The newspaper last week said "we do not see any violation of our rules" in Albo taking a free vacation sponsored by the consumer publication Thrillist and the airline JetBlue. But since providing that statement to Daily Finance's Jeff Bercovici, the Times had second thoughts, launched an investigation and has now axed Albo's twice-monthly "Critical Shopper" fashion column, according to Daily Intel.

Albo is a travel contributor, specifically barred under freelancer guidelines from accepting travel junkets, and even posted a tweet indicating he "felt gross" about the trip. So our old friend The Underminer should have anticipated some blowback. After all, it's a junket, plain and simple — a fundamentally scuzzy thing. But given that even Albo's superiors couldn't make sense of the rules, a simple ban on further travel writing would have been less embarrassing for everyone involved, without giving up much of anything in terms of conflicts of interest.

(Pic: Albo, by Irina Slutsky)

• This is disturbing: When a TV reporter asked Mitch Winehouse how daughter Amy was doing, he replied "Fantastic, fantastic. Her boobs are great as well." Then he backtracked, "I shouldn't have said that should I?" And then he rambled on, "I didn't have to pay for the boobs" and went on to question how she got the cash for them. Apparently Amy is broke and begs him for money a lot. That is, unless she is still mega-rich and shelled out the reported $56K for that glorious rack by herself, which OK says is also a possibility. [OK]
• 
  
• Salman Rushdie rubbed salt in ex-girlfriend Pia Glenn's wound by showing up at a hoity-toity literary event with yet another raven-haired Amazonian goddess on his arm. This one is a Harvard grad who only dates models, which makes it oh-so-enigmatic why she'd date frumpy Rushdie. Hey, did I mention she's an aspiring writer? [Page 6]
• 
  
• When the deejay at 1Oak announced "23 bottles of Cristal for Lindsay Lohan's 23rd birthday," LiLo reportedly "look startled." Not because she is a recovering alcohol with a DUI under her belt, but because it totally wasn't her birthday, her birthday is on July 2nd! [Page 6]
• 
  
• Amber Lee Ettinger suffered "minor cuts" after a rogue lighting scaffold beamed her at that Thrillist-JetBlue junket that everyone went to but no one was supposed to talk about. Apparently the trip was "completely crazy," with freebie Trojan condoms flying everywhere, best all-inclusive junket spring break ever!! [Page 6]
• 
  
• The case against two men accused of extorting $25 million from John Travolta after son Jett's death has ended in a mistrial. The reason was as tabloid as the trial itself: the judge thought the jury pool was leaking information. The judge figured it out when a member of Bahamas' Parliament said he had inside knowledge that defendant Pleasant Bridgewater—a Bahamanian politician with a farcically adorable name—would be acquitted. [NYDN]
• 
  
• Jill Zarin & co. played on their cellphones and were generally bratty at the Memphis premiere. It would actually be pretty disappointing if she showed up somewhere and wasn't a nuisance. [Page 6]
• 
  
• There's a mistake on Jacko's will—or is the whole thing a forgery? Michael Jackson was in New York on July 7, 2002, the same day his will was signed in L.A. His lawyer says they simply wrote down the wrong date, which raises another troubling question: Why, when you are guiding the most famous man on the planet through the most important legal documents of his life, would you not bother to make sure you have the date right? [TMZ]
• 
  
• Trent Reznor, Roseanne Cash, Billy Bragg, and a bunch of other musicians are demanding federal documents explaining how their music was used during torture sessions at Gitmo. This is because they are dutifully liberal, highly enlightened, civic-minded folks who are only somewhat curious to know whether al-Qaeda operatives prefer Nine Inch Nails or country standards. [HuffPo]
• 
  
• Nicole Richie and Samantha Ronson are besties, and Lindsay Lohan is jealous. Nicole is taking the high road, though, and just "wants a better life" for LiLo, thereby employing the deepest and most cutting diss in the Mean Girl manual: Magnanimous pity. [Perez Hilton]

Albo took a free, all expenses paid trip to Jamaica last weekend, sponsored by Thrillist and JetBlue. The Times defended the trip to Jeff Bercovici of DailyFinance.com, saying Albo is merely a freelancer, and wasn't on assignment.

But the newspaper is much more stern about such junkets in the policies for outside contributors we reviewed. A tipster forwarded the policies along, saying the Times makes all freelancers sign them. The agreement includes a section clearly barring travel journalism contributors from taking free services "from any element of the travel industry," as Albo did when he accepted the Jamaica junket from JetBlue.

And Albo is most definitely a travel contributor, filing at least half a dozen stories over the past two years, including two this past May.

Here's the ban, as quoted in the freelancer agreement we saw (reprinted further below):

The following additional rules apply to travel writers, whether working for Travel, Escapes, T: Travel or any other section:



No travel writer, whether on assignment or not, may accept free or discounted services of any sort from any element of the travel industry. This includes hotels, resorts, restaurants, tour operators, airlines, railways, cruise lines, rental car companies and tourist attractions...



It is our policy not to give Travel assignments to freelance writers who have previously accepted free services. Depending on circumstances, the Travel editor may make rare exceptions, for example, for a writer who ceased the practice years ago or who has reimbursed his or her host for services previously accepted

After we forwarded the agreement to the Times, the newspaper got back to us with this statement, also sent to Bercovici:

After a further review of the details, we do have concerns about Mike Albo's participation in the Jamaica trip organized by Thrillist. To the extent feasible, we apply our strict ethical standards to all Times contributors, and accepting free trips and other giveaways is at odds with those standards. We will be discussing the situation further with Mr. Albo and his editors at The Times.

In this economic climate, it must be hard for the Times to find travel writers who haven't taken any freebies. But compromising on that would just undermine the paper's ability to distinguish its travel coverage from.... well, from the likes of websites like Thrillist.

(Top: Albo, by Irina Slutsky)

Longer section, copy and pasted from Times freelancer guidelines as forwarded to us by a tipster (click to enlarge):

Kurt Soller and Mike Albo write for the New York Times and Newsweek, so one might think they'd pass on having corporate sponsors pay for their free vacation to Jamaica, complete with complimentary food, drink, lodging and personal butlers. But, as Jeff Bercovici at Daily Finance reports, they did attend the annual travel junket put on by the website Thrillist. Now their respective publications are having to address their freebie:

"We will be reimbursing Thrillist for the trip," a [Newsweek] spokesman says... after learning that one of [the magazine's] reporters... had gone on the junket."...A Times spokeswoman said Albo "is a freelancer and was not on assignment for The Times, which he made clear to the organizers of the trip. So we do not see any violation of our rules."

The Times might not see any problem with a junket for Albo, who pens the paper's Critical Shopper column, but the writer himself seems to. As as Bercovici points out, he tweeted, "I would feel gross about all this if I wasn't so poor."

It does seem like times are affecting standards. Last year, before a similar scandal erupted, it was the tabloidy likes of the New York Post, New York Daily News, Fox News — and Gawker, via video wizard Richard Blakeley — in attendance. And there was was major blowback: Fox joined CNN in saying the trip violated standards and that they would pay for the travel costs.

It just goes to show: Reporters will take anything free. Now more than ever.

UPDATE: Six people went to the hospital after a 20-foot-lighting tower fell on Thrillist's dance party at the Sandals resport. Obama Girl, who apparently was in the hizz-ouse, ended up with a "nasty gash" on her forehead, according to Daily Intel. It just goes to show, there's no such thing as a free lunch. (Except maybe in the Jamaican hospital; they have free health care down there! (Communists.))

Fun with reporters desperately seeking sources! Here's a HARO request from Fox News, looking for help for a story that could be big:

18)Summary: Allergic to Wi-Fi?
Name: Karlie Pouliot
Category: Health/Fitness
Email: [Redacted]
Title: Health Producer
Media Outlet: FOX NEWS
Specific Geographic Region: N
Region: New York City area
Deadline: 01:07am EASTERN - 31 July

Query:
Do you ever feel sick, dizzy and confused? You could be allergic to Wi-Fi! Were looking for patients who suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity and doctors who specialize in treating it.

Journalism in action, ladies and gentlemen.


Here, via Guest of a Guest, is a photo of Thrillist boss Ben Lerer at some Thrillist-sponsored beach party thing in the Hamptons last weekend. Yep.


This story about how Swiffer set up a "lounge" at some convention to attract blogger coverage is a good reminder that we're all just dancing monkeys for corporate America. Write your Twitter about your Swiffer Lounge experience, monkey. Dance.


Navy-besieged Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg's peers speak up: "On a personal note, I had to laugh at Gordon's complaint about "Carol's attempts to bully other reporters and establish dominance" on the base. When I traveled to Gitmo in January for our story on the base's final days, Rosenberg helped me from start to finish with my reporting and asked nothing in return." Conversely, none of the Navy commander's peers have come forward yet to say he is not a crybaby.


The Washington Post has replaced sourpuss TV critic Tom Shales with Hank Stuever. But they're giving Shales a column in the Style section where he will "will illuminate, pontificate and eviscerate, on TV and other subjects" and generally continue being self-important. Michael Calderone has the full memo.

A tipster tells us that NBC is poaching Thrillist's New York editor Steve Bryant, for a new site in Chicago similar to the San Francisco site they poached our own Owen Thomas for. NBC, always poaching! Man. [Thrillist PR machine Flavie tells us: "Yes. Officially August 1st: Hayden Lynch our former Nation editor will replace Steve Bryant as Thrillist NY editor. Joe McGauley, Thrillist former Web Editor will replace Hayden Lynch in the role of Nation Editor…Which leaves us with a web editor position to fill." Job!]

Whoa, don't everybody buy a newspaper at once! Cox has sold the Waco Tribune-Herald to a media company, and employees at the Gary Post-Tribune in Indiana want to buy their own paper from the Sun-Times. Strike while the MJ news is hot, Gary.

As if it wasn't hard enough just being a newspaper—try being the only black newspaper in Boston, for chrissake. A group of investors led by Harvard's Charles Ogletree say they've put together enough money to save the the Bay State Banner, which was going to be forced to close after 44 years. The downside: the paper's employees and readers will be forced to continue to live in Boston, Mass.

Paste Magazine! It is not dead, yet. Its Quixotic campaign to solicit donations from you, the public, to save itself, has actually paid off, to the tune of more than a quarter million dollars. Wowza. Impressive. Paste will continue to print, as we launch our own "Save Us" campaign here, via Paypal, please, give what you can, immediately.

Portfolio media blogger Jeff Bercovici says:

In making his pitch, Kearney clearly violated section 3.iv of Huffpo's user agreement, which forbids bloggers to "post advertisements or solicitation of business." (While bloggers often use Huffpo to promote their books or personal blogs, there's usually at least some pretense that they're writing about a larger topic.)

But maybe Thrillist is a special case, since its co-founder, Ben Lerer, is the son of Huffpo chairman Ken Lerer? I emailed Huffpo editor Roy Sekoff and its head of PR to ask about this but have yet to receive an explanation.

It's not the first time Huffpo has served as a promotional platform for Thrillist. Back in June, Huffpo's Living section editor, Verena von Pfetten, blogged about going on an all-expenses-paid junket to Las Vegas courtesy of Thrillist and JetBlue. Her post failed to mention the Lerer family connection. Rachel Sklar, who covers media for Huffpo, also accepted the junket and wrote it up for Radar. And Thrillist and Huffpo are close in another sense as well: They share office space in Soho.

"There's no way Zuckerberg's out getting drunk with some hot chick," Lerer told my colleague Nicholas Carlson. "He's a nerd!" On that point, we all agree, though we'd like to defend the pulchritude of Zuckerberg's steady girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, whom he met at Harvard and who is, from the photos we've seen, fully hot.

Bottom line: We doubt the drunk-Zuck rumor, too. For one thing, where were his bodyguards? Here's a thought: Zuckerberg's only 23. He's having a tough time at work. Whether or not he did get drunk, he deserved to. Mark, next time you venture out, if ever, we're buying.

(Photo by liooneel)

An email list might seem too 1999 for geeks more apt to find a new nightspot via Yelp or Twitter. But even though most of Silicon Valley has written off email for good, delivering its content over the ubiquitous technology seems to work for Thrillist. As Lerer notes, because readers have to sign up for Thrillist, "advertisers value impressions we deliver much differently." By differently, he means more.

We like Lerer — so much so that we're going to help him move into the 21st century. Any number of services allow you to convert email subscriptions into RSS feeds. Valleywag has signed up for Thrillist SF at one such website, Mail2RSS.org. The feed is here.

(Photo by kyle simourd)

It's sad. We think the next big thing in New York should be home-slaughter! But here's the email from a certain Gil Boston (freshmeatny@gmail.com):

Dear Sir/Madam,
Unfortunately, we've been forced to temporarily suspend our service due to overwhelming interest. And the fact that Fresh Meats is a sophomoric April Fools' con job, courtesy of Thrillist. If this causes you to lose all hope of ever personally beheading a Cornish Game Hen, take heart: you can still forward Thrillist to friends — then tease the gullible ones mercilessly despite the fact that the 1st isn't until Sunday.

[Photo: Houston Zoo/Cute Overload]

As the Midtown sun hushed to a blurry light pollution, some of blogging's biggest celebrities, cough, lounged poolside. Rachel Sklar and her entire division of Eat the Press fembots stood poolside, fully clothed, wishing they were in the pool, scantily-clad and frolicking. Perched half in the water and half out, those gamines to which Huffpo's people aspired —their breasts glimmering under the lights and stares of a hundred chubby dudes—posed and tossed large beach balls. The sheen of chlorine on their faces, no doubt undoing the good work of their expensive Clarins moisturizer, didn't mask the underlying truth that the amount of clothing worn at this particular party is inversely proportional to the level of self-esteem of those wearing and not wearing it. Of course there are some outliers—the obese, those with eczema, that rare bird in a one piece—but in general a good rule of thumb.

The men, meanwhile, at least those swimming, could be divided in terms of their levels of definition. This is important to the Thrillist ethos. Here too an inversely proportional relationship could be found. Those with the most developed pecs and triceps who frolicked in the pool were clearly the ones with whom any civilized person would have the least to do with. As the muscular definition became more and more vague, likeability increased.

As the night wore on, empty Sparks cans ringed the poolside, their sickening contents drained into the guts of now drunk and hyper revelers. Sklar had left long ago to work on her book, which is apparently about Jews, and the pool was mostly empty, save a few slowly drowning beach balls.—Josh

Thrillist Pool Party [Flickr]

Sleeves Tees [Thrillist]

their creed demands they not boot you even if you're the last man not passed out in his Sierra Nevada.

Pittman's history within Time-Warner lay primarily with MTV, so he's cool with what the kids are saying. He's also done boardroom time at places like Cendant and videogame factory Electronic Arts. He definitely has a thing for the e-mails, as in addition to Daily Candy, Pilot reputedly tossed about $300K into the manly coffers of male-mail service Thrillist. Incestuous side note: Thrillist lordling Ben Lerer is the son of Ken Lerer, cofounder of the Huffington Post, which Pilot may also have a minority stake in. Beyond that, Pilot has amassed a small portfolio of net-friendly small media properties, like the Double O radio network, 21 TV stations via Barrington Broadcasting, and a net marketing company (and former iFilm subsidiary) called OTX.

And Pittman has his socially conscious side as well, from throwing money at Eliot Spitzer to the "venture philanthropy" of the Robin Hood group. One assumes he's perhaps not quite so cavalier these days about personally flying planes at shareholder expense. There is one puzzling component of Pilot's portfolio, that being the Contours Express chain of women's gyms. Not sure what that has to do with new media, but to their credit, Daily Candy hasn't started gushing about the benefits of positve and negative resistance.

That aside, Daily Candy remains Pilot's prize, but you have to wonder — how does one realistically turn even an admittedly fine e-mail list into an $130 million valuation? Skittish investors didn't buy it either — at least not yet — even though DC's self-projected 2006 revenue comes in it at "somewhere less than $20 million." Given that, the asking price could have been even higher than $100 million, and yet it wasn't, and nobody bought it anyway. The AOL/Time-Warner merger debacle aside, Pittman and the Pilot Group have a reputation for being among the most canny new media investors out there, but the deciding hand in their big buy remains mostly unplayed.

They say the first year is always the hardest for both marriage and websites, so it makes sense that when that mark is hit, one would want to go out and get shitfaced. Last night, the boys from Thrillist did exactly that, inviting perpetual troublemakers Intern Heather, shutterfly Kate, and dance-happy videographer, Richard Blakeley along for the ride. The tequila-soaked lovefest saw standard-issue stripey shirts and skanks spazzdancing with kids from College Humor, Converse, and News Corp, which left us wondering ... would a Daily Candy party ever involve this much douchebaggery? Probably not. In the clip above, observe the various hot new dance moves practiced by various attendees. And you may enjoy a further photo gallery here.

At Your Service [UD]
Room Service [Thrillist]

Earlier: Battle of the Alpha Male Email Newsletters