The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) released its figures today. And it's bad. From April to September the average sales of 400 papers slipped 10.6 per cent from last year to 30.4 million. Each paper had a strangely arms-length way of covering its own demise.

"The Los Angeles Times was fourth with daily circulation of 657,467, down 11.1% from a year ago," said the Los Angeles Times, quickly and with little further analysis except a statement to say that this was expected. This was a fairly common tactic.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, says the good news is that websites are up! Except theirs, down "29 percent, to 9.2 million, compared with September of last year, just before the presidential election." Which surely counts as 'but we just had a huge spike' excuse-making.

The justifying and silver-lining seeking continued. See if you can guess where this is from: "At The New York Times, which has repeatedly raised its prices in recent years, weekday circulation fell 7.3 percent, to about 928,000, the first time since the 1980s that it has been under one million. As the third-largest paper, it continued to have by far the largest Sunday circulation, at 1.4 million, down 2.7 percent."

The San Francisco Chronicle, which reported the sharpest decline, 25.8 per cent, opened with this: "The Chronicle said Monday that reshaping the newspaper's business model is paying off financially even though, as anticipated, it has resulted in a sharp decline in circulation."

It's completely understandable. It's just sad to see great papers and great reporters scurrying to cover disastrous news with soothing reportorial language and knowing juxtaposition of sentences. I'd almost prefer 'Holy Crap We're Fucked! Help Us! Buy This Paper!' to be splashed across each front page.

Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story is not C. David Heymann's first book about the family and seems like perfect grist for the never ending nostalgia and scandal mill that the Kennedy clan has been running since the '60s. However, according to Andrew Goldman's piece in The Daily Beast it seems unlikely many of the stories in the book actually are actually true.

Heymann says one of the keystone accounts of the Bobby/Jackie love affair comes from now-deceased socialite Mary Harrington who claims she witnessed a steamy scene between the pair at the Kennedy's Palm Beach estate in 1964.

"[T]here," Heymann writes, "sunbathing in the grass next to the house, was Jacqueline Kennedy, wearing a black bikini bottom and no top. A door opened and out walked Bobby Kennedy in a white swimsuit. He approached Jackie and knelt by her side. ‘As they began to kiss,' said Harrington, ‘he placed one hand on her breast and the other inside her bikini bottom.'"

There is no way to check with Harrington about the accuracy of her story short of a Ouija board. Goldman says that it can't be true because the estate was walled at the time.

The only possible place where Harrington could have been staying was at a beach shack on the adjoining property to the south, which sat about 10 feet lower than the Kennedy residence. [Ned Monell, who was the Sotheby's listing agent for the property when the Kennedys sold the place in 1995] says that owing to the heavy vegetation planted around the house, she would have been unable to see anything on the lawn.

And that's just one story that Goldman rips apart. The pair have a history that goes back to 1999 when Goldman wrote a story in the Observer questioning the veracity of a story Heymann told the New York Post about the late John F. Kennedy Jr. In his Daily Beast, article Goldman accuses Heymann of routinely making up claims about the Kennedy clan for his own gain.

Goldman has apparently taken it upon himself to repeatedly swat down Haymann. It's like the journalism equivalent of when the ladies get in each other's faces on Rock of Love, and this is an oh-no-you-didn't of the highest order.

A late-breaking plane crash leads to an unfortunate juxtaposition of covers for the New York Post. They fixed it online. These things happen. [EV Grieve]

Chuck Todd, NBC's goateed new White House correspondent, is already burned out on this White House press corps bullshit! Even new president Change O'Hope has no use for the reporters: "Today, it was so bad that we were kept behind closed doors so that these CEOs and other business leaders could leave without accidentally mingling with us poor press peons." Today is the day Chuck Todd realizes he should have kept his old job. That was quick.


Hard times: the Connecticut state government cancels all of its magazine subscriptions, saving the state $40,000. That's a lot of magazine subscriptions? How many copies of Bridgeport Living do you really need?

Oh, come on now: the Phoenix New Times wrote, edited, and published an entire cover story based on a satirical blog post saying the NBA was going to limit how many tattoos players could have. Not some meta-deconstruction, but a story about this tattoo cap and how it's going to affect, you know, NBA players. The NBA itself never called them back, so they just went with it!


Conde Nast cancels plans to launch a Japanese edition of Glamour, sending Japan spiraling back into a purely agrarian lifestyle, based upon barter.

Fred Dicker, the New York Post's man in Albany, is a media demigod to all the second-string political hacks in that godforsaken city. Throughout this entire Caroline Kennedy saga, Dicker has been the one vacuuming up the gossip in Albany; the Times has tried to tackle the story with its prestige and connections to NYC big shots, but that paper's entire Albany bureau doesn't have nearly the clout of Dicker by himself. Nobody wants to finally land that NYT gig and then get sent to Albany, ya know. Today Dicker gets an explanation from the Kennedy camp that really sheds no new light on her reasoning. But they were due for some bitching after the governor's staff smeared them all over the tabloids last weekend:

CAROLINE Kennedy's "personal reasons" for withdrawing from Senate consideration were not connected to damaging claims from Gov. Paterson's camp that she owed back taxes, had a nanny problem or faced a marital scandal, two sources close to her have told The Post....

While neither source would say so, others close to the Kennedys believe the negative reaction of one of Kennedy's children was a determining factor in her withdrawing from consideration for the seat, which eventually went to Kirsten Gillibrand.

There's also plenty of bitching about Paterson in there, as you might expect. The more interesting way to absorb this story is as a dirty fight between the Times and the Post, both of whom have their own internal disagreements. In New York magazine this week, a Times reporter describes the, uh, motivation of the staff there:

Kennedy also smacked headlong into a newly emboldened Times city staff. “We’ve grown a pair of balls, and I’m amazingly proud of the paper,” says a Times reporter. “The turning point was the editorial page’s rolling over for Bloomberg on erasing term limits. The reaction from the reporters and editors is that we’re the last line of defense—we’ve got to hold the line.” Not for or against any particular politician, that is, but to stand up for small-d democracy. After inflating her candidacy by making her simple declaration of interest in the job the lead story of the day, they compensated by hitting her hard.

Ha, nice. The Post had corporate connections to Kennedy's campaign, and the NYT, of course, has those rumors about its publisher and Caroline, and everybody is vicious and mad and wounded and hurt and this story still has plenty of legs. Public service!

Rupert made a lot of noise about taking on the Times directly when he bought the WSJ. But he has a big advantage: another major newspaper in the same market. So while the WSJ is trying to steal away the NYT's high-end advertisers (and succeeding)—luxury watchmakers, Tiffany & Co., expensive liquors, and corporations running "message" ads—the other News Corp. paper, the unprofitable Post, is competing with the Times for middlebrow advertisers and upper middle class retailers in New York City—Bergdorf Goodman, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, car dealerships, cell phone companies.

Owner Rupert Murdoch's expansion of general news coverage [at the WSJ] and a new lifestyle magazine are starting to attract wealthy consumers and create ad space for retailers, said Milton Pedraza, chief executive officer of Luxury Institute LLC.

``They certainly have become a significant part of the advertising mix for luxury brands where they were not before,'' said Pedraza, whose New York research group tracks the market for the most expensive lines of consumer goods and services. ``They're definitely stealing advertising dollars.''

News Corp. has an inherent advantage. Plus, Rupert has shown a willingness to lose huge sums of money in newspaper wars, as the Post has been doing for years.

Maybe the Times should go tabloid, go weekly, and run lots of sex ads and crush the Village Voice. Just for self-esteem! [Bloomberg; pic via Daylife]

Rupert Murdoch has always been canny about getting in good with those in power, even if they're from the party he opposes. He made nice with Tony Blair in the UK. And the Post did in fact endorse Obama over Hillary Clinton, once it was clear Obama would win. Besides that, Murdoch's pet paper the Sun in the UK pretty much deified Obama. And even Fox News managed to work out an Obama interview with Bill O'Reilly, when they weren't calling him "Osama" and such.

So why didn't Rupert just get the Post to go ahead and endorse Obama in the general election? Two reason. One of those reasons is named "Sarah Palin." Murdoch flirted with her coyly, and ended up tentatively supporting her convoluted policy proposals in public. It may be that he fell in love with her personality (the same mistake McCain made), or just came to the conclusion that, dumb as she is, at least she wasn't likely to push for any more regulation of his business if she came into office when McCain keeled over.

The second reason is more basic: a Post endorsement of Obama just wasn't practical. It would defeat the paper's very reason for existence, which is to be a rabid conservative voice in the midst of the liberal NYC media. So Rupert Murdoch just allowed them to endorse McCain, then set about sending every possible signal that he's willing to be friendly with Obama after he wins. Not that dumb after all.

In recognition of their considerable contributions to the magazine in the past year, I am elevating Stewart Pinkerton and Tom Post from Deputy Managing Editors to Managing Editors.

Before joining Forbes in 1990, Stewart spent 24 years at the Wall Street Journal, in a mix of reporting and editing positiions, including Deputy Managing Editor under Norm Pearlstine. He's a graduate of Princeton and has a J.D. from New York Law School.

Tom joined Forbes 11 years ago from ABC News. He has B.A. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from UC, Berekeley.

This masthead change won't result in any reassigments of writers. Stewart will continue to spend a lot of his time overseeing the contributions of print writers to Forbes.com and vice versa. That job is getting bigger; it is vital that magazine contributions to the Web go where they will deliver the most prestige and traffic. Tom will keep his stable of writers and have a large role in the development of cover stories. He has done much in the past two months to keep us on top of the news.

I never spent a single hour at Columbia School of Journalism, except when I gave a lecture to journalism students - and I was about as popular as a fire hydrant at the Westchester dog show.

It's only those who are lucky enough to work for Rupert Murdoch who know what I am talking about.

Wouldn't that mean "extremely popular?" I guess we'll never know.

When the video was done, Mr. Murdoch was handed the microphone. "Your whole career defies description," Mr. Murdoch said. "You were not always the most reliable person. I once wrote you a check for $30,000 as a surprise bonus. You were so surprised you spent the whole night in Costello's. The next morning you had to come to me to confess that you'd lost the check. So I wrote a second check. But I didn't give it to you. I gave it to Gloria, who used it to make a down payment on your house, the one you are still living in."

He was also toasted by firemen and the police chief and a priest along with his press baron patron. Lots of drinking was involved. All in all, appropriate. Adios, Dunleavy. Enjoy the Obama administration in peace. [NYO; pic via Tabloid Baby]

• From Paul Malmont: "I was in a car with him on the way to Amityville, hearing great stories about his career. For example, he had once slit the tires on his own father's (also a reporter) car to keep him from beating Steve to a story. Another thing he was quite proud of was he claimed to have written the book that killed Elvis. Apparently it was rumored that a book Steve had written, Elvis - What Happened? had been pried from The King's cold dead fingers - he had been reading it on the toilet when he'd had a heart attack.
  After A Current Affair I went to work on the rookie season of Good Day New York - Fox's local morning show. My job was to get in early, get the coffee going and pull gossip stories from the wire. When I say early, I mean like 4AM early. On more than one occasion I would come in to find Steve and several author Aussie reporters and producers crashed out on office desks they had pushed together. Apparently they would drink hard at the Racing Club across the street and not bother going home."
• "When ever Steve was covering a mob trial that was being heard in Brooklyn, he would stop into my local watering hole which was a Thai restaurant with a bar in front that seated about ten. The crowd was always mixed, middle age Gays and Brooklyn Heights locals . Steve would come in and after two visits knew and remembered everybodys name. Over the course of an evening he would consume about 10 to 15 drinks and still appear coherent . He would then use the pay phone to phone his story in and uaually a drive came in to scoop him up and drive him home.
  The first time he came in I was wary of speaking to him knowing his politics and the Post’s. But the funny thing is he never pushed his politics at the bar Instead he would talk of mob trials old time Hollywood , New York , movies and whatnot. He was actually fun to talk, never condescending. He had a great memory. Never saw him drop dead drunk but I heard the stories and seeing him in action I can believe them."
• "A favorite Steve story told by reporters covering the Michael Jackson child molestation trial is how he would turn up in the middle of the day or later, already trademark soused. One day he was so drunk he came out of the courthouse men's room having forgotten to tuck himself back in, let alone do his fly up, and walked unsteadily away down the corridor, to the gapes of onlookers."

• "The Star's rival, the National Enquirer, had "paid a ransom for the exclusive serial rights to the hottest book of the decade — Judith Exner's revelations about her affair with President Kennedy".
  Kerrison says: "The book was under lock and key, guarded tighter than Fort Knox. One day, I told Steve, 'We've got to get a copy of the book and beat the Enquirer to the punch'. Steve said, 'Boss, gimme some time and I'll get it'.
  "He disappeared. A few days later he turned up in my office, clutching a copy of the Exner book. I couldn't believe my eyes. 'My God,' I said to him, 'Where the hell did you get that?' Steve looked a bit sheepish and said, 'Boss, don't ask. You wouldn't want to know.'
• "It is said Dunleavy would f..k anyone or anything for a story, and that is true.
  He got a scoop for the News of the World when he wined, dined, seduced and ignobly reported the pillow-talk and tears of one of Teddy Kennedy's "boiler room" girls after the Chappaquiddick scandal. I visited him one evening in his New York apartment. He opened the door and greeted me, naked, before introducing me to a star witness in a police corruption investigation, also naked. They were engaged in an in-depth, probing interview of sorts — another scoop."
• And one from Gawker commenter Baroness: "My favorite Dunleavy moment was on TV. He was covering the Palm Beach Kennedy-Smith rape trial for A Current Affair I think. Some bigmouth girl who went to school with the victim was looking for her 15 min., blabbing personal details with any tabloid who'd listen, and presumably pay.
  Dunleavy took this chick for a long, very liquid lunch at a posh place, plied her with drinks and she sang like a canary. When she was well and truly sloshed and giddy, Dunleavy pulled out some dirty Polaroids of Blabbermouth with a big dick in her mouth, close-ups he had bought off one of her treacherous friends.
  The hilarity of her drunkenly trying to grab those pictures out of his hand, as he held them high in the air making her jump for them, was unforgettable, wicked, and very funny. He was gleeful as a kid on Christmas morning, loving life and his job at that moment."

How did he get that book? Theories? Have more Dunleavy stories to share? Email us.

[Mark Day via Tabloid Baby]

6/22/08

WE HEAR: THAT Stephen Colbert will belt out the National Anthem at the Partnership for Public Service gala Tuesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street, where Police Commissioner Ray Kelly will be presented with the Theodore Roosevelt Award by his friend, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

6/19/08

SIGHTINGS: "DANCING With the Stars" runner-up Jason Taylor and former Miami Dolphins teammate Dan Marino backing up Carlos Santana on bongos and cowbell at the Samsung Four Seasons of Hope Gala at Cipriani Wall Street.

5/25/08

WE HEAR: The 540 Latino-philes at Cipriani 42nd Street the other night applauded the news that Goya Foods owners Joseph and Carmen de Unanue donated $3 million to the Fifth Avenue museum of Hispanic culture.

5/20/08

WE HEAR: THAT comic Lewis Black will perform at the 21st Anniversary Gala of the Cooke Center for Learning and Development tomorrow at Cipriani 42nd Street.

4/29/08

WE HEAR: THAT John Catsimatidis is being honored with Frankie Valli by the Friars Club on June 16 at Cipriani 42nd Street, where the cast of Broadway's "Jersey Boys" will perform.

1/26/08

WE HEAR: THAT the Halcyon Company will auction off a walk-on role in "Terminator Salvation" during the Cipriani AmFAR event Thursday.

.

[Outside of Page Six, we should note, the Post seems to cover Cipriani's troubles pretty aggressively.]

I'm sure I angered Tricia on Monday, when Philip Smith - still dapper and, dare I say, smoking hot - jokingly asked me to marry him.

"Are you available?" said Philip, when I asked if he'd wed again. I'm not, but don't tempt me.

Then, on Tuesday, Tricia's trained attack Chihuahua, Joseph McCaffery, a pony-tailed loser who hails from Aurora, Ill. - remember "Wayne's World"? - yelled at me outside Trish's soon-to-be-ex home. So I called him an "asshole."

I was holding back.

So, what's the problem here?

[NYP]