A magazine called KUSH LA gives a glimpse of what it takes to bring in print subscribers these days: "In the August edition of KUSH, readers will find a coupon offering the first 100 coupon holders a free 8th of marijuana to 'new patients.'" It won't be long until magazines are giving out free hits of heroin. Sustainable business model, at least.


Ha, this email went out to all employees at Incisive Media this morning. Morale!

Subject: Employee Appreciation Week - We Want To Know
We Want To Know

As a part of Employee Appreciation Week We Want to Know...

"What is your favorite thing about working for Incisive Media?"

Please e-mail your response no later then 3:00 PM today — only one
entry per employee please. All submissions will be entered into a
drawing to win a $25.00 gift card from a list of retailers (including
Barnes & Noble, The Gap, Banana Republic, Home Depot, Olive Garden, and
Bath & Body Works).

We look forward to hearing your responses. If you have any questions,
please let us know.

For $25 maybe they'll make something up.


Jason Horowitz, the chief political reporter at the New York Observer, is leaving to join the Style section of the Washington Post. Job or at least maybe some freelancing opportunities temporarily available at the NYO, maybe!


Roger Ebert has been clean and sober for 30 years today. He tells his entire A.A. story on his blog. Wowza. Thirty years is a long time.

In 2007, at the height of Facebook buzz, the startup was red-hot, a recruiting machine which could poach employees from a then-untouchable Google. Since then — and especially since Sandberg signed on — the company has been more known for the employees it's lost than the star hires it's made.

Qi Lu, formerly one of Yahoo's brightest tech executives, accepted the CTO job at Facebook, and then reneged on his agreement and joined Microsoft as its online chief instead. Pankaj Gupta, an algorithms expert heavily courted by Facebook, went to Twitter. And we hear there may be more defections in the business-development department, where Dan Rose's incompetent management is steadily driving talent away. We hear Richard Cooperstein, who gave up a senior vice president job at Disney to join Facebook as a director, is thinking about leaving.

The many people who passed on Facebook job offers must surely be congratulating themselves on their decisions. If they hadn't they'd now be filling out "awesomeness" surveys.

A tipster tells us:

[Ask] for results of the employee satisfaction/morale survey called the "awesomeness survey." You'll find that the results were not so awesome, in fact... Very not awesome.

Awww, buck up little Facebookers! Tell us what's got you so down.

And Sheryl? Before you haul off and shoot us, remember that violence never solved anything. Here's a good-will gift: some Successories posters you might want to put up around the office before the next "awesomeness" survey.

According to multiple sources at the Times, new publisher Eddy Hartenstein has been calling it "treason" for employees to share information with LA Observed...

And yet, solid sources have let me know that current Times leadership is unhappy enough (or paranoid enough) about stuff getting out to consider action against staffers.

Yes, they can sue all the employees that aren't already suing them! It's just common sense, people. As Lee Abrams said, "Are these amazing ideas? Not really." [LAO]