Gawker: who hates whom

Wayne Barrett Isn't Pissed At Michael Isikoff After All!

Maggie — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:05:46 EST

There's a feud brewing between Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett and Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff over who broke the story about Rudy Giuliani's ties to terror-financiers in the Middle East. Or so a bunch of catty mainstream publications' blogs would have you think!

"If you got a strong sense of dèja vu when reading Michael Isikoff's "The Qatari Connection" in this week's Newsweek, it may be because you read Wayne Barrett's "Rudy's Ties to a Terror Sheik" in last week's Voice," reads an annoyed post up this morning on the Voice's daily blog.

New York magazine's Daily Intel is criticizing Isikoff for using quotes similar to those in Barrett's story; in particular, the Voice says, comments made by former CIA agent Robert Baer. Over at the Observer, newly-minted media editor Zach Roth asked Isikoff what the deal was. "The truth is I was aware of, and done reporting on all this, before the Village Voice piece," Isikoff replied in an email. "No intention to slight Wayne Barrett who was generously credited in our cover story on Rudy last week."

We rang Barrett up today to find out how slighted he actually felt. As it turns out, the answer is not at all, which is somewhat surprising in and of itself: In March, Barrett spent several hours speaking to Newsweek for a cover story on Giuliani and was furious when the piece mentioned the discussion only in passing.

"I don't have any quarrel with what Isikoff did," Barrett told us. "I've never spoken to the man in my life, and he's a fine journalist. If he says he was working on the story, then I accept it. He advanced the story, and that's the name of the game." Putting aside competition for the sake of the bigger picture? What means this?

"News stories are building blocks; I didn't invent this story," Barrett said. "I think I added greatly to it. That's what happened with news stories, people build on them."

As for the Baer quotes used in Isikoff's story, they actually bear more resemblance to a Thursday ABC.com blog post, written by Marcus Baram, who at one point interned for Barrett at the Voice. Baer is a consultant for ABC News, which pretty much rounds out this little media nexus.

In other Giuliani news, Vanity Fair's investigative piece (Disclosure: written by my brother) is online.

Earlier: 'Voice' And 'Vanity Fair' Are Tag Teaming Rudy Giuliani

You All Knew That Lou Reed Was A Jerk!

Joshua Stein — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:20:11 EST

Yesterday, we discovered Lou Reed is not a nice man. But that's something you've known all along! Former Village Voice nightlife correspondent Tricia Romano and others share their Lou Reed stories.

"Mr. Reed did a Honda scooter ad in the '80s." And: "I've seen Mr. Reed and Ms. Anderson at brunch — he snarls at her and behaves like a grouchy old ass, while she flutters around and tries to laugh it off." [City_Dater]

"Lou Reed is a sorry excuse for a human being. He was the single meanest person I ever dealt with for FLY LIFE. I watched him yell at the staff photographer hired by the Anthology Film Archives while he read an intro to the film being shown. The guy snapped maybe five shots, one or two which used flash because the theatre was so dark, and Reed went ballistic." [Tricia Romano]

"Here's my Lou Reed Moment: BITD, I saw a sneak preview of 'Analyze This' at Union Square. I left the theatre behind Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson; they lived nearby, and as Reed was fumbling with the keys to his apartment he grumpily intoned, 'Well, THAT was a waste of time.' He was kinda right, but that's besides the point - I was just kinda tickled by the idea that Reed and Anderson would spend their Saturday night at a Billy Crystal movie." [WendyKRoy]

But also, this: "Lou used to be a client of mine, and I have to say, I was shocked by his kindness. He walked in, held his hand out, introduced himself (duh...) and said so happy to finally meet you. I was a little flabbered by that. His BFF Schnabel was equally gracious. Here's the kicker: Lou was a bumbling old fool who had to be told he was going down a flight of stairs. Schnabel was the one loudly pronouncing 'Lou, it's a flight of stairs, we're going down them.' 'Ohhh, ok Julian.' Like a doddering old married couple I'd say." [Maevemealone]

Wow, he sounds just like former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton!

Hillary Clinton still totally hates New York ...

Choire — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:05:55 EST

Hillary Clinton still totally hates New York Times reporter Patrick Healy; he wrote a piece about her relationship that she's never gotten over. (2008 is gonna be a long year for him!) Incidentally, according to Pat's recent bio, he is "single." Race ya! [NYO]