It is TV on shrooms, of course, just like Lee Abrams' day job is running a newspaper on shrooms. You don't think Lee Abrams himself wrote this description of his edumacational teevee project? It bears a certain resemblance to his memos!

We can't embed but there's a nice clip here about sperm that Lee Abrams dug up. Go, Lee! Straight to Jupiter!

John Koblin gets more info on today's Conde Nast hatchet-swinging: Roughly 180 layoffs, including Cookie editor Pilar Guzman. No solid word yet on the fate of Gourmet's Ruch Reichl. Any Conde people who want to share, vent, cry, or complain: Email us.


One argument: The Tribune Co. is bankrupt, its media properties have dim prospects across the board, and all of its employees are bearing the brunt of the managerial incompetence that's left it saddled with a hopeless debt load. Therefore, Tribune trying to pay $66 million in bonuses to top executives is borderline fucking criminal. Counterargument: Lee Abrams is priceless.


Very very predictable news that is nonetheless kinda sad: After the Rocky Mountain News folded, a hardy band of ex-journalists there decided to try to get together and launch an online, subscriber-only local news website, and, long story short, it has folded. But many of those same journalists reportedly found other jobs already, so, bright side.


Tim Wheatley, the business editor of the Baltimore Sun, was killed when his car was struck by a UPS truck this morning.

One of the victims of the Conde Nast receptionist purge last week was Betty Wales, who started as a Conde receptionist in the 1940s, and put in more than 30 years total on the job. At her going-away party, "She smiled brightly, but stopped short of her usual giggle. 'I've got to think of something to replace it.'" Damn that's sad.

The editor of the Miami Herald argues that the paper's not going anywhere, so relax. His main arguments: the paper has a lot of readers, and it will turn a profit this year. Hmm, yes, these are just a few of the reasons you should buy the paper from McClatchy immediately, please!

Michael Kinsley: "Judging from Tribune Co., for which I once worked, the typical newspaper executive is a bear of little brain." Haha! Lee Abrams is a lovable panda.


Don't write magazine stories making jokes at Iceland's expense, or they'll call out the killer elves on you.

It is decidedly preferable for a Tribune Co. media outlet to underestimate its own importance these days. And nothing the Chicago Tribune or LA Times does will change the American Celebrity Cultural Disease. Lee has already made clear his belief that "SEX AND RELIGION ARE THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT TOPICS ION THE WORLD!", so I don't know why he doesn't think he can fit celebrities into that paradigm.

Jeff Bercovici points out that, in the course of this short and inexplicable memo, Abrams managed to fall for a thoroughly discredited internet fake quote. But really, the fact that Lee Abrams is able to operate an e-mailer machine at all is so astounding that we're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

THINK PIECE: CELEBRITY CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT

CELEBRITY CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. What I mean here is that We can't underestimate our importance these days. We can change this cultural disease. Exciting and important time to be in the information business like the 80s was an exciting time to be in show biz....we can't blow it by offering dated TV that's over slick and cliche ridden or Print too sluggish and bland. Our position is too important.

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."
Miss America 1995 from Alabama
Heather Whitestone (and she won??!!)

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
Popular Pop Singer Mariah Carey

Scary stuff...we can't feed this machine. we need to work hard at being Intelligent but unconvemntional. Inspirational. Agents of change.

[Mixed Media]

Sara Nelson, the former Post books editor and columnist who got the top job at Publishers Weekly four years ago, has been laid off from PW. She was the most prominent victim of a 7% across-the-board cut at PW parent company Reed Business Information. The firing of Nelson, an alumnus of Inside.com, is probably a sign of the weak economic climate in the book publishing industry more than anything else. Full details of the RBI layoffs haven't emerged, but it's a safe bet that they'll affect their higher-profile trade mags—Variety in particular, is looking at a rumored 30 layoffs.


Former New York Times Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman has launched her long-awaited new website, TheWrap.com, which will be "an exciting new space to cover Hollywood in the digital age." Though Sharon doesn't like us, we wish her luck in her quest to not be totally blown out of the water by Nikki Finke.


Bad news for big media: Deutsche Bank forecasts a 22% decline in earnings for News Corp this year; the last surviving member of the Reuter family dies; and bankrupt Tribune Co., where reckless memo writer Lee Abrams is threatening anyone who opposes the REVOLUTION, will now formally grade employees on their "positive attitude." Smile or die.

It's not all about the Great Magazine Die-Off. Hardcore Gamer magazine was able to successfully sell itself on eBay! Better than, you know, dying off! [NYT]

Public service announcement for fame-hungry romantics: a Good Morning America correspondent has sent out a request that the show is ""Looking for an attractive Cougar Couple to appear on Good Morning America Weekend Edition. Professional Couple - woman at least 10 years older than the guy. This show will air on Valentine's Day Weekend. Couple needs to live in California." The perfect Valentine's gift for your boy toy!

1. Mark Penn The world's worst pollster delivered Bill Clinton the White House in 1996, you know, when he ran against a literal wooden board in a suit named Bob Dole, so obviously Penn was well-qualified to organize the series of damaging turf wars that was the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, a squabbling joke of smears and slap-dash message reinvention. He charged her a zillion dollars to lose and everyone in the world hates him. Of course he is releasing a book about these little demographic groups he makes up and he is also a columnist at a famous newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.

2. Bill Kristol Bill is also a columnist for a famous newspaper, the New York Times. He invented Sarah Palin. He is a sad pathetic moron whose shame at his own intellectual dishonesty occasionally threatens to break through the surface of his constant lying, to himself and to the nation, about everything. He will probably not be a columnist at the Times for very much longer but he does still have his very own Rupert Murdoch magazine, and his last name.

3. Mark Halperin Mark Halperin used to write a little blog for ABC called "The Note," and it was a terrible thing that was in some part responsible for how bankrupt and idiotic the beltway press was during the late '90s and early 2000s. Then he left to go write a blog for Time and now no one pays attention to him, thank god. But he still writes bad books, like his one a couple years ago about how The Way To Win was to worship Matt Drudge and Karl Rove and Be a Republican. The week John McCain said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," and finally lost the damn election for good, Halperin blogged that Senator McCain "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/mark-halperin-somehow-con_n_127512.html?page=3">won the week. He will keep his well-paying job at Time forever, or until somewhere else hires him to do the same thing, which is be wrong 100% of the time. Also he'll release a book with someone smarter than him and he'll go on conservative talk radio to fellate Hugh Hewitt as Hewitt bloodies him with a bullwhip, sexily, again.

4. Jeff Jarvis The entertainment journalist who got internet famous for blogging about batteries or something is now the official overpaid consultant of saving the newsmedia, even though he doesn't really know what reporters do (he is pretty sure they should blog about batteries or something). If you give him $1,000 and fly him to Qatar he'll save your newspaper, with a panel discussion.

5. Wolf Blitzer and everyone else at CNN. Wolf basically represents everything wrong with CNN. He just makes noises. Meaningless syllables. He fills up time, so much time, with these nonsense syllables, saying nothing, at all, ever. And CNN this year sucked. Anderson Cooper's show is ratings-grabbing fluff nonsense. The Magic Wall iPhone election map thing is stupid. The fucking holograms! Campbell Brown accepts no bullshit, stop bullshitting Campbell Brown. Oh, and they still let Lou Dobbs fear-monger every day for what seems like three hours of hate. Ugh. Go away, CNN.

6. Steve Schmidt This is kind of a no-brainer, because he lost a presidential election, which is a sure way to make it on one of these lists, but the extent of his failure is still kinda under-appreciated. He destroyed the brand of the Republican party's formerly most sellable asset, Senator Johnny Maverickseed, and hence crippled the party for at least two years. Hah. He is the man on this list most likely to be at least underemployed in 2009, though he won't go hungry.

7. Jimmy Fallon Jimmy can stand in for Jay Leno and Ben Silverman and everyone else at NBC. They have two good scripted sitcoms, and the rest is nonstop garbage. And now this once-forgotten nobody gets Letterman's old show! And national nightmare Jay Leno will be on every day at 10 pm! And Conan will be shipped out to LA in order to become bland and unappealing! 2009 will be a bad year for not wanting to shoot your television set.

8. Robert Rubin and everyone who has ever worked for him. Rubin broke the economy, and trained a new generation of democratic finance-wizards who helped break the pieces of the economy into smaller pieces, and then he went to work for Citigroup, where he still draws a nice fucking salary, after shepherding through legislation that allowed for the creation of Citigroup, a massive financial services conglomerate that also broke the economy, this year. Everyone who worked for him will now fix the economy with their fancy new jobs in Barack Obama's administration.

9. Michael Bloomberg Go away, old man, we're sick of you.

10. Everyone in New York By "everyone in New York" we mean, obviously, the type of people who actually think they represent "everyone in New York," which means people in media, finance, the "arts," publishing, and whatever the hell people who read blogs do all day, for a living. Not the "everyone in New York" that includes people who live in, like Staten Island or whatever. No, the ones who watch Gossip Girl. Basically all of these people should be unemployed, next year.

Special Bonus "Never Ever Get Fired" Award

Tribune Company Innovation Chief Lee Abrams He is an insane person and every dollar spent on him is a dollar wasted, by a bankrupt company, but he is a treat, and we would miss his memos.

• Barack Obama. Blago wanted to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.
• Rahm Emanuel Obama's incoming chief of staff was the one Blago wanted to negotiate with—he hoped to get stuff from Rahm in exchange for picking Obama's preferred candidate. Also Rahm maybe alerted the feds!
• Tony Rezko This Chicago fundraiser and felon raised a fortune for Blago, and a smaller fortune for Obama back in the day. From Blago he got plum appointments for associates and friends, and lord knows what else.
• Sam Zell Blago was unhappy with the Chicago Tribune's coverage of how corrupt he was, so he told the owner of their parent company, Zell, to make them cut it out. Zell, who needed the state's help to unload the Chicago Cubs, allegedly agreed to look into it. Zell also connects us to Lee Abrams! Abrams is Zell's friend and Tribune Co's insane "Chief Innovation Officer." He will hopefully have a crazy memo about this soon.
• John McCormick This is the Tribune editor who was mean to Blago all the time. Supposedly Zell agreed to have him "restructured" out of his job in exchange for state help with Tribune's bankruptcy, but this didn't actually happen.
• Patrick Fitzgerald the dreamboat US Attorney who's bringing Blago down is known as a tenacious prosecutor, and he was already famous for his role investigating Plamegate, the weird old scandal in which Bush administration officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative to journalists to damager her husband's credibility. That scandal, as we all remember, ended up with Times reporter and terrible hack Judy Miller going to jail rather than revealing to Fitzgerald that her source was Scooter Libby, even though Libby had already given her permission to reveal this.
• Jesse Jackson Jr. It's sill possible that "Senate Candidate 5" is Jesse Jackson, Jr. Even if he isn't, he's a family friend of the Obamas (specifically his childhood friend Michelle) who is seen by many as a front-runner for Obama's vacant seat. So Blago would obviously have been in contact with him regarding the seat, and what Blago wanted in exchange for giving it to him. Meanwhile Jackson's brother Yusef was an investor in a magazine called Radar with pervy billionaire friend-of-Clinton Ron Burkle!
• Also Jesse Jackson Sr was on The Oprah Winfrey Show, as was Kelly Preson, who was in Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon!

From the press release:

The company will continue to operate its media businesses during the restructuring, including publishing its newspapers and running its television stations and interactive properties without interruption, and has sufficient cash to do so.
The Chicago Cubs franchise, including Wrigley Field, is not included in the Chapter 11 filing. Efforts to monetize the Cubs and its related assets will continue.

The LAT says the company has $300 million cash, which is enough for the short term but not for the long term. Zell told employees that their health care and 401k plans would not be affected.

Zell's Tribune buyout may go down as the worst media purchase of the decade. Sorry, guys. At least you still have time to sell the Cubs. [LAT; pic via]

Except instead of a house it's a giant newspaper company, and thousands of journalists at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Florida Sun-Sentinel and other papers stand to lose their jobs. Apparently Tribune's insane newspaper savior Lee Abrams is going to have to send even more rambling and pointess memos to get them and their advertisers out of the  "fear/acceptance zone."

Bloomberg predicted all this, as usual, by listening to fancypants Wall Street analysts, with their attention to things like fiscal solvency and balance sheets and other things of zero interest to new media visionaries like Zell and Abrams.

Tribune paid off some debt by selling Newsday to Cablevision for $632 million. But it still needs more cash to avoid going into default, and several of its big ideas look dubious amid the economic meltdown: selling the Chicago Cubs (S&P is skeptical and Tribune delayed the sale , originally to come by the end of the year, until spring), issuing securities on the moribund commercial paper market and selling the properties now housing the LA Times and Chicago Trib (commercial real estate is in the toilet).

Driving this whole firesale mentality are continued declines in newspaper advertising, which Zell apparently didn't count on, and which radio-industry clown Abrams couldn't correct. Operating profits declined 83 percent companywide in the most recent quarter, according to the Journal.

Tribune's best hope at this point is that its lenders will decide the company is in better shape than most other distressed debtors and give it some breathing room, rather than lose all their money in bankruptcy. The lenders have supposedly been "amicable" with Tribune thus far, according to the WSJ, but demoralized empoyees won't be so forgiving the next time Zell comes around to cuss them out.

UPDATE: Leverage with creditors might be precisely the point, actually. Writes the Times this morning: " Analysts and bankruptcy experts say that the hiring of advisers, including Lazard and Sidley Austin, one of the company’s longtime law firms, could be a just-in-case move, or a bargaining tactic" (emphasis added). On the other hand: "As the economy weakens, other lenders have become more aggressive about forcing debtors into bankruptcy when they believe such a move is inevitable, to preserve a company’s valuable cash reserves."

*TOP 10. Number the stories. Give them a "handle" "In tonight's Top Ten: #1 Obama announces he's a Muslim; #2 Pirates sink US Sub; #3 etc......

Good thinking!

*CASUAL STYLE: What with the suits and ties? I'm not suggesting sloppy...but business casual...maybe even eccentric as the Crime expert could be in a Columbo styled rumpled sweater.

Excellent advice!

*CRIME CENTER. It's simple...we have a Weather Center and a Traffic Center, why not a crime center with a dedicated crime expert.

Simple but brilliant!

*QUALITY: All of this tied together with a level of seriousness instead of trying to be funny and cute. I'm thinking a 60 Minutes vibe.

Haha why not? And finally:

Are the above points valid? I don't know, but that's not the point.

Yes sir! [Daily Pulp via Romenesko; pic via]

And now, Lee Abrams' suggestions to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Sex: SEX AND RELIGION ARE THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT TOPICS ION THE

WORLD! A weekly theme of Sex/relationships. Monday Gay Florida Tuesday Does E-Harmony work? Weds Teens & Sex exposed... etc...

Religion: Monday: Can Jews and Muslims co exist; Tuesday The religious ultra right; Wednesday Catholics in America.... etc...

We practice this theory daily.

*STAR EVERYTHING. Are you a "listing service" or experts? Listing events for Kids? Star them. So Mom can say "Oh—The Sentinel gives the science fair three stars, lets take the kids". Give events and places a 'reason'...be the expert not just the lister. Same goes for restaurants of course, and well, just about everything you 'list'.

"Insurgents Retake Southern Areas Of Fallujah (TWO STARS!)"

*WORDING. At the Sentinel there was a story about exotic Asian restaurants, and the reefer was "Learn about Tasty Treats". Tasty Treats??? OK for Campbell's in 1955 or for a candy article, but other than that, it's old world newspaperspeak!

Heh, "reefer." But how about some new stories, Lee—things our readers haven't heard before?

*SCAM PATROL. Identity theft...Infomercials that are questionable...Nigerian 419 scams...they're everywhere. We need to inform and BUST these 21st century menaces. It's REAL...It's NOW.

*POKER. I know the Sun Sentinel does this. It's HOT. Poker is the 21st Century Bridge.

Why do we love you so, Lee Abrams?

Wanna reach more 30-40? Well, start ATTACKING WITH ANTI A.D.D. NOTICABILITY.

[Daily Pulp via Romenesko]

Los Angeles is a remarkable place that deserves a remarkable newspaper...that is THE Southern California news brand for another 127 years. It will. Like all of our papers, the pattern is FEAR OF CHANGE...then ACCEPTANCE OF CHANGE...then EXCITEMENT AND CONTRIBUTION TO CHANGE. They may be in the Fear /Acceptance zone. Totally natural. Just wait til the excitement stage happens.

Just wait. [LAO via John Koblin of the fine New York Observer]

I think [a 'government bailout' of newspapers—Ed. note: probably not an imminent threat!]is a terrible idea. What would happen is newspapers would then focus on this ultra-elite point-five-percent and create these papers that are just unreachable to a mass audience...I think for government to come in and force this intellectual thing would be terrible. It'd almost be like in 1950, with rock-n-roll coming, all the sudden the government comes in to support classical music.

Tribune is already taking steps to ensure that its papers don't appeal to the ultra-elites. [via Mixed Media]

*Complaint Magnification. .1% stops is insignificant. I think if we got 20,000 complaints, that too would be insignificant. To succeed and grow, we have to become 21st Century mass appeal, and part of that will generate complaints from the fringes.
ersationally, as opposed to a "commercial".

Okay!

*I see more people reading the Tribune than ever. Metra trains are a sea of Tribunes compared to a month ago.

Mmm hmm!

I used to write a blog and someone sent me one that I wrote about newspapers last year and wondered if I still felt the same way. I do.
Which is why we hope to uncover myths, fallacies, assumptions and other sacred components that need to be brought to the table for uncomprimed discussion.

Ah ha!

I really think New Media needs some Old thinking to put soulfulness and magic into their mix, while Old media needs spectacular denial free new ideas to cut through the ever growing clutter. Denial is the key word. The Old Media guys tend to be so engrained in the way it's always worked...new media guys often reject some of the old values that may be unfashionable in the board room, but enlighten and satisfy consumers. Hotels are like that. Some "modern hotels" lack character. Some old hotels, are...old and ratty. But the Old Hotel with all the modern conveniences and charm...or the new hotel that has character and vibe—-that's the magic combination. Old Media integrating new ideas...or new media integrating (the good) old ideas—-That's the plan.

Old thinking into New Media...and New thinking into old media.

Zorp! [via Romenesko]

From an Atlantic interview with Abrams via LAObserved:

Abrams: I was in Los Angeles, sitting in this casual little meeting waiting for someone to show up, and there was this lady who had just got back from four years in Iraq, I forgot her name, I met 300 people in two days, and she was telling me about security problems, bullets in the background and all that, and it really struck me that there should be pictures of her with Iraqi children in the newspaper to show she was there. Whereas in the newspaper, it just says, “Times Staff Reporter.” I really never thought about it, that there was really a person over there going through hell to get this.

[Atlantic]: It didn’t strike you that there were employees of the newspaper over there doing this work?

Abrams: It was just ink to me, just reading. Oh yeah, here’s what’s happening in Iraq, but then I didn’t feel the human side

.

The Chicago Tribune just unveiled a redesign, which seems like a good occasion for a big old memo from Lee Abrams. High five! All ellipses are in the original text, people:

Well, there were roadblocks. But those were removed, and the New Chicago Tribune is more than a new version of the timeless Tribune, but it represents a completely new attitude in the newsroom, marketing floor . . . everywhere.

Everywhere.

There's a new flexibility and freedom to have so much belief on the brand, the city and the people that we can take chances . . . try things . . . have the attitude of re-invention locked into our genes so we can compete . . . and prevail without the shackles of sacred and tired old line thinking that is weighty enough top sink us all into the land of the obsolete. It's a whole new day . . . and attitude.

Something is happening here.

I thought Allentown did an good job with their re-invent . . . it wasn't really that WOW though, but it is clear that they are a model of daily re-invent as they are on fire with new ideas and angles. They're continually launching new features, upgrading existing ones and THINKING about the newspaper . . . an a 24/7 basis.

Right. Now here's where Abrams really starts to Blow. Your. Minds:

The Baltimore Sun did some very nice special sections . . . BUT—they were plastered with the line "SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION"OUCH! Why not just say "Don't read this because it's a bunch of ads and no credible content"I understand the importance of seperating these from the traditional news, that's fine, but how about another name??SPECIAL FEATUREA PUBLICATION OF (PUT PAPER HERE)etc. . . .

Shhh: no words.

• "If we can morph the Soul of Dylan ... with the innovation of Apple and the eccentric-all-the-way-to-the-bank of Bill Veeck, the WORLD will be a better place."
• "Lee Abrams...floated some provocative ideas for reviving Tribune's newspapers, including front pages primarily composed of colorful maps."
• "That is the MAGIC of newspapers...having the ability to BE the print arm of what a city IS...and aspires to be. Quite honestly, I don't think there's a paper in the Country that REALLY does this right....at least not in 2008 terms. It's not a swipe — it's an opportunity—A BIG one. BE the city...in 2008." [Punctuation by Abrams]
• "Complete and total domination. That's the idea. And...Funny thing, by re-igniting this 'natural' audience, lower demos will follow....but not by TRYING too hard to reach them. I call it cult and fringe. Cult is your natural reader aka core. For a RedEye it's young, a mainstream paper old. I think RedEye does a fantastic job with its cult. They are new and pure."
• "My read: There's ONE important way to sell the change—SHOW THE PAPER. Let people touch, see and live with it. The worst thing would be a marketing slogan "Now...Your New Daily Paper...more concise...more engaging". That will likely come off as marketing BS that no-one will buy into. You gotta SHOW people the actual NEW newspaper."
• "NOTICABLY growing our products (vs. salvaging them) will likely do that. GROWING is the key word."
• "if we sell the outstanding content and prsent it in a more intelligent manner, it'll speak volumes."
• "Q: Editorial-wise, is some of what has been done traditionally now irrelevant?
  A: NOT IRRELIVENT BUT SUPERSCEDED BY OTHER MEDIA WHO DO WHAT NEWSPAPERS ONCE 'OWNED' BETTER."
• "THE ONLINE ARCHIVES! These are amazing! Yet, a mystery...hidden."
• "Are these amazing ideas? Not really."