: How to Trip Up Barack Obama

Ask a serious question about a complex and important issue. Make it one that requires Obama to speak extemporaneously. He'll answer, as he thinks through it, with something pretty reasonable, but complex, and he will say "Uh," and then McCain will say "shut up, Brainiac! Babies are tiny angels, why do you want to kill them?" THE END.

NEWS PEG? It is the "Geezers Issue" at Slate! Old people may be the only group whose failing eyeballs are actually less coveted by advertisers than politically engaged public sector-employed poors, but John McCain is old! And he is about to be elected president, holy fuck.

OH GOOD FOR THEM! SO WILL I LEARN STUFF LIKE HOW THE DEMENTIA THAT GENERALLY SETS IN DURING ONE'S MID-SEVENTIES COULD EFFECT JOHN MCCAIN'S ABILITY TO GRASP COMPLEX ISSUES SUCH AS SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION? Hm, don't think so! But they had this Brooklyn 27-year-old get drunk and feign incontinence in six brands of disposable "undergarments" and that is the point of this post.

EW! WHAT HAPPENED? Nothing, duh. You know how dudes piss in the streets when they are drunk? Maybe they even got cited for it once, and everyone found it highly amusing that the one day Mr. Highbrow Literary Elite shows up to the office in a suit it is because he urinated on the wall of a police station, sort of like how it's kind of amusing that this guy's literary journal is called Polite. Not LOL-funny, obvs, but "all the female assistants at Slate who are busy researching the mortgage meltdown or whatever get to roll their eyes" funny.

SO HOW DID THIS GET INTO SLATE? Glad you asked! For starters, young Peters came to the task armed with a cultural-economic theory:

Like chocolate, beer, and jewel thieves, the best adult diapers come from Europe. This is not coincidental. European manufacturers don't have to cater to institutional purchasers' demands, so they're more likely to sell on quality rather than cost.

That makes no sense at all, considering that we are the ones who are supposed to be coveting their nationalized health care system not least for its ability to cut costs by purchasing "institutionally!" But nevermind.

Then you throw in a little pathos:

The diaper swelled until it could swell no more, at which point streams of urine began running down the sides of my legs. Even though I had locked myself in a bathroom to perform the test, I still feel unaccountably ashamed, as if God were laughing at me—a feeling made worse by my inability to exit the diaper.

And a few quippy little "hit grafs" such as:

The word Attends sounds a lot like the word Depend, and, indeed, the two brands are similar—similar in their mediocrity, that is.

OK almost done! All we need now is the elusive killer wonk-cred-displaying simile.

They were about as absorbent as a drainpipe, sagging under the weight of the water and leaking like Daniel Ellsberg.

See what he did there, kids? A less-Slate-appropriate Slate contributor might have written "Scooter Libby."

I probably would have Googled the name of some sort of infamous hydroelectric power plant built by Bechtel in the seventies as part of a CIA strategy to prop up some murderous but Soviet-hating dictator. And that = why it has taken an hour and a half to write this damn thing.

[Slate]

• Be desperate. Gorgeous George got into wrestling, which was fake, but also offered the very real assurance of getting injured. He risked getting his ass kicked on the street by adopting such a pansy-ish persona. He once took a match in which, if he lost, he'd have to cut off his beloved hair. Why? He needed the money!
• Be feared. It's impossible to survive long as a villain if people don't have a fundamental fear of you. Otherwise, you'll be torn to pieces (literally, in the olden days; now, just your reputation is at stake). George weighed 215 pounds, was a good athlete, and scared the yokels with his weirdness, besides.
• Have a talent. You can't just be hated. You have to be hated for doing something you're good at. George was actually a good wrestler and a showman. Julia Allison is actually talented in charm. Being a villain without talent makes you, for example, the Son of Sam.
• Get a good outfit. Oh, this is key. Be memorable! Gorgeous George had long hair, which he died blond and curled before matches; toted around a tea set to indicate his upper-crust persona; and had "a man-servant who attended him in the ring and sprayed perfume wherever he would walk." That's style. Kim Kardashian wears booty shorts. Every successful villain has their own thing.
• Drown your sorrows. Upside of being a famous bad guy: Fame. Downside: You're a bad guy. Being a villain can be hard on the soul. Gorgeous George ended up as an alcoholic who "literally drank himself to death." But you can say that for lots of non-famous jerks too.

[WSJ]

Recording Phone Calls

Federal law allows recording of phone calls with the consent of one party on the call, meaning you can legally record any phone calls you're a part of. State laws vary, however: in some states you must have the consent of both parties (not New York, though). See here for a full guide.

You can record phone calls on normal handsets with a cheap recorder hookup, like this one from Radio Shack. You can also record calls onto your PC, either with an adapter, or, more simply, by using Skype. There are also services that will record your cell phone calls for you, and allow you to access them when you want.

Other Recording

A simple little digital recorder is a great device that can be slipped into a pocket or left in a corner and record ambient conversations for hours. For long-distance audio recording, you'll need something more powerful, like a parabolic microphone that can amplify sounds 300 yards away. Works great for hearing bird calls; if you're using it to listen in on people, you may be a creep.

For visuals, there are plenty of discreet, handheld digital camcorders that should meet most video recording needs. To secretly record what's happening in a room, you can buy camcorders that are hidden in everything from plants to smoke alarms. Again—if you are using these to be a creep, you will and should be locked up.

Researching People

Google! It's a wonderful tool. Nexis People search is a quick and efficient way to categorize your searching by what the person does, where they're from, their company name, etc. Paid search services like Intellius can take small bits of information about people and search for public records and contact info for a nominal fee. Names can be parlayed into phone numbers and email addresses, and vice versa.

Public records from these and other similar sources are broader than you think. Recent Nexis upgrades, for example, can give you everything from a person's cell phone number to info on their gun licenses. You never know what you might find.

The Freedom of Information Act is designed to give you access to government records that don't have a good reason to be private. This is largely political; under the current administration, lots of stupid things are private. Obama should be more open (one would think). Get your FBI file, why don't you? Better yet, get someone else's! A government guide to FOIA is here, and a citizen's guide to the process is here.

Also legal: searching through someone's trash, if it has been placed out for disposal in a public area. Although this may get your ass kicked.

Tracking Movement

A small GPS device like this placed in someone's car can help you track them for days. If you're not in law enforcement, this is probably illegal, so never do it.

Modern cell phones have built-in GPS devices, which would theoretically make them a great way to track the movement of individuals. But that's generally impossible without the assistance of the carrier, unless the person is using an opt-in tracker and posting their movements themselves on Dodgeball or something. So this one requires great hacking skills or a mole at the phone company, and is illegal besides. A useful overview to cell phone tracking is here.

For observation purposes, digital binoculars combine a camera, video recorder, and binoculars in one product.

Final Thoughts

Are you spying for a righteous cause? If not, give the world some privacy, why don't you? Either way, you might consider learning Krav Maga or carrying a Taser. Those being spied upon tend to object.