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Michael Wolff
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how things work
not afraid to be servicey
Media Bitchery: The Definitive Bibliography
Think of how easy it might have been to understand Arianna Huffington's bloggy animus toward Tim Russert if there were a book out chronicling all the sordid details of their decade-and-a-half-long secret feud. (There is.) Every gossip-mongering gadabout should know the full backstory on every spat, falling out, and long-running mutual antagonism in media. Below are the volumes no shelf should be without. More »
refugees
Tina Brown "Still Having Trouble Getting Her Email"
The picture of the grandes dames of New York publishing, fighting for places aboard the internet lifeboats, is a source of endless amusement—not least because they bring their feuds with them. More »
new york times
Bloomberg Is No Savior
Oh no: yet another macher proposing mayor Michael Bloomberg step in to save the New York Times. This time it's Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff who, like the Wall Street Journal's former managing editor and that shouter from cable, believes the besieged newspaper could do worse than seek rescue by New York's billionaire mayor. More »
oops
Michael Wolff As PR Man
Why oh why did Michael Wolff ever abandon the comfortable world of print journalism to try his luck again at the internet tables? The Vanity Fair columnist, who documented his last business failure in the best-selling Burn Rate, is getting questions about the audience for his internet news venture, Newser. (Answer: actually, not hopeless.) But the new-fangled electronic mail can be so confusing. When briefing a colleague on a response to interrogation by Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici, Wolff made a common mistake: he hit the reply button, rather than forward. More »
lunch imbroglios!
Diner Owner, Tabloid Gossip Trash Michael Wolff
Gossip gal Liz Smith chats with Michael's owner Michael McCarty over at Radar. (What goes into a $35 burger? Uh, "Really good meat," allegedly. More accurately: "The price of real estate in Midtown Manhattan?") And then Michael gets to finally knife Vanity Fair writer Michael Wolff over his boycott of Michael's. More »
Is Michael Wolff for real? Now he's trashing his sole competitor in the Rupert Murdoch/News Corp. book game. He tells Keith Kelly, regarding Wall Street Journal reporter Sarah Ellison, who'll take a year off from the paper for her own book: "The problem with someone from The Wall Street Journal writing a book is that they are inevitably conflicted. Either they're bitter that Murdoch bought the place or they are trying to save their job." And no one's ever conflicted at all by years of sucking-up to moguls.
gone digital
The Week Print Media Is Dead: "Print Media Lives"
The future is digital! Print will never die! Media barons proved again this week that mixing a cocktail of print and digital, old and new, hot and cool media makes a tepid and kinda gross drink. Kinda like a Chocolate martini! It was a short but complicated week, chock full of conflicting messages about atoms and bytes. Let's recap! More »
cautionary tales
Michael Wolff And Newser: No Contract, No NDA
Last night Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn was host to a party for Napeolonic media mufti Michael Wolff and former New York mag honcho Caroline Miller's new project Newser, the web 1.0 news aggregator. Ten years ago, Michael Wolff wrote Burn Rate; it chronicled the spectacular failure of his first web venture, NetGuide. Along the way, Wolff seriously burned his backer Alan Patricof and nearly everybody else he worked with. SoMore »
yom kippur
One Last Atonement
Each year (or really, every 11 months and two weeks or so, kinda), the Jews observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, during which leather shoes and doing it are totally forbidden. Then there are many apologies. Emily did it, Balk did it, Josh did it. Choire may or may not be a Jew. Seriously, the family is still figuring it out. Weird time for the Czechs, the 1900s. More »
Miniature megalomaniac Michael Wolff stopped by Wall Street Journal editor at large Paul Steiger's office yesterday, presumably for "research" on his Rupert Murdoch-approved Rupert Murdoch biography. Apparently he's a very snazzy dresser.
Longtime journo and gay historian Charles Kaiser slaps hack Michael Wolff over Wolff's forthcoming hacky Rupert Murdoch bio, to be based on Wolff's hacky Murdoch profile in Vanity Fair: "Why write a love letter to the world's most amoral publisher at magazine length, when you can do the same thing at book length—and make even more money? After all, as even Wolff had the decency to acknowledge, Rupert has already put one member of the Wolff family on the News Corp. payroll." [Romenesko letters]
News aggregator Michael Wolff has signed a "high six-figure" deal to write a biography of Rupert Murdoch, who "absolutely plans to cooperate" with the mini-mogul aspirant. "I think the subject and the author were born to be put together," says Doubleday president and publisher Steve Rubin. Any further commentary would be superfluous, no? [NYP]
burn rates
Michael Wolff: Brand, Paradigm, Web, Reinvent, Delivery!
Would-be mogul and Vanity Fair media columnist Michael Wolff is finally going to get on this internet thing, but right-side up this time! Could it be? He thought blogs would be long gone by now. And his talks with "gay megagorilla" Barry Diller and Barry's guy Michael Jackson fell through. But he's forging ahead! Welcome to the beta of his website... Newser! It's Matt Drudge without the fun and the brilliant curation! It's Sploid without the monkeys and paranoia! It's TMZ but completely devoid of celebrities and urgency and puns. It's Yahoo! News without the exclamation point. It's the dullest thing I've seen all day, and I've been staring into a jar of pennies for the last half hour.
The Newsier Newser [Paid Content]
narcissists
Bitter Misguided Hack Reveals Self In Profile
Reading Michael Wolff's piece on Rudolph Giuliani in the new Vanity Fair—a portrait that paints America's Mayor as a crazed megalomaniac who delights in being an asshole and whose desperate need for attention results in his willingness to say or do anything, no matter how outlandish—leaves one with a deep and abiding certainty. Every article Michael Wolff writes about the character flaws of others is, at bottom, about Wolff himself. We're actually not sure why it took us this long to notice. Oh, and—is it us, or does Wolff just pop up with a piece once a year right around the annual magazine awards so "the important people" realize he's still alive? More »
media
Media Bubble: Yeah, Bill Clinton LOVED The 'Times'
michael wolff
Michael Wolff's Judith Regan Profile May Have Altered Our Fundamental View Of Humanity
Oooh, Michael Wolff's got a big Judith Regan analysis in March's Vanity Fair! Let's skim: Judy's not an anti-Semite, just a crazy person . . . perversely, she's a hero in a way . . . the last over the top tabloid personality . . . has a problem with authority . . . Rupert Murdoch's gone soft . . . Jane Friedman's a diva too in her own right . . . Yawn! Frankly, we were a bit more entertained when we read these tidbits last week, in Vanessa Grigoriadis's New York profile which also tilled this increasingly barren patch of earth. But wait! Turns out, Wolff does have something new to say: while Grigoriadis only crossed paths with Regan in a job interview, Wolff's had much more personal experience of her crazitude — they were school chums. Lucky Michael was even privy to Judy's bedroom secrets — and unless you stop reading now, soon you'll share in his good fortune. More »
michael wolff
