Alas! The BBC is cutting the pay of its top execs by 25%. How poor shall they now be? "The BBC currently spends about £79 million ($129.4 million) on pay for its 634 senior managers and nine most senior executives." Over $200K each, on average. Urchins.


Michael Wolff: "I picked up a recent column in the Spectator by the British writer Rod Liddle, who, next to me, is the best columnist in the English language." Ho hum, Michael Wolff. Ho hum.


A tipster tells us that Newsweek has shut down its L.A. and Dallas offices. Hmmm. We heard back in February the magazine was shutting down its LA and San Fran offices. So we're not sure how new this is. Or how it will affect the Historical Jesus. We've asked Newsweek to clarify for us, and we'll update when we know.
UPDATE: Newsweek tells us, "The Dallas office remains open. The LA office remains open. We combined the western region sales so it is run out of San Francisco instead of LA." Clarity on staffing levels, TK.
UPDATE 2: "The Dallas office was reduced by three and we still have a sales rep there," they say.


Keith Kelly says that the upcoming $100 million Time Inc. cuts will work out to about 540 layoffs. That's roughly the same as last year's monster Time Inc. layoff round, give or take 50 employees or so. Time Inc. will give, rather than take.

Representing the "Mainstream media" were SF Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein, NYT media columnist David Carr, and Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel. Representing the "New media" were public radio's John Hockenberry, Politico founder Jim Vandehei, and Vanity Fair columnist and author and Newser yakker Michael Wolff.

Notice anything? That's right, all of these people work in the "mainstream media." Politico, which was cast as some new media vanguard, is a print newspaper with a website. So is the New York Times. And the SF Chronicle! Which led to the main problem of the evening: the entire "debate" was semantic. Panelists spent much time declaring what they weren't arguing against: great journalism, democracy, freedom, media jobs, economic success, etc. That's because they were all on the same side, in reality. They are media people who would like to remain employed somehow, like everyone else. If the proposition had been "Good riddance to print as a medium," or "Good riddance to newspapers," it would have at least been intelligible and debatable; as it was, you had the "New media" people declaring that the way they did things was faster and smarter and more democratic, and then the "Mainstream media" people saying they also did things the same way, so what the hey were they even arguing about? I don't know.

Which is not to say it was not an entertaining evening! Mostly because of the sniping between Michael Wolff and David Carr, who have a history of mutual dislike. Carr gently pointed out that Michael Wolff was arguing for the abolition of the NYT while simultaneously running a website full of NYT excerpts; Wolff said all of Carr's stories are too long, anyhow.

Michael Wolff does not have a winning personality. He whines, he gesticulates annoyingly, he takes obviously ridiculous positions for the purpose of drawing attention to himself. He is a hypocrite, and sometimes embraces his own hypocrisy to, yes, draw attention to himself. That said, Michael Wolff is not afraid to be brutally honest. Which is something media reporting needs! He demonstrated that last night when—after a question from a Hearst lawyer in the audience, and while sitting on a stage with Phil Bronstein, editor of a Hearst paper—Wolff said (we're paraphrasing) "People don't like to say this in polite company, but Hearst's newspapers are really bad. So who cares if you go out of business?"

It's true! Props to you for that, Michael Wolff, you generally grating man.

But he got got, in the end. In Carr's closing statement, he whipped out a printout of Newser's front page. It's a cool site, check it out, yada yada yada, he said. Then Carr pulled out his show-and-tell version of Newser after the "Mainstream media" had been abolished. It was the same printout, full of holes, with every story painstakingly cut out.

Mainstream media is just new media that figured out how not to go out of business. Let's spend our time arguing about important things: Where to get a job.

Peter Jennings.: The youngest broadcast anchor on his level, for that time. The guy was 25 when he first got the anchor chair. 25! And he was a good lookin' kid! Jennings had four wives, each one as hot as the last (Kayce Freed was the last one, and dayum, son). Incredibly, he only managed to have two kids. Again, four wives, two kids, one of the most respected anchors of all time. How much ass do you think the guy got? Then again, he was a busy man. And also, he died four years ago, so...that's a strike against him. Pussyhound Rating: C-. Just because you're a serial monogamist doesn't mean you're a pussyhound. On the contrary, I'd think, unless you're in the business of dating Mormons.

Okay, so Charlie Rose might not seem like the biggest media pussyhound out there, but his longtime on-and-off girlfriend, socialite/city-planner Amanda Burden, is pretty hot for someone my mom's age. Also, well, he's just well known as one. Via CityFile:

Rose has long had a rep as a lady's man; a close friend of his once called him a "straight up horndog." Past conquests included Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House, media entrepreneur/art collector Louise MacBain, and media exec Marybel Batjer. For the past dozen or so years he's had an on-again, off-again relationship with socialite and city planning czaress Amanda Burden.

The aforementioned mom-aged hottie is also the stepdaughter of a co-founder of CBS. True story. And the guy's more or less been a bachelor for however many years since he got divorced from Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack's sister-in-law back in 1980. He never had kids and regrets it. But Rose still hits the town, though the ass he hits in it is up for contention these days.

Pussyhound Rating: B-. He could get around more if he tried. Or he should at least let us hear about it. Too much time at the table with Tom Friedman will fuck up your mojo, Chuck.

Dave Zinczenko, Dave Zinczenko, Dave Zinczenko. Where to begin? Let's see. Just look at him. The 39 year-old Men's Health editor-in-chief got AWESOME TIGHT ABS IN JUST TWO WEEKS, and knows SEX TIPS THAT'LL DRIVE HER UP THE WALL, so, that helps. He's generally known around town as a charmer and a nice guy. Nobody's ever called Dave Zinczenko a big dick. They have, however, spoken about his big dick. Yes: I've heard this rumor twice, from two completely unrelated people who don't know each other about Dave Z. The best quote I got on it:

Seriously, it's like a liter bottle of Canada Dry seltzer.

Women love him. He dated Rose McGowan, Mandy Moore, and yes: one Julia Allison. He rolls around town with his supposedly (or maybe not!..) big dicked friend, shady Mediaite/Abrams Research owner and conflict-of-interest perpetrator (penetrator?) Dan Abrams. When he tells you to Eat This, Not That, you know goddamn well what he's talking about: vagina. The stone cold healthy pimp holds court at The Waverly Inn all the time; maybe he's there now because Keith McNally booted him for fingerbanging fameballs under two-tops during dinner service.

Pussyhound Grade: A+ And yeah, we know, you're probably still dating a South African model (Melissa Milne) and can't be bothered to cooze on hoes with Donger Dan. But that still doesn't stop you from making the grade. If there's a reason to get into media, still, a career like yours is it.

Dan Abrams. O Danny Boy: the former MSNBC anchor, the lawyer son of famous Manhattan legal eagle Floyd Abrams, the aforementioned owner of Mediaite/Abrams Research, and most importantly, Dave Z's wingman. He's like a Yid version of Anderson Cooper, but straight, scruffy, and stormy. The guy survived testicular cancer (true), so he's one tough mediabro. Women like this. He pals around town with his homeboy Dave, and has no reluctance in monopolizing on hiring the high-profile vagina-obsessed women of New York's media. Dan was engaged to Law & Order actress Elisabeth Rohm and dated Renee Zellweger for a bit. He's now single and lives in a West Village bachelor pad where he takes home his conquests picked up on nights out with the Big Swinging D. Ah, but: the same rumor I heard about Dave's dong was the one I first heard about Dan's dong: that it's huge. But the counter that the big dick belongs to Dave and not Dan is somewhat credible because Dan's Jewish. And, well, yeah. Watch that video above.

Pussyhound Grade: B- Loosen up, Dan! You've got a burgeoning media website and consulting firm, you've got an awesome pussy magnet wingman, you've got a badass bachelor pad, and your Mediaite Power Ranking puts you two spots ahead of Geraldine Anne Ferraro. Why so serious? Whatever you do, don't shave the scruff. Chicks dig it, it makes you look a little more laid back than your tight-assed network appearances do. Do the Dave: Zen, Dan. Zen.

Bill O'Reilly! The pervy perv got sued for an especially pervy sexual harassment lawsuit he had to settle. The lawsuit had some great bits, including one about how he wants to take you on a Caribbean vacation and rub this falafel thing on you (?!), and how he'll tell you about the things a Thai hooker showed him that "blew his mind," or maybe the time he lost his virginity at JFK to two Scandinavian stewardesses. Or! He'll tell you to buy yourself a vibrator and jack off while he does it. Fuck it, you know? He'll do it live.

Pussyhound Rating: B+ O'Reilly's the Real McCoy, but works too hard to quiet his dalliances, who all seem to push back a little. Lawsuits and the like set him back from a high A to a high B, because if there's one thing that'll quickly stop you from getting some ladyparts, it's a labor law violation and punitive damages. Heh. Pun-itive.

Chris Berman, right? As far as sports broadcasters go, Boomer's the be-all-end-all pussyhound. Maybe you know the story that spawned a million. This is legendary:

A friend of mine just told me he's getting married. When he gave me the news I immediately thought of the time we were in Scottsdale at spring training, because it's the best pickup story I've ever been a party to. It was about nine years ago, and I actually forget the bar. But my friend was seriously putting the moves on this somewhat attractive young woman, who was wearing leather pants and had a leather jacket draped over her lap. They had been chatting at the bar for about an hour, and my friend thought he was in the house. I had never seen someone work so hard for a score.

But just as he was putting on the finishing touches, Chris Berman walks by. And without even breaking stride, Berman looks at the girl, points and says "You're with me, leather." And the girl looks up, instantly recognizes Berman, snatches up her jacket and walks out with him, leaving my friend in mid-sentence.

Nothing's been the same since.

More stories about the Bermanator came out: He's chillin' with our Deadspin operatives. He's with purple. He's with computer chicks. He's with Michael Irvin's women. Who isn't Chris Berman with?

Pussyhound Rating: A. He's got it down to a science, to the point where he's even made immortal catchphrases out of being a professional pussyhound. Berman makes other pussyhounds look like...amateurs.

Tragically, the NFL took down the clip of Cris Collinsworth—possibly ironically—talking about the tail he loved to pull back in the day. The former NFL threepeat Pro Bowl-er and John Madden's replacement as one of NBC's Sunday Night Football commentators, now a family man, apologized profusely after the clip leaked. That still won't stop me from quoting him:

I'm not gonna deny it, I walk around with hundred dollar bills hanging out of my pocket...I like girls that aren't too bright because you can trick 'em a little bit...high school girls love me. Fourteen to eighteen, I'm a big star with them. As soon as they mature, after they turn 18 years old, they start to figure it out.

Pussyhound Grade: Honorary Mention. He apologized. And whether it was satire or sincere, it was brilliant. But come on: like he wasn't one, you know?

Oh, Vanity Fair columnist and Newser newsbro Michael Wolff. We couldn't help but use your porn-stachstic author's pic from White Kids because it's so smug and kinda I-Just-Got-My-Balls-Sucked, it just fits, you know? Where to begin with you? You've got it all going on, man! A startup website that's seen plenty of cash come in (as for cash coming out, well...). Your marriage to Alison Anthoine dissolved after you were found out to be hooking up with Vanity Fair intern Victoria Floethe. Nice. Gives me hope for going bald, you know? You're still writing things and giving people media crits and you always seem to get back on your feet, more so than most, despite lacking media cred. Your website now plays lame SEO games to pick up traffic under the guise of aggregating important political discussion, when really, you're just talking about your dick. It's just sensationalized bullshit, but then again, I wouldn't really know, because I can never get past the headlines. Maybe that's the point, though: as long as you get the clicks, you're good. And those Steven Tyler-esque lips must be good for something.

Pussyhound Grade: C- That intern is hot, but (A) she's the only one we know about and (B) you got caught, dumbass.

They are still full of self-serving lies! Don't worry about that! Sarah Palin would never let her name be attached to anything that wasn't full of self-serving lies. But, man, her Wall Street Journal editorial today? So boring.

She quotes Ronald Reagan's famous speech against socialized medicine, which was, of course, his speech against the creation of Medicare, and then she accuses the Democrats of wanting to gut Medicare, but then she paraphrases a Cato Institute libertarian describing his preferred health care plan, which would presumably involve the complete eradication of Medicare—not sure how seniors would feel about that one, Sarah!—and also "death panels" again, because why not. Blah blah. You can read anything Jon Cohn has written over the last couple months if you want the fact-based version of what Palin is talking about.

Oh, but Michael Wolff is totally psyched about this incredibly mundane column! "Sarah Palin is Back — and Out for Blood," he says. He thinks the fact that she has a staff of researchers and writers means that she is "the conservative standard-bearer" and "a force to be reckoned with," because remember when she had the finest writers, researchers, and staff the Republican Party machine could provide and she won the Vice Presidency and didn't embarrass herself at all, even once? No, we don't remember that either, because she melted down from the pressure. Literally any moron can buy an op-ed, and any Republican moron can get that op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

But who is writing her boring/evil new Facebook updates? (It is probably just Bill Kristol, actually.)

Newser.com, the aggregation site run by Most Important Man In The Media Michael Wolff, has seen its traffic fall by about two thirds since May. This is directly attributable to Michael Wolff being annoying.


Rupert Murdoch's paycheck this year plunged 40%, to $18 million. His wrinkles held steady, at a skillion. Tangentially related: News Corp is folding its free London commuter paper.

The latest on the Tribune "saga," of Sam Zell slowly being shown the door, and told to walk the fuck through it:

Tribune Co. said its ownership is likely to change as the newspaper-and-television company emerges from bankruptcy-court protection, a shift that people familiar with the matter say would likely put the company in the hands of its lenders and shrink primary debt by more than 90%.

Lefty magazine The Progressive, needs to raise $90,000 in the next two weeks or it will fold. Now you cannot cry ignorance.

Here's what Michael Wolff got out of the it: his marriage broke up and everyone started making fun of him and, as far as we know, the long-promised Vanity Fair tell-all on the affair has been killed. But: a bunch of people have been talking about him, and he got to have sex with a 20-something for a while! And, really, sex with someone other than his wife and the attention of other people is all Michael Wolff really wants, at the end of the day.

As for Victoria? Well, she got internet famous!

Oh but that is just one of the eye-shuttening comments from the famous shouty internet guy and former important talker-about-powerful-people in this wonderful WWD profile of Wolff.

Wolff used to be a beloved and serious New York magazine writer and book author. (This amazing portrait of Wolff as a young porn star dates to the 1979 publication of his serious novel about disaffected '70s youth.) And now he runs a website, and is sometimes on Page Six because he had an affair with an intern. No matter, though! He was right, back in the day, that newspapers and magazines were in trouble. But nowadays he tends to be wrong about things much more often than he is right, and in fact he does not really seem to care about being "right" so much as he cares about GRABBING SOME EYEBALLS. The internet has destroyed him again!

For him, grabbing eyeballs in an accelerated, competitive news cycle has meant the cheap high of a provocative headline and choosing a hot-button subject based on its momentary buzz, not on whether he has an argument about it. And if he lacks the command he had when opining on New York power players, well, the old days of cocktail party chatter as feedback are mostly gone. The noisy post on David Carr got 1,000 pageviews, but "Is Barack Obama a Bore?" got 80,000. That few care as much about the media as it cares about itself is now measurable.

He would've gotten 800,000 views if he'd written "Is Barack Obama a Muslim Bore." Does he know?

Critics point out that even as Wolff is dancing on newspapers' graves, Newser relies on their content. He responds the site is increasingly relying on native online sources like Politico, though it overwhelmingly features newspaper content summarized by paid writers.

And, hey, what is Politico again? It is a money-losing website attached to a possibly profitable little local newspaper. Not that you would know this if you read his Vanity Fair piece about how revolutionary Politico is. The one that ran months after Wolff said no one cared about Politico and it would never make money. We guess over the course of a couple months he came to see how good they were at grabbing eyeballs with provocative headlines and such!

These days, Wolff lives in the East Village, and he doesn't have a doorman anymore, and he is rude to waitstaff, which is actually pretty much unforgivably assholish, we don't care what you wrote.

Sez the former writer:

"One of my frustrations about the place," Cloud continued, "I'm used to covering those things straight, by straight I didn't mean they were pressuring me to inject some point of view into a story. It's all done through the lens, ‘what does this mean for Obama?' It's an important lens to view things through, but it's not the only lens I wanted to view those events through."

It was also a problem that they wanted—needed!—him to file constantly, because he was their only person covering, you know, "foreign policy, defense, Obama's position in the world," and lots of other things that aren't easy to find a quick and convenient Matt Drudge-baiting "hook" for.

And this is what Mr. Wolff said about the Politico last fall:

"It's the highest form of naiveté to think there's a sea change in our interest in politics. There's a hardcore interest among a relatively small group who are interested in politics. Those people will always be there, but they are not a business. Just because this has been an exciting election with some novel figures in it, it's absurd to assume that represents a sea change in our interest in politics… By that logic, you could have made a media business out of a news event like hurricane Katrina. That's exactly what this is: people are not interested in politics."

Hah. We would be interested in "Hurricane Katrina Monthly," though!

And god, it is terrible! It is about how right-wing dinosaur book author Michael Crichton once said newspapers would die, because newspapers are dumb, and now, look: they are dead! Except for Politico, which is a little tiny Washington DC newspaper with a money-losing website. It is revolutionary! How is it revolutionary? Because it is a bunch of loser DC wonks talking to each other about loser DC wonk stuff, and many of its reporters appear on TV all the time. Breaking!

Oh, good, another opportunity for John Harris to say some of this crap:

News organizations, in the Harris-VandeHei-Allen formulation, are deadweight. Institutional authority, which once defined journalists-"The most important words were what came after your name: ‘I'm John Harris of The Washington Post'"-has increasingly become an indication of mediocrity. "In 2006 we didn't yet know that newspapers were dead," Harris continued, in my conversation with him one afternoon in Politico's Virginia offices. "I think we thought they'd drag on, but the institutional age of newspapers was clearly over. What mattered was the individual talents and reputations of journalists. The best journalists had broken free. The best have their own names. They were carrying the business."

Yes, ok, well—try calling up the White House as "John Harris from Boner Party" and see if anyone will talk to you, John!

Still: revolution! Because Mike Allen links to a lot of stuff, every morning, and everyone who matters reads those links. Just like The Note, back in 1910 or whenever that was a thing people read. Or like Drudge! Or like I.F. Stone!

But Politico is not making money, for anyone—just like... a newspaper? How is this revolutionary, again? It is a couple of blogs—some of them very good!—and Drudge-bait articles offering "attention-grabbing" takes on non-events.

This has worked-sort of. Politico puts its current traffic at 6.7 million unique visitors per month (down from a high of more than 11 million during the campaign), yet it still can't support its staff of about 100 on the Internet's low advertising rates (although, with its agenda-moving audience and its preponderance of advocacy advertisers, it manages to get a higher rate than most sites).

And, weirdly, it makes its money with its little Roll Call-style tabloid physical newspaper! Revolutionary! (If that newspaper is actually making money, yet?)

It is perhaps useless to argue whether this is good or bad. Rather, the world is as it is.

It is perhaps useless to argue whether this article has made a single point, about anything! It is what it is. A stupid article that is full of bullshit about a stupid website that is full of bullshit from a man who should definitely sit down and write that affair story before we lose interest.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The stories of Vibe's dead are trickling in. Here's a good/bad one: a photographer named David Anthony found out in the middle of a photo shoot for Vibe that the magazine was folding. He finished up, so as not to disappoint the subject, and will probably give the photos to the kid he was photographing. He seems like a nice guy so maybe toss him some work! Also The Root has a decent eulogy for the magazine.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The cheeky headline of Michael Wolff's column today: "Do You Use a Vibrator?" Quiet, Michael Wolff.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Fired Washington Post columnist/ blogger Dan Froomkin: "Not offending people is not a business model, you've got to have something to say." Right you are, Dan Froomkin. That's why you are more interesting than the Washington Post's editorial board.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A tipster tells us that yesterday's layoffs at Spin comprised about 20% of the entire staff—more than ten people. The magazine's freelancers were all dropped, an editorial assistant and some sales staffers were fired, and the art department and the website were hit hard, we hear. If you're a former staffer who'd like to gripe, email us.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Sunny newspaper news of the day: McClatchy could default on its debt by the end of the year, meaning the company could face bankruptcy; MediaNews is facing an ugly credit picture; and a financial planning trade association wrote a PR column on planning for retirement and managed to place it in several different papers across the country, under different bylines. PR hit of the week!

Well, Michael, maybe you like Silvio Berlusconi because, as you point out, he spends his time frolicking with topless women half his age and getting a divorce? Is there anything going on in your life that could cause you to relate to that?

No, the reason Wolff likes Berlusconi is that he lives a life without consequences:

He's been indicted a vast number of times, always escaping through some form of banana republic or slapstick jurisprudence, and doing it with almost no pretense that he's not doing it. Getting away with it has become part of his charm. [Emphasis ours.]

Speaking of consequences: When we got an e-mail last night with a link to Wolff's new column in the July issue of Vanity Fair, we were excited—for once!—to read it. We'd been awaiting what we'd heard would be a lengthy confessional examination of Wolff's affair with a 28-year-old Vanity Fair intern named Victoria Floethe, the subsequent dissolution of his marriage, and the gossip machinery that kicked into gear to publicize the mess. We knew it was coming because Wolff had come by the office to interview our boss Nick Denton for the story—way back in March. It sounded like a nifty idea.

But sadly no. Wolff instead has chosen to write about the Obama press shop, which he finds "brilliant and successful and certainly calculated." But it has a sinister side: With the mainstream newspapers dying before their eyes and the upstart—and partisan—digital media hungry for any old handout, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and his co-horts are "in greater control of the media than any administration before them." That does sound bad, but we wonder if Wolff's column might have come out a little sunnier had he not been forced to write this humbling paragraph:

Even though I've been invited to the White House for a talk with Gibbs, there's an abrupt cancellation when, after some chitchat with Burton, it becomes clear that my interest is in process rather than, per se, message. And then a kind of sudden vaporization-no Gibbs, according to Marissa Hopkins, his assistant, "for the foreseeable future."

That's right—the savvy bastards were on to him. What sort of manipulative power-mongers are these, who don't want to talk about process and insist on substance?

We e-mailed Wolff to ask him when the good-sounding column will come out. He replied, "Right now, Obama administration [sic] seems more pressing than my personal life—an evergreen if there ever was one." That sounded to us like it got killed. But no, he says: "Yet to be written. Will keep you posted." Please do, Michael.

Andy Borowitz helped us step into Dimension X when he wrote (a satirical piece; update below) earlier this week about a University of Minnesota School of Journalism conference, in which some serious self-doubt commenced over whether or not media organizations have managing covering the Jon and Kate saga proficiently:

"You open the New York Times, and what do you see?" said Davis Logsdon, Dean of Minnesota's journalism school. "Kim Jong-Il, Sonia Sotomayor — but not a word about Jon and Kate."

Mr. Logsdon said that if the media continued to ignore important stories like Jon and Kate, "they will continue their slide into irrelevance."

His umbrella positioning and bizarre ass-backwards logic about why the media's becoming irrelevant aside, he's right: there are important issues to cover regarding this thing. Child labor laws - which the show is currently being investigated over - childrens' mental health care issues, the distinction of labor laws as they pertain to "reality" television programming, maybe even something on what it's like to insure eight kids, and how insurance companies view the parents and surrounding factors as variables and liabilities. Another one of the panel's attendees was thinking of something slightly different:

Tracy Klugian, who heads the Center for Reality Show Media Studies, said that the media are leaving major questions unanswered: "Is Jon really having a fling with the 23-year-old schoolteacher? And what about Kate and the bodyguard? The American people look to the media to investigate these issues, and the fact that they haven't done their job is a scandal."

Or, in other words: if we don't get on this Jon and Kate thing now, journalism's fucked!

Now, yes, this is just some assclown in a room saying assclownish things. But there're a few pretty frightening elements about this, chief among them being that (1) they're telling budding writers to pen Jon and Kate stories under the pretenses that the people need to know those things, which is ridiculous - if the New York Times should write about Jon and Kate, at the most craven level, it's because of the SEO traffic; and (2) this is an actual journalism school, teaching actual students how to go about working as actual, real (!) journalists. Everyone's getting hosed, whether it's the Nu Class themselves or the readers of whatever papers these kids get farmed out to.

Meanwhile, people other than supermarket tabloids (and us) are actually starting to write about Jon and Kate. The aforementioned story about the show being investigated for labor law violations is a start in the right direction, and the New York Post recently made some decent - if not, tabloid-flavored - attempts at putting together a coherent picture of the perks said "reality" stars are getting as well as devoting a recent wide-eyed 2,100 words to documenting the phenomenon (that manages to get the headline wrong and heartily begin with an H.L. Mencken quote).

Elsewhere, however: the New York Times' Gail Collins thinks the TV show is a bad idea, wow, the HuffPo has conspiracy theories, and Michael Wolff is off doing other batshit things, like comparing Jon and Kate Gosselin to Sonia Sotomayor, which I can't even begin to explain.

Insert any ideals about journalism you might have here: there's a story to be had, a real scoop, something that the public wants to know about Jon and Kate that we haven't been given yet. Maybe something that isn't a cross-section of an actual news organization and TMZ. Maybe that's why the Jon and Kate story really is important to the media: it's one giant test being taken in real time, that's going to dictate what's news and what isn't when it comes to the realm of celebrity. And people want the news, right?

Maybe. In the mean time, here's Jon shopping at Barney's. Here's the family on vacation. Here's a body-language expert talking about how sad Kate is. And here's the story about the show not going anywhere, anytime soon.

That's not the worst part: while the lifestyle, Kate's hair, and Jon's "job" might be fake, the kids are still real. And it will continue to look this ugly from every. Single. Angle for as long as this goes on.

Media Faulted for Lack of "Jon and Kate" Coverage [HuffPo]

Update: Commenters pointed out that I was fooled by the Huffington Post - looks like Borowitz is a comedy writer. Ha, even though I couldn't really tell, because it came up on my feed as news. Distinguish, goddamnit! Either way, he got me. But Borowitz, to his credit, wrote a piece of satire that could be read as news, which there's something to be said about (besides my inane research skills). The other examples cited here - Michael Wolff, Gail Collins, the Post, the Daily News, and the AP reports - are all real, so I'm sticking with this as a serious news cycle issue (and how mainstream media's going to treat it being a serious question). But, yup: Gawker Weekend Writer hosed, to hysterical, self-serious effect. Mea culpa.

So Michael Wolff basically says "Well I asked the question because it's on everyone's minds and I am a very brave man." He goes on about how people think Sotomayor might be gay and Condi Rice might be gay and "The retiring Justice Souter, everyone seems to assume, is gay." The payoff:

I don't care (really). On the other hand, I wouldn't mind knowing.

Good insight, Michael Wolff. You are the Mary Rambin of media columnists. Can't wait for your heartfelt Vanity Fair piece about how wrong News Corp. was for writing about your sex life.
[Newser]

Dov Charney has used a photographic approach that might be characterized as underage retro porn as American Apparel's branding theme. Charney, who often takes the pictures himself, recently approached my daughter in Union Square Park in New York and gave her his business card in case she ever wanted to model for him.

Wolff's daughter Elizabeth is roughly 25 years old, according to this 2005 interview, so she's old enough to know better and hopefully didn't follow up with Charney. But if Wolff wants to keep her away from New York's seedier side, he might want to stop taking her to blogger parties.

UPDATE: A tipster tells us Charney approached Susanna Wolff, not Elizabeth. Susanna appears to be a student at Columbia and a College Humor intern. We should have known that at 25, Elizabeth Wolff is too old for Charney. Gawker regrets the error.

[Via Mondoweiss.]

Michael Wolff is sort of a full-time dick, but you do have to marvel at his businesslike way of tossing out insults. Count em:

David Carr, who writes about the media for the New York Times, and who I've never personally liked very much (we were colleagues at New York magazine, where he would stand too close and bray rhetorical statements and open-ended questions)...

It's always been amazing to me how little Carr knows about business. I couldn't say if it has to do with his schooling or his own intellectual limitations, but the guy is really quite a nitwit...

Almost all business reporters at all newspapers (and, likely, all reporters on all subjects) seem often to be semi-retarded (Carr is by no means the biggest dope on the Times' business desk; and his colleagues at the Globe barely make the effort to publish a sentient business page)...

Ha, whoa now! "Semi-retarded," "nitwit." We sense a bit of personal bile. Wolff's piece is nominally about a column that Carr wrote, but really it's his revenge against Carr for panning Wolff's biography of Rupert Murdoch in the NYT Book Review. Hey Mike, when you make it this obvious, it doesn't really work. News Corp's methods are rubbing off on you.
[Newser]

Time's cover story this week: "The New Frugality." Businessweek's cover story, 10/20/08: "The New Frugality." Hmmm.


On a panel last night, media beef-starter Michael Wolff said the following things: 80% of newspapers will be dead by the end of next year, TV networks will soon have minuscule audiences, Time Warner and all other media conglomerates will cease to exist in five years, and photographers are talentless hacks. We'll throw in one: Michael Wolff will be voted "Most Popular Guy in Media" in the next seventeen minutes.


Following a disastrous first quarter, the NYT Co's CFO says that "a good part" of the company's job cuts this year are "behind us," and severance cuts shouldn't be as bad as last year. Which, upon review, means very little.

The publisher of Portfolio explains that if you think the magazine is not doing well just because it lost half its advertising and cut back to ten issues, you're not looking at the big picture: "Versus our initial audit statement, total circ is up 19 percent and paid is up 43 percent. And the rate base is up 14 percent. Our success is not judged on ad pages. The questions we respond to are ‘Is the magazine relevant? Is it becoming a part of the culture? Are readers renewing?' That's what we're being judged on." If circ ever declines, look for Li to say they're being judged on good binding, glossiness of paper, and the mere existence of the magazine.


Former Conde Nast editorial director James Truman has taken a new gig consulting for a custom publisher, but his real passion is his magic circus company. Good for him, we say!

A finance blogger thinks that Esquire will fold before the end of next year. We don't think he's right, and his reasoning is incomplete, and we'd like to defend Esquire here, but then they have to go and issue an apology for telling guys to learn how to curse well by calling someone a "shit-sniffing faggot." Which is just not acceptable in 2009, unless you can sell advertising against it.


A true outrage at Newsweek—a tipster writes: "I work in the Newsweek building on 57th street. The bathroom on my floor has a noxious odor coming from it and despite multiple complaints to building management, we have been told that they will not address it because we will be moving...in over a month. The odor is a combination of sewage and gasoline.
The building has already changed the address so that mail does not arrive and does not seem concerned that we are working in a construction zone, which requires security guards to wear face masks; but this is unacceptable. We work for 9 hours a day, and to not be able to go to the bathroom is unheard of!" Hey just hold it in, we're in a recession!

Wolff, a Vanity Fair contributing editor and media critic and internet-ranter, is apparently writing a piece for VF on how to handle a well-publicized personal scandal, which Eliot Spitzer is coincidentally also doing right now! So, you know, it's a little bit odd for Wolff to not mention that fact in his dispassionate and non-judgmental review of the Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive-sponsored reintroduction of whoremaster/former New York governor Eliot Spitzer.

Like with very few changes we will probably be able to write these words about Michael Wolff's upcoming Vanity Fair story, right?

I'm trying to parse the Spitzer-Newsweek deal. In effect, Newsweek, by reporting on Spitzer's rehabilitation, is rehabilitating its own asset.

My curiosity here has nothing to do with whether Spitzer should be rehabilitated or not, but with the commercial nature of the effort, and, too, the who-knows-whom-in-the-media-power-structure aspects of the comeback.

Right. See, Spitzer gets to use Newsweek for his own PR ends because he's wealthy and really well-connected in Manhattan media circles, which Wolff illustrates by telling the story of being introduced to Spitzer by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter at a book party for a New York Times editorial board member at the home of Steve Rattner. Michael Wolff is an expert on the incestuous New York media! And image rehab!

Anyway. Eliot's rehab is a well-orchestrated campaign, while Wolff admirably doesn't seem to give much of a shit what you think of his behavior (we think he picked a really unappealing, unpleasant woman to make his mistress, but we're sure she'd think the same of us, because we are under 40 and have never worked for Conde Nast). Still. You know. It's funny. We're just saying!