We have two separate (unconfirmed) staff change rumors today, from tipsters. First, at SI:

At the ever-shrinking Sports Illustrated, the magazine's #2, exec ed. Mike Bevans, has privately announced that he'll be among the staffers taking a buyout. This marks the second Time Inc. purge in a row that M.E. Terry [McDonell]. has lost his aide de camp: last year it was David Bauer.

Second, we hear that the New York Post has replaced veteran police reporter Phil Messing with relative rookie Kirsten Fleming. Indeed, Messing's byline does not show up in a search since last month. Out tipster says, "The fear, of course, is that the writing is on the wall for Phil who is one of the more reliable and experienced police reporters in the city. He's old school. But the Post is rumored to be wanting to get rid of 10 to 15 reporters so everyone over there is worrying that their heads are on the chopping block." If you know more, email us.
UPDATE: Actually, another search for just Messing's last name turns up lots of recent bylines, so he's still hard at work, for now.


Oh Anthony Kennedy went on and on about how his office's demand to pre-approve his quotes in a school paper was misunderstood, but now the WSJ says he did the same thing once at GWU. Whatever. Just don't outlaw abortion.


There used to be a dozen analysts covering newspaper companies for Wall Street. How many are there now? Not so many! Now it's just Rick Edmonds, a dude who works for Poynter, trying to figure out how bad the newspaper apocalypse is. "My conservative estimate is that there is $1.6 billion newspapers used to spend annually on reporting and editing that they don't anymore." Journalism! Related: An incredible graph about magazines, and the money they are no longer making.


BusinessWeek media reporter Jon Fine (a good reporter!), currently on a months-long round-the-world vacation with his wealthy wife Laurel Touby, announces on Twitter that new BW owners Bloomberg have laid him off. One thing he can take solace in: His months-long, round-the-world vacation.

Boa-bedecked media horror Laurel Touby was stymied in her real-estate quest by husband Jon Fine's raging metrosexuality.

Bicoastal tech execuwrangler Brooke Hammerling outed Gawker alumnus Lockhart Steele as a non-porn star.


TechPresident blog blowhard Micah Sifry waxed Foucauldian.

Brazen divorcist Penelope Trunk contemplated barter.

Technology Review Twitterer-in-chief Jason Pontin thought about the poor, but only for 140 characters.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Politico's Patrick Gavin didn't really regret the error.

BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine felt someone else's pain.

Web micromogul Alan Meckler took his chances with the swine flu.

Chicago Tribune writer Kevin Pang warned of the threat of pork consumption.

Freelance writer Janet Rae-Dupree fell victim to another stupid Twitter twend.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Susan Orlean of the New Yorker deigned to contemplate Facebook's redesign.

BusinessWeek's Jon Fine caught up on year-old Viacom trivia. (Yes, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman's son works at Google. Duh.)

Washington Times Web columnist Amanda Carpenter wasted time on Twitter to announce she was not wasting time on Twitter.

Former Village Voice writer Tricia Romano began drinking early.

AFP correspondent Olivier Knox confessed to a mancrush on Wired editor Adam Rogers.

See something worth noting on Twitter? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Entertainment Weekly founder turned new media curmudgeon Jeff Jarvis couldn't remember how old he is.

Ex-Huffington Post editor Rachel Sklar got peeved about words.

Time political writer Karen Tumulty's plane was late.

BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine was in Los Angeles checking out the menfolk.

New York Times writer Matt Richtel keeps pretending to be a prostitute.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us their username.

To be sure, Ben Ammar also represents Saudi Prince Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Company, one of News Corporation's biggest investors. But he was also a confidante of Silvio Berlusconi and channeled payments from the Italian media mogul to Italian politicians, before Berlusconi himself became prime minister. Funny that Murdoch's Fox News, so quick to decry European corruption and Arab money, has said so little about the connection.

• Don't even try to start a magazine today; Wenner says it's impossible. Besides financing and publishing support, "you need, at the center of it, some extraordinarily talented, prescient individual. Such as I was." Oh!
• Wenner regrets selling Outside magazine. He does not give a shit about the Internets.
• On US Weekly: "As trivial you may think the subject matter is, it is a really well-executed product, with high standards of writing and wit and photography and design."
• Awkward moment: Fine: "I want to pull back for a minute, and go back to the view from 30,000 feet—" to which Wenner replies: "I like it when I'm seeing you 30,000 feet." Fine: "Ha."
• If he could go back 20 years and see himself now ? "I'd think, Wow. I'd think, how incredible. What a lucky guy. What great writing. He's covering all that music I like. He's friends with all those people. He gets to go to all the great concerts. God. What a fantastic job. Which is exactly what 21-year-olds think of me right now...Honestly, [the 21-year-olds] want to be me. I mean, really." Oh Jann, only the insecure and overcompensating ones!
• Jann does not miss Kent Brownridge, his number 2. "No, not at all." Nor does he miss former Men's Journal editor and former Rolling Stoner Jim Kaminsky, who joined Brownridge at Maxim. "Honestly, god bless him, I'm glad he left. He was taking it in a direction I didn't like. Kind of an airline magazine."
• The irrelevance of Time magazine, which he does not read: "What does Time magazine stand for on the Internet? About the same thing it stands for as magazine. Well, who wants it? You've got CNN online. You got New York Times online. Got the Washington Post online. You've got so many other journalistic news organizations online, why would you turn to Time?"
• What Jann does read: Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Times, the Washington Post and the Journal. "I might stop reading the Journal," he tells Fine. "Well, we'll see what happens, and how damaging [Rupert Murdoch] is to it...I've got so much [expletive] going on."
• 
  So do we, Jann! Like, we have to get back to wishing desperately we could be you! Well, minus the nearly-jobless married guy wandering around New York claiming he made out with you. Him, you can keep. We're just interested in the terrified minions and the total disconnect with reality.

Has Britney Spears People-ized TMZ.com? [Fine on Media]
Britney Dashes In For Dental Rescue [TMZ]

There's Big Momma." (That's Atoosa.) There's the sisterhood"—this is the community of women who right now avidly comment on Atoosa's blogs and, presumably, will eventually network with each other. "There's [potential Web property she discussed with me on the grounds I do not divulge its details]"—which would be "the freaky brother. And Psychic Kitty. It all comes together as a family." "I work hard, you know. You can say my blog's annoying, you can say I'm ugly, you can say I've got hairy arms. But I'm not dumb. I'm not dumb, and I work really hard."

More On Atoosa [BW]

Earlier: Hello, Alpha Kitty!!

"What I want to do is gather my tribe"—yes, Rubenstein actually says things like this—"the ones reading Seventeen, and the ones who were, and grew out of it." This tribe is 13 to 30, female, thoroughly digital, and, in Rubenstein's view, lacking an "alpha kitty" addressing their concerns and sensibility.

At a meeting with potential investors she skips PowerPoint in favor of construction paper decorated, grade school project-style, with a crazy-quilt of colored pencil notations. Her first offering may be what she terms her "art project," Psychic Kitty, a series of psychedelicized videos on her MySpace page. They will star her cat Thurston spouting, in Rubenstein's electronically processed voice, brief inspirational tidbits. Rubenstein calls Psychic Kitty "the cat in the family," and she's mum on a debut date: "You know how it is with cats."

Say Hello To Alpha Kitty [BusinessWeek]

Earlier: The 'Toos Would Like To Thank You For Sharing Your Truths

For example, Fine wonders why Wired sold its magazine to one company (Condé Nast) and its web site to another (Lycos). A writer of his caliber should know that Wired had no choice but to split its properties, because no media company would take the site, and no dot-com would take the magazine. Condé Nast was so uninterested in the Internet that it let Lycos handle its magazine's web site — a decision everyone later regretted.

He also says that Wired News and Wired Mag shared offices for eight years. Wrong again — the remnants of the once-mighty Wired News just moved across the hall from the Mag a few months back, only to hear endless "You think this is a Holiday Inn?" jokes from the Mag staff.

But Fine's real sin is quoting Condé Nast dealmaker Steve Newhouse (the boss's son), who says the purchase is all about Web 2.0. Bull. Web 2.0 doesn't care about Wired, and to be honest, Wired doesn't really care about Web 2.0 (its editor's Net-centric "Long Tail" book notwithstanding).

Newhouse did not pay $25 million for eight writers at a dying news site. Newhouse paid $25 million to wrest his magazine's web site away from Lycos.

Update: Fine posted a correction. If he sends me his address, I'll mail him a copy of Wired — A Romance.

Steve Newhouse on Wired and Wired News [BusinessWeek]
Earlier: Condé Nast bought Wired News: What that means [Valleywag]

Things we've learned thus far from "Fine On Media":

• NYT executive editor Bill Keller looks like what you'd expect him to look like. He also, we imagine, looks like he does in any of the dozens of photos you've seen of him.
• October 11: "[M]an, is the new Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal awful or what?"
• Allstate insurance has some new commercials, and Fine likes them.

Insurance is sexy, after all.

Fine on Media [BusinessWeek]
Earlier: Jon Fine Finally Comes Out