A few of AG's notable stories:

• The city's biggest tree.
• Bus cords.
• Municipal lightbulb-changing.
• Moving a beach house.
• A colorful game of base-ball.

1010 Wins says a dead body was found on the tracks. No word on whether or not it was the result of a suicide. But we'll go ahead and post all these tips, just to illustrate how messed up a city can get by one single incident...

These videos are not the most enthralling things ever. Watch them if you will. But we got this report from a person on the train in the video:

The L train stopped underground between the Bedford and the 1st Avenue station around 10:44a.m.- give a few minutes here or there. Being just prior to 1st avenue, we waited underground for 15 minutes if that, and moved a couple of inches every few minutes. The announcement was then stated that we were to be evacuated onto a train in front of our own... I'm assuming that it was backed up into the tunnel to provide a link for us to arrive at 1st avenue by foot. The train operator having come out from the conductors closet told another passenger that "no, someone isn't sick... it's an injury". This was my first understanding of what had caused us to halt the transit. When we all had quietly and patiently (I felt quite in awe by the patience of the crowd) onto the 1st avenue platform we came upon a grouping of New York's finest, all guarding the first train car. There were stretchers and such. I couldn't say for sure if someone was laid out on the seat in the first train car, nor if they were alive, though that was the glimpse of things, and based on assumption that someone was injured, it seemed that car was providing the medical and emergency assistance either he or she required. We stepped above ground just after 11am.

And, we heard from another L train rider who told a similar story about going to work this morning—probably on that very same train:

I was riding on it, toward the back of the train. Train slows down,
then just stops. The front cars reached the First Avenue platform, the
back cars—where I was—were still in the tunnel. After a couple of
minutes of delay, they said there had been an "injury" to a passenger
and we would have to all evacuate. Anyway, since the back of the train
wasn't even at the platform, we all had to walk toward the middle of
the train and get off there. We were at the far end of the platform
and had to walk down.

We got off, and then it was all crazy. Dozens and dozens of firemen
(carrying axes, which was particularly odd) and lots of police
officers.

They had a gurney laid out near the front of the train, but again, had
no idea what happened from there

How bad was it? Another L train passenger tells us that much later, everything was still totally fucked: "I was actually one of the hundreds of people waiting for the L to arrive at 1st Ave, around 12:30. The station was open, and there hadn't been any announcement over the loudspeaker, but they didn't have that countdown to the next arrival displayed. Then there was an announcement on the screen that usually displays the next arrival, saying there was an investigation at 1st Ave. But I didn't see any cops, paramedics, or anything on the tracks or anything like that."

Is this probably the greatest small-town newspaper story about Cougars ever written, at least in the Northeastern Pennsylvania region? It is certainly a serious candidate for that honor.

After the laundry, housework and business chores are done, 39-year-old Katie Burnside sometimes will go out on the town to grab a bite to eat and have an adult beverage or two – either with her single girlfriends or her 27-year-old beau.

What sort of whore does that? But god has showered this story with even more blessings:

Burnside embraces the cougar lifestyle so much she's developed a Web site: www.wercougars.com, set to launch soon, that will be an international online dating service.

"It'll be elegant," she said, noting the software program will make sure the grammar is proper and the pictures are tasteful.

WeRCougars.com: Your grammatically correct cougar dating site. This story exists in the real world!

"Cougar" should carry a classy connotation, she believes, noting everything on her Web site, from the logo to the content is "very elegant, clean-cut and classy."

It will outshine other dating sites out there, she said, noting she finds them "a little lower-end."

Don't mess with those other whore sites, she says sexily subtextually. Wercougars.com only.
[Actual photo caption in this story: "Katie Burnside by day is a serious professional, but that doesn't mean she can't have fun at night – in a still-wholesome way, she says." Wonderful!]

Elsewhere in cougar journalism, SFGate has a long first-person narrative about attending the Cougar Convention. "This was a Cougar Convention, not a Mensa Convention. A—holes abounded." The rest is superfluous.

Are there "Cougars" in your small town? Find out!

Blog Alaska Report, who's reporting on this, asserts the rumor as truth, in addition to noting that Sarah Palin has purchased land in Montana, and possibly plans to move her family there.

AlaskaReport has learned this morning that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage have confirmed the news. A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska.

The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other at last Sunday's resignation speech in Fairbanks. Sarah ditched Todd (MSNBC) right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring a couple of weeks ago. Sarah has recently purchased land in Montana and is considering moving the family there. Sarah Palin is originally from Idaho.

They're citing a Blogspot Blog, a National Enquirer story, and the tensions between Sarah and Todd at her final press conference as the basis for this report. Not exactly the most credible sources they've got there, but the Enquirer's certainly been right about some things, and Alaska Report also qualifies their story by writing that they were the first to announce Palin's candidacy for Governor and her status as the Vice Presidential nominee. So, there's that.

If any of this turns out to be true, it would explain a great deal: Palin's book deal signing/cashing in, all the talk about tending to her family regarding her resignation, her The-Media's-Been-Mean media offensive, all of it. But most likely: the resignation. Which, in and of itself, is the revelation that she was telling the truth, and bearing down for what's likely to be the hard media rain/scrutiny that's about to be comin'.

UPDATE: It looks like Meg Stapleton, Palin's spokeswoman, responded to these rumors on, uh, Facebook:

Yet again, some so-called journalists have decided to make up a story. There is no truth to the recent "story" (and story is the correct term for this type of fiction) that the Palins are divorcing. The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family, and have not purchased land in Montana (last week it was reported to be Long Island).

Less than one week ago, Governor Palin asked the media to "quit making things up." We appreciate that the more professional journalists decided to question this story before repeating it.

Meg Stapleton

Todd and Sarah Palin To Divorce [Alaska Report]

Sarah Palin: No Truth to Latest Rumors [Facebook]

Yes, that's a real, live raccoon you see in John Varvatos' SoHo shop, on the corner of Spring and Greene. According to the nice lady I talked to when I called, animal control sadly took him away before they had time to name him, after a significant crowd had gathered outside. She had no idea how he got in, and no idea where Animal Control took him to.

I also inquired if they sell fur, and she said they didn't, that some of their items had shearling on it, and I was like, is that fake fur? And she was like, no, but it's like, wool. So I concluded that the animal was not going to be hastily skinned and used for a John Varvatos product.

Varvatos' trademark streak of rock and roll aesthetics in his work goes uninterrupted. After using guys like Iggy Pop in his fashion campaigns, using rock photographer Danny Clinch to shoot them, and most significantly, saving CBGB from becoming a Chase branch by turning it into one of his high-end fashion boutiques to much controversy and outcry by angry people who still thought CBGB meant something besides its status as a relic - which he preserved by keeping much of the original rock club intact - this isn't surprising. He's embracing some punkass animals looking to stir up some shit in his stores! Rock. More of this, please.

[Special thanks to our tipster Cheryl Tan, who has a blog and who is having an awesome day.]

We saw the following come up on our Twitter feed and almost choked on our coffee.

Is she okay? Brawl at The Talkhouse? Throwdown at The Surf Lodge? Crossbow attack on Matt Levine at Georgica? We contacted Hruska for comment, because we care about our bloggy bretheren. The answer? A Mr. Toad's Wild Ride-esque accident that could've potentially injured Hruska and her crack team of (unpaid, but fairly compensated) Guest of a Guest reporters:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Hruska, stop scaring us like that. We need our crack-like Hamptons coverage and our new media compensation beefs alive and well. Glad all involved are okay. Dramatic reenactment below:

New York: Wall Street. Fashion. The media capital of the world. Billionaires. Criminals. Mafiosos. Immigrants. Everything's grand!

Los Angeles: Hollywood. Movie stars. Celebrities. Parties. Drugs. Bloods. Crips. Speidi. Beaches. Hippies. Weed. Glamor!

Las Vegas: Casinos. The Mob. The Rich. The strung out. Hookers. Pimps. Steve Wynn. Luck!

Washington, DC: Politics. Presidents. Senators. Crack. Marion Barry. The Supreme Court. Museums. Landmarks. Legislation. Sex scandals. Obama!

San Francisco: The Castro. Barry Bonds. Gavin Newsom. Tech. Silicon Valley. The Gays!

Boston: Patriots. Celtics. Red Sox. Championships. Tradition. Massholes. Ivy League. M.I.T. Kennedys!

Chicago: Machine politics. Daley. Throwback Obama. Projects. Vice Lords. Second City. Jordanesque!

Detroit: GM. Eminem. Unemployment. Poverty. Decay. The perfect crumbling urban hellhole for an enterprising metro reporter to use as a canvas. Charlie LeDuff!

New Orleans: Katrina. Destruction. Resurrection. Cafe Du Monde. Mardi Gras. Hurricanes, alcoholic and otherwise. Brangelina. Master P. Ninth Ward!

Miami: Vice. Cocaine cowboys. South Beach. Cubans. Jamaicans. Retirees. Cigarette boats. Money. Mosquitoes. Storms. Carl Hiaasen. Dave Barry. America's landing strip!

You don't see us reporting live from North Korea. That's not just because we are lazy internet hacks inferior in all ways to grizzled "real" journalists; it's also because "real" journalists work for big organizations like, say, the New York Times, which bristle with lawyers and diplomatic connections to get you out of trouble in a perilous foreign environment, whereas we just have one lawyer here who is way too busy defending our right to make slanderous jokes to help us out if we get arrested in North Korea, or kidnapped in Colombia, or whatnot.

In this way you see that the internet makes foreign reporting unsafe! Because all those big "real" news organization are actually going broke, thanks to the internet, and all the reporting is migrating over to shoestring-budgeted online operations like, for example, Current (which is actually bigger than most!), which are fine when it comes to getting news out over the internet, but are not so well prepared to trot out teams of lawyers and private security guards to keep its correspondents safe, cost be damned.

So here we are: the old outlets that used to sponsor all these daring foreign correspondents are increasingly unable to, because their businesses have been totally gutted by clever little lithe internet operations, which are clever and lithe precisely because they're far too stripped-down to ever spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars sponsoring dangerous foreign reporting, which is really an extremely high cost-per-word proposition, and not that widely read, besides. So foolish brave reporters take it upon themselves to do this exciting reporting anyhow, with little safety net, and then we get a situation like the North Korean one today.

Sure, it's tempting to "blame the internet." But if you people clicked more on stories about North Korea than stories about, say, Megan Fox, then maybe foreign reporting would still be profitable enough for even tiny news outlets to hire good foreign handlers.

That's not to say big papers get to be holier-than-thou on this issue—reporters for the biggest media outlets in the world are just as likely as anyone to have their people kidnapped or arrested. More likely, at the moment! But that's changing. Which means the need for a Journalism-Saving Delta Force is now greater than ever. If they put Megan Fox on it, it'll pay for itself.
[NYT. Pic: AP]

The LA Times, which now has an editorial staff of like, ten people? maybe? met some shady "political operatives" who love this wonderful new media landscape, because it allows them to plant whatever bullshit they want and watch it grow into cable news stories and "serious" analysis pieces.

Well, Times, some of us have been on this beat for a while! But hey, you got some neat quotes from your unnamed political hack sources.

One operative told me this week about planting attacks on opponents in partisan blogs, knowing the stories could bleed into mainstream news outlets, without leaving any incriminating fingerprints. Another described how he got green reporters to write stories (no campaign cash wasted!) on ads that the candidate had no intention of ever paying to put on TV.

By "green reporters" do you by chance mean, say, the entire staff of The Politico? They sure did a lot of that this last campaign season! (Hell, everyone did. They are just the most transparent about their symbiotic relationship with the venal hacks they allow to use them to "drive the stories" or whatever they call getting a Drudge link and a segment on Hardball.)

Here is a sad bit:

The consultants cited a few recently departed veteran journalists who wouldn't fall for such funny business: Time magazine's Jay Carney, the Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman (the Tribune, like the L.A. Times, is owned by Tribune Co.) and our paper's Dan Morain, who took a buyout last month and went to work for a lawyers' lobbying association.

Anyway, breaking: there is a lot of bullshit out there and everyone just repeats it, all the time, unquestioningly, because all the smart people were laid off.

Imagine, if you will, that you're a business reporter. You spent years schmoozing and hobnobbing and shoulder-rubbing and other body part-caressing to build up all these sources inside massive Wall Street firms that will, officially, give you only robotic press releases. The entire enterprise of quality business reporting—particularly in the finance sector, which is a pretty fucking newsworthy sector at the moment—is built upon having a list of company insiders willing to speak to you on background to tell you what's really going on.

Who are these mysterious sources? Disgruntled people, often! People who hate their jobs, or their bosses, or are trying to stab their superiors in the back in order to ascend into their positions—these are the people who make all those Wall Street Journal fly-on-the-wall of the boardroom stories possible. Yes, there are friendly PR people who'll let actual facts slip on background, and various execs who will tell the truth if their name's not attached, but for the most part, a good source is one with a reason to enjoy seeing someone in their firm have their ass nailed to the wall in the print.

Now imagine: it's layoff time! They guys at the top decide who goes. That means those they don't like get pushed out in favor of those who kiss their asses. That means that the more likely someone is to be a good source, the more likely they are to get laid off. Simplistic but true. And already, reporters who cover Wall Street are finding that their best leakers are now pursuing new careers as personal trainers, just when we need them the most.

Wall Street executives: please retain the people who hate you, for the public good.

This is, to some extent, what all news organizations do. Even the AP, those tiny local paper-reading-then-rewriting scamps! Much of newsgathering consists of reading all your competitors' stories and going from there. If you can't think of a new angle on the story, it's called "following up," usually with no credit given; if you can find a new angle, it's considered a totally new story, definitely without credit given.

Obviously you can't let some crappy knockoff copy and paste your stories and present them as their own (this happens to us sometimes!). But recognize this is much more about the letter of the law than the spirit of it. All journalism outfits are thieves! Just tell people where you stole your stuff from. How hard is that? [This story we stole from THR, Esq]

City Room wistfully reports that young NYU grad Ben Muessig is one of the last things keeping Brooklyn crime reporting alive. Look at some of the Brooklyn Paper's "wiseguy headlines," as they put their snarky spin on crime!

All sorts of crime in the Slope

They mugged a kid!

Another teen mugged

Whoa, slow down! No disrespect to Muessig, who, judging by his bylines, writes about 2/3 of the content in Brooklyn Paper all by himself. But could this job be done with a little more pizazz? Let's see!

Mr. Muessig then saw a report of an armed robbery of men "selling food out of a van," who said they were relieved of $500 in currency and jewelry.

"This could be the famous taco truck at McCarren Park, which would really be big for us," he said.

Macho Nacho Taco Rocko Blocko Socko!

There was a shooting in a Hasidic area of Williamsburg, which surprised Mr. Muessig.

Shoo, Jew! Whammo Slammo Blammo Gun Fun Blazing Burg Battle Rattle! Acidic Hasidic Licks Shots At Critic!

Then there was an item in which a woman left the Lazy Catfish bar at 2 a.m. on Feb. 10 and took two other women back to her apartment, but she fell asleep and woke up later with with some belongings missing...
The two women - "Both females had their tongues pierced," the report notes - took the sleepy woman's guitar, debit card and some cash.

Hot Lezzie Roofie Molest: Tongue-y Lesbos Lick Lazy Lolita!

Then again, the Brooklyn Paper is already covering the important stories as well as it can:

GlobalPost.com has launched! It's a big new Boston-based news site (65 foreign correspondents!) that will focus on international enterprise journalism. "This is the perfect time [to launch] for many reasons," said the editor. "Most of all, there is an enormous void in foreign coverage by the American news media." That is absolutely true and anyone who believes in journalism should pray for the success of this enterprise, although there's a better than average chance that this is in fact a horrible time to launch. [Boston.com]

Guess who just got some official press credentials from the NYPD? Some bloggers! They almost had to go to court for them, though. The key beneficiary: civic gadflies. [City Room]

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer officially has 60 days to live unless somebody buys it, which, you know, unlikely. Staffers are sad. Idea: see if GlobalPost.com is hiring. [Seattle PI]


Howie Kurtz reports: even though we have a black president, there aren't that many black White House reporters! As much as we would like to mock Howie Kurtz, this is true, and deserves to be pointed out once in a while. Next, stories on how even though we have a black president, there aren't that many black people in advertising/ media/ academia/ corporate America/ the NHL. [Washington Post]


Israel is trying to win the PR war by barring reporters from Gaza (the army also has its own YouTube channel). So you know who has the best access to this war? Al-Jazeera! You know who watches Al-Jazeera in the US? Just about nobody, due to the general bitchassness of cable companies. [NYT] Well here's some for you:

A *scientific* quote in David Carr's column today sums up the bad news backlash:

“There are studies on bank runs, and it shows that people who know others who have taken their money out of the bank are much more likely to do it as well,” he said. “We always overshoot the upside and, because of the same contagious effects, we overshoot the downside. Everything is fine, and then all of the sudden we are looking for water and supplies to ride out the coming storm.”

For this reason, people don't like bad news. All this bad news just perpetuates itself! Just like in the Iraq war: the reason we haven't won yet is all the negativity from the media. Why don't they tell us about how the Army built a new well, rather than just telling us about the insurgents who subsequently turned that well into a weapons cache, leading to hundreds of deaths? (BIAS).

But listen, because this is very important: don't worry about bad news. The thing about bad news is that it tells you right up front, "Things are bad." At least you'll be prepared when you go out into the horrific world and find that, yes, things are bad.

Not so with good news. You know when there was really good news about the economy, for example? When they were pumping up this huge bubble that recently popped and destroyed us all. You know when reporters deliver happy news from war zones? When they have been kidnapped, and are being prodded by a machine gun-toting terrorist standing just off-camera.

Good news can only get worse. [Pic via]

In classic journalism, rumors had to be double-sourced before, say, a newspaper would run with them. So you get a tip, then you have to find some other person who would know to agree with it. That person should not be the original tipster. Pretty simple.

But everything is new and different now! Online "news" outlets are not all as professional as we are around here. Rumors pop up everywhere online, all the time. But here's the key difference between now and the old days: if a rumor is reported online, people tend to treat it as a rumor until it's reported somewhere else. Then, two places have it up separately, and ta-da! It's the internet version of double-sourcing. It doesn't necessarily require any enterprise on the part of lazier blogs—just wait until two places report it, and it's gold! No actual sources necessary!

The difference, which you might have caught: both of those places may be getting tipped by the same source. It happens all the time! Furthermore, that source could be unreliable or a nut with a vendetta, but simply by spreading their tips around, they can easily make it appear that news has been confirmed everywhere. This is one reason it's important that all the actual working reporters not be laid off.

So online news outlets can't be trusted, right? Wrong! We get news out faster, and the scrupulous ones among us still check things out, or make clear exactly what the sourcing is on rumors.

Unlike the mainstream media, sometimes!

[Pic via]

Recording Phone Calls

Federal law allows recording of phone calls with the consent of one party on the call, meaning you can legally record any phone calls you're a part of. State laws vary, however: in some states you must have the consent of both parties (not New York, though). See here for a full guide.

You can record phone calls on normal handsets with a cheap recorder hookup, like this one from Radio Shack. You can also record calls onto your PC, either with an adapter, or, more simply, by using Skype. There are also services that will record your cell phone calls for you, and allow you to access them when you want.

Other Recording

A simple little digital recorder is a great device that can be slipped into a pocket or left in a corner and record ambient conversations for hours. For long-distance audio recording, you'll need something more powerful, like a parabolic microphone that can amplify sounds 300 yards away. Works great for hearing bird calls; if you're using it to listen in on people, you may be a creep.

For visuals, there are plenty of discreet, handheld digital camcorders that should meet most video recording needs. To secretly record what's happening in a room, you can buy camcorders that are hidden in everything from plants to smoke alarms. Again—if you are using these to be a creep, you will and should be locked up.

Researching People

Google! It's a wonderful tool. Nexis People search is a quick and efficient way to categorize your searching by what the person does, where they're from, their company name, etc. Paid search services like Intellius can take small bits of information about people and search for public records and contact info for a nominal fee. Names can be parlayed into phone numbers and email addresses, and vice versa.

Public records from these and other similar sources are broader than you think. Recent Nexis upgrades, for example, can give you everything from a person's cell phone number to info on their gun licenses. You never know what you might find.

The Freedom of Information Act is designed to give you access to government records that don't have a good reason to be private. This is largely political; under the current administration, lots of stupid things are private. Obama should be more open (one would think). Get your FBI file, why don't you? Better yet, get someone else's! A government guide to FOIA is here, and a citizen's guide to the process is here.

Also legal: searching through someone's trash, if it has been placed out for disposal in a public area. Although this may get your ass kicked.

Tracking Movement

A small GPS device like this placed in someone's car can help you track them for days. If you're not in law enforcement, this is probably illegal, so never do it.

Modern cell phones have built-in GPS devices, which would theoretically make them a great way to track the movement of individuals. But that's generally impossible without the assistance of the carrier, unless the person is using an opt-in tracker and posting their movements themselves on Dodgeball or something. So this one requires great hacking skills or a mole at the phone company, and is illegal besides. A useful overview to cell phone tracking is here.

For observation purposes, digital binoculars combine a camera, video recorder, and binoculars in one product.

Final Thoughts

Are you spying for a righteous cause? If not, give the world some privacy, why don't you? Either way, you might consider learning Krav Maga or carrying a Taser. Those being spied upon tend to object.

How Much Does It Cost?

Travel: Expedia is offering four-night packages to Beijing right now for $1570. The Olympics are two weeks long. Throw in an extra day on either end, and we'll call basic travel and housing costs $6,000 per reporter. Total: $192,000

Food and drinks: Plenty of the food will be free. The booze will be extra. And you know traveling reporters love to splurge on the expense account. We'll give a conservative estimate of $150 per day per reporter. Total: about $67,000

Security, guides and transportation: Americans are getting stabbed! Somebody has to keep an eye on these reporters' safety. Let's say $25k for protection. The Times needs handlers to show them around Beijing: we'll call that $50k over two weeks. Add in another $100 per day per reporter for taxis and whatnot. Total: about $80,000

Freelancers: Somebody has to cover the house fires, baseball games, political rallies, and whatever else the Times full-timers would have been writing about normally. Let's say each reporter at the Olympics would have written three stories per week that the paper had to freelance out at $300 each. Total: about $57,000

Miscellaneous: Laundry bills, souvenirs, pens, computer charges, phone bills, and other things reporters sneak onto expense accounts, legitimate or not. Call it an extra $500 per reporter. Total: $16,000

Total extra cost of sending reporters to Beijing, not including salaries, insurance, or bribe money: $412,000

What's It Worth?

Let's say, for ease of calculation, that each reporter writes one story per day on average for two weeks. That's 448 stories total for the Times' fancy Olympic section. Yes, some stories will be epic features and some will be throwaway coverage of particular events, but we figure that evens out. The total extra cost per story, then, is about $920.

Those better be some awesome stories, right? But divide it by a million papers per day, and it comes out to a total of less than three cents per day for the entire Olympic Times contingent. So the real question is: Would you pay three cents a day to read what the New York Times has to say about the Olympics?

It's a philosophical question.

[Any NYT people who'd like to correct our calculations, email us]

PRs - that mysterious and dark breed of fixers, stuntsters and arch media manipulators - have, for more than a century now, been as fundamental to the Tinseltown fantasy as the Hollywood sign itself. They are, according to Borkowski, in his new book The Fame Formula, the hidden gatekeepers of the Hollywood dream machine “who guard its formula, often to the death”

Even today, Borkowski, whose clients have included Michael Jackson, claims that movie publicists are part of a powerful cabal who mostly go unnoticed, who ruthlessly hold the media in their grasp and who “truly understand the dark Conradian soul of man” (ie, our baser instincts).

And the most incredible line of all:

Here, increasingly, the job of the publicist is to tread the fine line between matching a “suitable” journalist with the talent and choosing a craven sycophantic hack who will play the promotional game.

That would be you, Times reporter Kevin Maher! Flack-turned-author Mark Borkowski thanks you for being enough of a sycophantic hack to make his book sound interesting!

Remember, a "Hollywood publicist" is often a guy like this.

[Times UK]

I saw two options. Either start snapping the shutter and pressing the flesh and risk the old "Who the fuck are you?" treatment, or attempt to be above-board and identify myself as a freelance photographer and writer, which I am. In the sweltering jungles of Cambodia, where I received my baptism by fire as a journalist and aspiring heroin addict, I learned that, as a reporter, you play it straight with your subjects, and that's exactly what I did with Ronn (sic) Torossian.

BAD FUCKING IDEA!

I walked up to him and said, "Hey there, I'm a freelance writer and photographer, you mind if I start taking some shots?"

He asked me who I write for, and I told him I've written for the New York Times, the New York Post, and Time Out, all of which is true. But then he asked me if I was there on an assignment, and I hesitantly replied in the affirmative.

"Who assigned you," Mr. Grammar (sic) Torossian pressed.

It was like the world went dark, and I heard the cries of a thousand anguished souls burning and writhing in the Spirit World.

"Gawker."

I honestly thought he might serve me an ass-kicking right on the spot, but at first all he did was tell me not to take any pictures. He then disappeared from the conference room, though, and I had a feeling he was about to affect my ejection, which he did.

"Nothing personal, but do you read Gawker's posts on me?"

I did not say, "Yes, and they're just delicious!"

I did not say, "Yes, it's really refreshing to see an asshole actually being held accountable for his ineptitude, meanness of spirit, and thuggish behavior."

I tried to reason with him, to explain I was just there to ask questions, not do a back-alley hatchet job. That I wrote for the Times in 1958 once, and that I have my reputation as a failed journalist to protect.

"You could tell CNN that I am God, but I'm not going to let you cover this event. You'll get a good story out of this about how you were bounced." (I hadn't considered that angle until he suggested it.)

"There's no discussion about this," a security guy in a bad blazer chimed in.

So, I left, disoriented. I looked at my hand and saw I still had a water bottle from 5W's kitchen.

I walked down 6th Avenue feeling like I had let the readers of Gawker down, that they now had to pay the price for my naïve, mid-western inclination – an inclination burnished in the sweltering jungles of Cambodia – to speak Truth to Publicists, and in particular to a publicist named Ronn (sic) Torossian.

Journalism!

[A legal expert] said that generally speaking, it’s OK to take aerial photos of objects that are readily visible to the naked eye, since they’re taken from public airspace.

The possibility of trouble arises when people use high-powered telephoto lenses. If a photo reveals a home’s security operations or shows close-ups of people, there could be an argument for an invasion of privacy claim. She said that “capturing someone sitting on their patio sunbathing nude” could create a legal challenge, but added that “if you’re just showing that someone has this lovely home, I’m not sure that would be a compelling argument for a claim.”

You heard it straight from the WSJ: you are well within your rights to try to "incidentally" snap a photo of Bill Gates in the buff. Because you like his lovely home. And thank god for that. Without these rights, the media would never get jealousy-producing shots like these:

Rodney Propp's $40 million Hamptons spread, from Vanity Fair:

A mere glimpse of Abigail Johnson's hideously valuable Massachusetts manse:

You get the idea, plebe.

[WSJ]