Gawker: wallpaper

Media Bubble: Try and Act Surprised

abalk2 — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:10:11 EST

Jeff Zucker may take over for Bob Wright as head of NBC by the end of the year. Honestly, you get the feeling that Zucker could rip the head off a transgendered prostitute and skullfuck it in the middle of a board meeting and he'd still get promoted. [NYP]
It's not exactly news that Jason Binn is a "scumbag," but this time it comes from his mentor, so it carries some extra authority. [Radar]
Fox News source for Iraq reports: internal Fox News memos. [CJR]
NBC #2 Randy Falco to head AOL. [NYT]
BBC will pay for user-generated video, but only if it's really good footage, e.g. a Lib Dem minister eating a rent boy's turd. [Guardian]
HBO/AOL to collaborate on comedy site. Let's hope it's as funny as Lucky Louie was! [Reuters]
Are we the only ones getting tired of the use of the word "civilians" to mean "people tangentially connected but not involved in the media industry"? Also, hot internal Gawker memo gossip. [NYT]
Yep, it's true: Avellar, Hanson, and "Dr." Gomez out at WNBC. [NYDN]
Adorable WSJ reporters somehow think refusing to do podcasts will give them leverage in current labor dispute. [AP]
Wallpaper guy to take British Esquire "upmarket." Guardian]
Newsweek tech correspondent to NYT? [Valleywag]
Larry King: has never used Internet, misses rotary phones. [ThinkProgress]
Correction of the Day: "An obituary on Monday and in some copies on Sunday about Isadore Barmash, a retired business reporter for The New York Times, rendered incorrectly the name of a department store that he wrote about frequently. It was Gimbels, not Gimbel's. Gimbels, which closed in 1986, has been referred to correctly in The Times more than 500 times since 1980 and incorrectly more than 120 times; this is the first time the error has been corrected." [NYT]

Last Year's Hottest Iranian Censorship Fashion

Chris Mohney — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:50:13 EDT

A Swede by the name of Jonathan Lundqvist returned from Iran last month with a bundle of National Geographics, Economists, and Wallpapers purchased from a newsstand near Tehran University. Though these and other Western mags are permitted, they're heavily censored — moreover, they're manually censored, by government readers who go through each copy and cover forbidden ladyparts with white stickers or black ink. Interestingly, news stories that show women with bare arms, knees, or cleavage generally just get a blocky white sticker, while fashion ads (like Uma Thurman above) get ink jobs that keep the clothes unobscured. Some ink gets more artfully applied than others; Uma almost looks like she's wearing a black top of some kind. After the jump, less fortunate girls just get slapped with chastity-protecting boob blobs. Lundqvist noted that the newsstand stocked several mag issues that were quite old (these photos are from Wallpaper, September 2005); one wonders what the turnaround is on hand-censoring. (The newsstand owner was also shocked that Lundqvist declined to purchase some un-censored fashion mags from "under the counter.")

More pictures of Iranian Censorship [jturn via Boing Boing]

The conquering of the VIP lounge

Gawker — Mon, 07 Apr 2003 14:52:01 EDT

A reader on "the Wallpaper*-ization of geo-politics," or "a glimpse into why war is (Conde) Nast-y, brutish and long":

"Denying reports that the US has control of Saddam International Airport, the Iraqi information minister suggested that they in fact only control the VIP lounge (this is really from Reuters, I am not making this up):

'In order to deceive you and deceive me—they believe they can do so—they went to the VIP lounge to divert attention from their villains who were slaughtered on the ground.'

'They speak about buildings and walls instead of a VIP lounge. Instead of showing the tragedy of their soldiers, they speak about a lounge—does a lounge represent the dignity of a people?'" In Manhattan, yes.

Related link, via Maquis:
Text: 'Victory over America [BBC]