Gawker
struggling writers
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memos
Blasé People Editor Confirms Layoffs
People editor Larry Hackett sent out a memo late today indicating the celebrity magazine got rid of 18 editorial staff, per the goal it set in early November. The communique, reprinted after the jump, gave no indication of whether the voluntary buyouts the Time Inc. title sought had to be supplemented with involuntary firings. Nor did it specify which staffers were leaving, or which bureaus were most heavily affected. But then it was written by the same guy who let his magazine slide into the common tabloid muck it was once a cut above, only to rationalize and narrowly deny the whole scandal, so what do you expect, forthright, expansive honesty? More » -
shut up, college
Harvard Needs a Bailout!
According to financially troubled magazine US News & World Report, the best college in the world is financially troubled Harvard, whose endowment has "suffered investment losses of at least 22% in the first four months of the school's fiscal year," according to the Wall Street Journal. Turns out all those colleges investing in real estate and private equity and commodities was only a brilliant idea for like ten years. This is a loss of $8 billion! So now the endowment is only like $29 billion. Is the Ivy League too big to fail? More » -
Champions On The Field And Off
A hedge fund founded by three retired football players (including Joe Montana) is shutting down because of poor performance. Strange, because that's just not something you would see coming. You would think a hedge fund founded by retired football players would do really well. [NYP]
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The rich
How To Remain A Vapid Shopaholic In Somber Times
Oh, heavens: Barack Obama's been elected, the economy imploded and suddenly it' s no longer chic to be a superficial consumerist idiot! But how to cope if that's all you've ever known?? We were going on three decades of nearly uninterrupted insane boomtime for the rich, after all, and change is difficult. Fake it hard, advises the kept lady's favorite well-connected fashiongay, Barney's creative director Simon Doonan, in this morning's Observer: More » -
rumormonger
Three Hundred Layoffs At MTV Thursday?
Chatter about big layoffs at Viacom and its MTV unit have been in the air for weeks, with firings at the latter recently expected Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Hell, the bloodletting may already have begun. But the latest gossip says the worst is yet to come: A gobsmacking 300 people coast to coast let go by the end of the week, one tipster claims. Higher level staff supposedly get their briefings Wednesday. It will be interesting to hear whether the company takes this opportunity to visit vengeance on the mistreated permalancers who embarrassed the company so badly last winter. We're ready to listen! -
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The panic of '08
Jewish Scapegoating Spread By Opponents Of Jewish Scapegoating
A nasty little internet troll may recently have sent you an email with the subject line, " 'Jews Have Ruined Our Country.'" But the message didn't come from an anti-semite; it came from the Anti-Defamation League, which is trying to prevent Jews from being blamed for the financial crisis, by spreading blame for the financial crisis to Jews. The idea, of course, is to drum up preemptive outrage among recipients of the mass email by quoting some bigots. Trouble is, the inflammatory subject line is pretty much all they got. More » -
dirty tricks
Observer At Center Of Exciting Criminal Conspiracy, Maybe!
Did you know the Observer is subsidized by an illicit slush fund? It shamefully is, according to a lawsuit filed by the former president of one of the Kushner Companies. When developer Charles Kushner bought a $1.8 billion office tower, he routed $18 million back to himself as commission on the mortgage, then allegedly siphoned $5 million off that for son Jared's cash-bleeding weekly newspaper. More » -
the panic of '08
Ailing Time Can't Even Sell Out Right
"By the time the [Time Style & Design] issue hit newsstands in late November, reports suggested people were not buying much of anything, much less the $36,000 cellphone, $1,000 skin cream or Fendi Persian lamb jacket 'misted with gold particles' featured in the issue." [Times] -
Branding
Obama Picks His Catchphrase: 'A New Beginning'
Did you happen to catch Barack Obama's weekly camboy YouTube this Thanksgiving? Earnest and adorable as ever, the Office of the President Elect was unsubtle in its marketing; the word "new" appeared seven times in its 600-word speech on the economy, including two prominent instances of what appears to be the Obama administration's new catchphrase: "New Beginning." It looks like we have the much-awaited replacement term for "stimulus," "bailout" and "recovery package," all of which are despised by voters. More »
