Newspapers, Winos Find More Common Ground
Just like the Hobo New York Times, USA Today now has its own wine club. But! Theirs has "a unique twist." No cliches? No, that's not it!
Tyra Banks Launches a Magazine; Another Paper Launches a Wine Club; Hollywood's Mediocre Summer
• Tyra Banks is launching a web-based magazine. Tyra: Beauty Inside & Out will feature an "audio 'manifesto' that asks readers to dream big, ignore the haters, celebrate uniqueness and seek the beauty in everything." [WWD]
• James Patterson has signed a 17-book deal with his publisher, Hachette. And all 17 of them…
Nick Kristof Is an Honest Man
In your commendable Thursday media column: Nick Kristof is the perfect columnist except for his writing, the NYT acknowledges its photo scandal, USA Today teaches us how to write a story that adds up to zero, and Lenny Dykstra's bankrupt.
Palin Even More Popular With Republicans After Quitting
A new USA Today/Gallup poll found that 71% of Republicans would likely vote for Sarah Palin if she ran for president in 2012. Three-fourths of Republicans polled also believe Palin has been treated unfairly by the media. [USA Today]
Late-Night Ratings, Ari Emanuel & The Crisis at Condé
• It's only been a week since Conan took over the top-rated Tonight Show, but David Letterman has already passed over him in the ratings. [NYT]
• Also: Dave Letterman's new contract will keep him at CBS through '12. [LAT]
• Yesterday the Boston Globe's largest union rejected the New York Times Co.'s proposed package…
Good News for Neocons, Long Islanders, Al Roker Fans
• More trouble at Condé Nast: Ad pages at Vogue are down 31 percent this year and Vanity Fair experienced a 52 percent drop in May alone. The silver lining: Graydon Carter's lavish expense account remains unaffected. [NYP]
• The Sun really may be returning after all. As a website, that is. Seth Lipsky says "there's a…
Marriage in Hollywood, A New Boss at USA Today
• William Morris and Endeavor have agreed to merge the two agencies. The new company will be called William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, or WME, which should not be confused with WWE, or World Wrestling Entertainment, although the testosterone and aggression levels are comparable. [WSJ, NYT]
• Is the New York Times…
Bearded Twitterati Look Ugly Playing Baseball
One BusinessWeek scribe fussed over his beard, an Ars Technica blogger griped over her ride, and an ABC News reporter got dissed in makeup! The Twitterati's complaints were endless today:
More Work, Less Pay & No Free Newspapers
• Hachette is cutting salaries and asking staff to work overtime. Fun! [Gawker]
• Amazon is blaming an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" for the dropping the sales rankings of thousands of gay and lesbian books. [AFP]
• Bravo has picked up four new shows, including one produced by Sarah Jessica Parker…
Why USA Today Publisher Resigned Unexpectedly
Craig Moon's retirement as USA Today's president was "largely unexpected within Gannett," the Wall Street Journal reports. Apparently Moon couldn't work for a paper that is having trouble giving away copies.
Colmes Departs, Amanpour Scores, Forbes Denies
♦ Alan Colmes, the "liberal" who supposedly serves as co-host of Hannity & Colmes with Sean Hannity, is leaving the Fox News program at the end of the year. [HuffPo]
♦ A daily news program hosted by Christiane Amanpour is in the works at CNN. [NYT]
♦ Despite screwing up nearly everything he touches, NBC golden…
Microsoft hopes you'll make friends through its new banner ads
Microsoft-owned ad agency Avenue A/Razorfish has a new product out that's supposed to solve the problem of how easily Web users ignore banner ads. AdLife ads run at the size of a regular banner, but include social features like customer reviews, a feedback button, and of course, user-generated content. AdLife is…
USA Today hype crashes Twitter
Twitter got its big break with mainstream America today — a big article in the free Ramada Inn daily, USA Today. In fact, the article drove so much traffic to Twitter that — whoops — it crashed. Again. "They used to call it the Slashdot Effect," Valleywag's resident Olds Paul Boutin tells me, "Your site would go…
Freefall
June ad sales at USA Today were 27% lower than a year earlier. That's a decline even steeper than reported by the Tribune Company papers and the New York Times.
Despite Appearances, Drunken Lindsay Lohan Not Actually Shilling For Liquor Industry
Seemingly no day this week would be complete without the unauthorized use of a celebrity to further a lesser entity's cause. First we had Uwe Boll borrowing Michael Bay to pimp his new film, and not 24 hours later, the American Beverage Institute placed a full-page ad in USA Today featuring Lindsay Lohan as the…
Financial Desperation Forces Newspapers Into Good Journalism
It can cost more than $30,000 per month to keep a reporter on the presidential campaign trail, so cash-strapped newspapers like USA Today, the Boston Globe and the Dallas Morning News are no longer on the road with the Clinton or Obama campaigns, at least not on a consistent basis. The changes have thinned out the…
USA Today Founder Al Neuharth Is "Mad Man," Says Hearst CEO
Where did Hearst president Cathie Black pick up her steely ways? Why from "mad man" USA Today founder Al Neuharth of course! (She said it, we didn't.) In a November interview at the 92 St. Y with New York Post gossip Liz Smith, Black dishes about being a career woman and her early days with Neuharth. One gem?…
Dead-tree newspaper readership down, Web readership up
Newspapers sales have fallen 3 percent year-over-year. With the exception of USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, the vast majority of major papers lost subscribers. This year the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the industry organization that reports subscriber information, included online readership in the report. In…
'USA Today' and the 'Wall Street Journal' are both developing in-house glossy magazines. Is this what the success of T has wrought? [AdAge]
Creepy Old Man Invites 'USA Today' Interns Out For Beers
Craig Wilson's column today on nubile young interns at USA Today is chilling, in that "would totally freak Nancy Grace out" kind of way.
