• The Condé Nast job cuts have made their way to Anna's domain on the 12th floor of 4 Times Square: Vogue laid off six staffers today. [AllThingsD]
• More bad news for Condé: some advertisers are reportedly "jumping ship" after the recent shake-up at Brides. On the plus side, The New Yorker appears to be hiring, so…
James Gandolfini turns 48 today. Lance Armstrong is turning 38. Jada Pinkett Smith is 38 today, too. Designer Karim Rashid is 49. Comic actor Fred Willard is turning 70. Actor James Marsden is 36. The Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo is turning 33. The rapper Xzibit is turning 35. Senator Bob Bennett of Utah is 75.…
• Keith Olbermann took Times reporter Brian Stelter to task last night for reporting that News Corp. and GE had worked out a deal to tone down the rhetoric between MSNBC and Fox News. But he didn't disagree with everything Stelter reported. Conveniently, only the bad stuff about him was wrong. [NYM]
• More bad news…
Valentino and Vogue co-hosted a cocktail party to benefit New Yorkers For Children at Valentino's Madison Avenue store last night. Guests included Fabiola Beracasa and Erin Fetherston (left), Fern Mallis, Tinsley Mortimer, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès, Maggie Betts, Paul Sevigny, Bebe Neuwirth, Jennifer Creel, Selita…
Peggy Siegal invited a media-heavy crowd to the Oak Room last night to watch the Super Bowl. Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonell was in attendance (apparently, budget cuts prevented him from flying to Tampa in person); and some folks, such as former HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman, left, even donned 3-D…
Caroline Kennedy ran a disastrous quasi-campaign for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat before deciding to bow out last night. Initially she refused to answer reporters' questions; when she eventually changed her approach and opened up, she demonstrated such little skill for dealing with the press that even some of her…
It will probably be a fun weekend for Lydia Hearst: the heiress turns 24 today. Others blowing out candles today: Jimmy Fallon is 34. Soledad O'Brien of CNN is 42. Richie Akiva is 32, although the invite to his birthday party said it was his 30th. James Lipton is 82. Former HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman is 63.…
The exit of HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman continues to baffle everyone, including New York magazine, which tried to figure out why Friedman was let go but could only figure out two non-reasons. Some people thought she was maybe ousted because, at the London Book Fair in April, she decided Egyptian novelist Alaa Al…
At the time she was fired, HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman was expected to post "strong fourth-quarter results... at the end of the month," according to the Observer. That only deepens the mystery as to why Friedman was fired — if not over bad numbers, then why? It does look like the book executive was pushed. She…
The truth about HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman's abrupt departure from her job has now been established, sort of. While it's obvious that News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch fired her—not least because heir-in-waiting Brian Murray was offered Friedman's job two days before she knew anything about it—no one who's…
Everyone seems nearly as confused in the aftermath of Jane Friedman's departure from atop HarperCollins as they were in the frantic hours before the official confirmation. But it looks increasingly like the CEO was elbowed aside. Friedman's deputy and successor, Brian Murray, has disclosed he was summoned to a meeting…
Looking for a decent excuse to advance his long-simmering feud with Rupert Murdoch and to do a weird Australian/pirate accent, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann seized upon the words of a former News Corp. insider, who claimed in one of our posts this morning that Murdoch fired Jane Friedman from HarperCollins because she…
The news that Harper Collins' CEO of ten years, Jane Friedman, is stepping down—just days after announcing at Book Expo America that she "loves" her job—has been met with surprise from both industry watchers and colleagues, and has triggered speculation that she was ruthlessly cut loose by her boss, News Corp.…
Jane Friedman's departure as HarperCollins CEO, first reported by Gawker, has been officially confirmed by the book publisher. Her replacement by Brian Murray, 21 years her junior, comes less than a month after a similar generational shift at Bertelsmann AG's Random House, where unsentimental German engineer Markus…
We're hearing a wild rumor that Jane Friedman was just fired from her perch atop News Corp.'s HarperCollins. If true, this would sure lend a hefty dose of irony to the publishing executive's quote in the Observer today, gleaned from an industry party on the Twentieth Century Fox lot Saturday: "I love being CEO of…
Friedman served as the CEO of HarperCollins, the book publishing arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, for more than a decade before stepping down in 2008. She's since founded Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publishing company.
Mediabistro, the little $23-million media company that could, is turning 10! So they're throwing themselves a party tonight, with a special extra: The Golden Boa Awards, which recognizes 10 media stars from "from within the 10 verticals that mediabistro.com serves," according to the press release. Mmm, verticals.…
Since it's been at least forty minutes since we mentioned Judith Regan, we thought we'd take this time to advance a little irresponsible speculation concerning the reason for her departure. In a January 2005 profile of Regan from Vanity Fair (which is chock full of delicious quotey goodness), we noted the following:
