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New York Times

corrections

'Times' Mistakes Security Guard For Someone They Care to Talk To

Well. The Times sent some poor stringer to ask about salmon diseases at some port in Chile. Fun gig! One can understand why he was maybe inclined to get his interviews done and get the hell out. Fish smells gross! Still, he might've wanted to ask around a bit more after his interview with the "port director." He might've learned that that guy was, in fact, the security guard. "Had The Times been aware of his actual position at the time, it would not have cited him as an authority on the contents of the bags, which were labeled medicated food." Well heck, why didn't the Times just say "the port director might've said" and saved themselves the trouble of getting that pretend expert opinion? Text of the correction below. More »

new york times

Why Is Arthur Sulzberger Getting Divorced?

The New York Times publisher and his wife Gail Gregg said their decision to divorce was "amicable"—which nobody believes. Divorces are never amicable. There's no information beyond the statement, buried on a Friday afternoon: even the Post, which would normally relish the opportunity to embarrass the liberal snobs at the Times, left the story alone. So here's some speculation from the gossip mill to fill the vacuum. 1. " I always just assumed a guy who still carried around a stuffed moose was either a plushie or a furry and therefore not interested in vaginal sex," says one gossip. 2. Given the Times' lackluster share price under Sulzberger's rule, and collapsing advertising revenues, the motives could have been financial. "She probably wants a divorce while he's still worth something." 3. Most likely: the younger girlfriend. Sulzberger and his wife, both 56, have been married for 33 years. Anyone know who the new model is?

journalismism

Times' Lavish Coverage Of Own Executive Infuriates Newsroom, Says Tipster

Alyse Myers, a Times vice president, recently published a book about her cruel mother. Perhaps you heard about it last week in the Times, where it received a glowing if stilted and end-spoiling review. Or perhaps you missed that review but caught Myers' essay in this past Sunday's Times magazine, in which Myers revisits the topic of her mom, and gets another nice plug for her book. Granted, it was Mother's Day Sunday, so the book was topical. And, granted, Myers' employ at the Times was disclosed in both articles. But so much kind coverage so quickly on a Times executive lends at least the appearance of favoritism. And according to one email tipster, Times staffers are upset not only at appearances, but at Myers' behavior, as well: More »

break-ups

Times Publisher and Wife Split

"Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, and his wife, Gail Gregg, have decided to separate, they said in a statement issued Friday. Mr. Sulzberger, 56, who is also publisher of The Times, and Ms. Gregg, also 56 and a painter and writer, said the decision to end their marriage was amicable." More »

Hook Up With Fellow New York Times Readers Every exhausted old institution now has a revivifying social network, the Gray Lady included. I'm told a browser plug-in is now available in beta, allowing users to contact each other and chat about articles—or hook up, more likely. Can't wait to see who proprietor Arthur Sulzberger includes in his buddy list! This will be so much fun—or would be, if only I could get hold of the plug-in. Help!

shouters

The Loudest Mouth At The New York Times?

This week Susan Edgerley, an assistant managing editor, is answering questions from the public on the New York Times' website. Her job, according to her, is "to listen to the career aspirations of the people in the newsroom and help them realize them," and to help the paper integrate its web and print operations more closely. But according to a tipster with a grudge, Edgerley's real title at the Times should be Shouter-In-Chief!: More »

new york times

David Carr Was A 'Fulminating Crackhead'

David Carr is a charming and competent media reporter, commuting to the New York Times from bourgeois Montclair where he lives with wife Jill and three children. But once he was in his own words a fulminating crackhead. Here's a sample from his forthcoming addiction memoir, obtained by Daily Intel: "Both of us were chronically, psychotically high, and I was spending all of my time lifting the blinds and peeking out at a world that I was increasingly scared to venture into."

trendbusting

Steampunk

Steampunk! According to the NYT's Thursgay Styles, it's a "subculture that is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, one that embraces music, film, design and now fashion, all inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives." They describe steampunkers as fusspots with a taste for gaslight-era style: "he owns a flat-screen television, but he has modified it with a burlap frame. He uses an iPhone, but it is encased in burnished brass." But steampunk's been around for a while, of course. Despite the length of the piece, glossed over is the fact that this hot new movement started with a book called the Difference Engine—in 1990! More »

new york times

At Easy-Going New Times, Experts Don't Need To Be Real

There are several ways for reporters to sneak opinion into the supposedly hallowed news pages of the New York Times. The opinion can be dressed up as a "point of view"—which is different, somehow, executive editor Bill Keller recently explained in an interview with the newspaper's public editor. Or, in time-honored fashion, the reporter can simply find an academic or other expert to parrot the sentiment. But there's a third way: don't bother finding a real authority, which is so tiring; just make up the source, as the newspaper's John Broder just did, in today's article on Hillary Clinton's bitter-ender campaign: "A pop psychologist might say that Mrs. Clinton was showing symptoms of denial or of being divorced from reality, but she has said for months that she will not quit as long as there remains a mathematical possibility that she could capture the nomination."

Times Forced Out 15, Faces Grievance The Post's Keith Kelly has been keeping close watch on the Times' recently-completed cull of 100 editorial staffers. He puts the number pushed out involuntarily at 15. Meanwhile the Newspaper Guild has filed a grievance over the way the cuts were carried out, and offered to negotiate better severance for older laid-off newsroom employees.

newspapers

Why The Times Should Abandon The News-Opinion Divide

When Microsoft's bid for Yahoo fell through, hotshot reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin produced a scathing analysis of the deal-making skills of the Redmond software giant's boss, Steve Ballmer. 'Microsoft has tried to spin its reversal as a show of “discipline” and “self-control.” But what it really shows — painfully — is Mr. Ballmer’s indecisiveness about this deal.' Ouch! And fun! But you won't find Bill Keller and his fellow editors boasting about Sorkin's punchiness: because they're still in denial about the blurring of news and opinion, and so much else. More »

jesus christ

Sometimes It Hurts to Be Right

Gawker, yesterday: "Anyway we can't wait to see what new way [Maureen Dowd] comes up with of calling Barack Obama a fag tomorrow." Maureen Dowd, today: "As she makes a last frenzied and likely futile attempt to crush the butterfly, it's as though she's crushing the remnants of her own girlish innocence." Guess who the "butterfly" is. [NYT]

breaking

The Times' Stealth Layoffs

The New York Times—reeling with the rest of the newspaper industry as advertising dollars and readers shift to the web—has completed its first ever newsroom layoffs. Editor Bill Keller told staff this morning that the newspaper had completed the cull of about 100 reporters and editors it began earlier this year. More »

fifth columnists

Maureen Dowd Unconcerned About Fake News

Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd sat down with the kids at the Harvard Political Review and discussed the important issue of "real news" verus "fake news." The debate has raged for years now, and it pits the network evening news against Comedy Central, basically. The New York Times counts as "real news," even though they publish Dowd's column. Dowd, obv, is unworried about this pretend news crisis. Because, she would like to remind you, she invented it! Sort of. More »

boldface names

Former 'Times' Gossip Now Just Publishing Sketchbook in Paper

Campbell Robertson used to have what seemed to be the most fun job at the New York Times: writing Boldface Names with crazy Joyce Wadler. Then the Times killed that bizarre little corner of the Metro section and Campbell was sent to the Broadway beat. Recently, though, he's ended up on the campaign trail, where he apparently been drawing funny pictures. In the last week, the Times has brought us three installments of Robertson's funny pictures from his trip to North Carolina, where he's been talking to voters and attending campaign events and, uh, cartooning. Doesn't the Times already have professional cartoonists on staff? Is Robertson auditioning to illustrate an issue of American Splendor? We love him, but surely there are plenty of other "occasional cartoonists" on staff they could send to upcoming primary states. Adam Nagourney's might be pretty funny. He probably draws everyone with really big heads and tiny mopeds!

how things work

It Happens: a Totally Mean Book Review

We're all for telling it like it is in book reviews, but this Sunday's review of Harry, Revised by Troy Patterson in the New York Times, seems extraordinarily mean-spirited, even unusually so. Among many things, Patterson mentions that the book "does not seem to have been reread, never mind revised," that its author Mark Sarvas writes "about 'old money' in a fashion indicating that he's never met anyone in possession of it," that it contains "a kind of coarse banality that may have found a new exemplar," and (drumroll, please) "that you are reading a review of this novel in these pages is a testament to the author's success as a blogger." A backhanded compliment, that last one! We had to ask author Sarvas: did he, like, do something to piss off Troy Patterson, who is a TV critic for Slate and a film critic for Spin? More »

things we actually like

NYT Review of Madonna Concert a Little Slice of Awesome

Clearly inspired by the much-vaunted free Madonna show at an "intimate" 2,000-capacity theater last night, the New York Times review got a little wild, describing her fans as "screamy" and quoting a 28-year-old about her look for the evening: "stewardess-Madonna-tricky-tranny." The show was only thirty minutes long; one Madonnagay told the Times that "Gays don't camp out [for tickets], but we'll camp out for this." (Only Madonna can overturn the gays' longtime anti-camping law.) When the aging pop star took the stage,"the room roared with 'Omigods.'" [NYT]