See All the New ‘Gossip Girl’ OMFG AdsThe CW has released a whole set of steamy new advertisements for the Greatest Show of Our Time, and they want you to get bleeping excited about it.
in other news
The Couric Countdown Has Already BegunAs we learn more about the meetings and discussions behind yesterday’s report that Couric may leave CBS in 2009, it seems like she’s already planning life after the evening news.
ink-stained wretches
‘Out’ and ‘The Advocate’ Sold for $6 MillionPlanetOut Inc. sold the two prominent gay magazines to Here Networks, in a deal that may leave the staff office-less by the end of the month.
The Gray Lady Is Unimpressed With Your AnticsLast night at a memorial service for Norman Mailer, the writer’s son had an out-of-body experience. The ‘Times’ barely batted an eyelash.
Katie Couric and Sean McManus: Chipper at CBS in Spite of It AllMore troubles for Sam Zell, Heather Mills is coming to town, and half of Bear Stearns employees are facing the ax. Click through to read the rest of our news roundup from the fields of media, law, finance and real estate.
Felix Dennis: ‘I Killed a Man’The former Maxim publisher makes (and later tries to retract) the bombshell statement in a booze-fueled interview with the Times of London.
Buyout Exodus at ‘Newsweek’A dating blogger seeks a book deal, trading desks think recession, and Jean Nouvel wins the Pritzker in our daily roundup of media, finance, law, and real-estate news.
multiple choice
Pop Quiz: Know Your Media LadiesYesterday and today, the Times profiled three women in media: Julia Allison, Arianna Huffington, and Lauren Zalaznick. Despite differences in their ages and careers, the three of them seem of a type.
in other news
Madonna No Longer Loves New YorkIn the upcoming “Green Issue” of Vanity Fair, Madonna tells us that she is so over New York, contrary to recent reports.
in other news
Tomorrow’s Journalism, Today!Slate’s literary editor Meghan O’Rourke is working on a story about Facebook status updates. Obviously, this information needs to be shared as a Facebook status update of her own!
in other news
L.A. ‘Times’ Duped on Tupac-Diddy StoryFor all of you I Love the 90s fans who are heartsick for a little East Coast–West Coast rivalry, last week was a big one: The Los Angeles Times reported that the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur in the lobby of the Quad Recording Studios in midtown was carried out by associates of none other than Sean “Diddy” Combs, who knew about the whole thing beforehand.
early and often
Media Panel Stretches Blog Metaphors, Blows Kisses at ObamaAt a NYU Media Talk last night focusing on “Publishing and the Election,” Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter called Thomas Payne “the original blogger.” We bet he didn’t have to deal with unending pajama jokes!
James Dolan and Mort Zuckerman Join Murdoch in Scramble for ‘Newsday’Turns out it’s not just Rupert Murdoch who’s interested in buying Newsday; Mort Zuckerman, the real-estate magnate who owns the Daily News, and James Dolan, whose family owns Cablevision, Madison Square Garden, and the Knicks, are making bids as well.
it just happened
PageSix.com, We Hardly Knew YeWhy? Because people just weren’t going. Oh, and something about the economy. Damn you, subprime crisis! You took away our Bear Stearns, and now you’re taking away our Britney updates?
company town
Jamie Dimon: ‘Many’ of Bear’s 14,000 Employees Will Lose JobsDid Bear Stearns collapse in part because of a whisper campaign? How will Starbucks keep its customers if everyone starts pinching pennies? And what did Sarah Jessica Parker think of Maxim naming her the “unsexiest woman alive”? Our weekly roundup of law, media, and business news.
in other news
Anderson Cooper’s Eyeball Issue Is ResolvedManderson down! We repeat, Manderson down! It turns out our favorite well-biceped broadcaster has just undergone surgery to remove some sort of skin cancer from underneath his left eye.
in other news
Ad Hominem Attack on Mariah Carey in the ‘Daily News’Dude, News editorial board, what’s with this 63-word diatribe today?
Cultural note: We see that the warbler Mariah Carey, who has already tied Elvis Presley as the second-place holder of the most No. 1 records, will soon, if her new hit ditty goes to the top of the charts, tie the Beatles as the first-place holder of the most No. 1 records ever.
Man.
That’s — that’s just wrong.
On so many levels.
Why, exactly, is it wrong, you guys? Because you’re a bunch of mostly white old people who don’t understand R&B? If you’ll recall, your parents thought Elvis and the Beatles were trashy, too. We won’t defend Mariah Carey’s cultural relevance in comparison to those musical giants — though we do love her. But from now on, you’re no longer allowed to wonder why young people think your newspaper is irrelevant.
Off the Charts [NYDN]
company town
JPMorgan Gearing Up to Move Into Bear’s Sweet HQFINANCE
• JPMorgan Chase will probably move its investment-banking unit to Bear Stearns’ smokin’-hot headquarters on Madison Avenue. The building is valued at $1.2 billion, which is just one-fourth of quadruple the price JPMorgan paid for the firm itself. [NYP]
• JPMorgan Chase’s valuation of Bear Stearns shows that financial institutions are significantly overvalued. Speaking of which, many employees had their life savings wiped out. [NYP, WSJ]
• Meanwhile Goldman Sachs’ earnings are down but beat analysts’ expectations. [DealBook/NYT]
in other news
Ingrid Sischy and Sandra Brant to Helm ‘Vanity Fair’ AbroadDon’t cry for Ingrid Sischy. After she abruptly departed her eighteen-year position as editor-in-chief of Interview magazine, and her girlfriend Sandra Brant (you remember her – she used to be married to Peter Brant) sold her half-ownership stake in the parent company Brant Publications, people were wondering what she was going to do with her life. After all, for nearly two decades her name was synonymous with Andy Warhol’s gritty, authentic magazine. But it turns out she’s had a great plan all along! Condé Nast HR mouthpiece WWD tells us that both Sischy and Brant will be international editors of Italian, Spanish, and German versions of Vanity Fair. And, what’s more, they’ll helm any future glamorous expansions abroad. Which is great news for them, probably, but it also raises the question: Is this the biggest lesbian sellout since Anne Heche ditched chicks?
Sischy, Brant Join Vanity Fair International Editions [WWD]
company town
New York Newspapers Tanking More Slowly Than Papers ElsewhereMEDIA
• Of the top twenty American newspapers, the circulation of New York ones suffered less than others over the past few years. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• We hear … that gossip Website Jossip.com is up for sale. [NYP]
• And that ESPN The Magazine is beefing up its fashion coverage. [WWD]
ink-stained wretches
‘Radar’ Hires Spencer Pratt to Dispense Advice, WisdomRadar has hired Spencer Pratt, the blond, cherubic Hills star with a heart of darkness, as their new advice columnist. “Yo Spencer!,” which will tackle “problems from hot girls to family affairs,” will debut in the next issue. (A sneak preview of the first column, which answers questions about smelly co-workers, girls who like threesomes, and whether one should discourage one’s brother from enlisting in the army, is after the jump.) “Spencer is never afraid to speak his mind,” Radar editor-in-chief Maer Roshan says in the press release. “When asking for advice, it’s good to have someone who will be brutally honest with you, and tell it like it is.” Sure, because that worked out really well for Heidi. You can e-mail Spencer, or whoever’s writing his column, about your problems at spencer@radaronline.com, though it might take him a while to get back to you, since we predict that mailbox will be full of “You’re a douche bag” messages in, oh, ten to twenty minutes.
ink-stained wretches
Line Between ‘Us Weekly’ and ‘Times Magazine’ BlursTraditional news outlets have taken a lot of flack in recent years for trading “hard news” coverage of politics and current affairs for softer, celebrity-oriented stories. But who knew that the news media’s oft-snubbed brethren, celebrity magazines, would step up to fill the void? For the past month or so, Us Weekly has done a number of stories on political figures, including an online interview with Barack Obama that caused the Website’s traffic to spike to record highs. Naturally, they are eager to follow up this success, and this week, The New Yorker’s Lizzie Widdicombe sat in on an editorial meeting with Us editor Janice Min and her team, where executive editor Catherine Romano came up with an idea for a story that combined celebrity with politics.
“There are a million people involved in the U.N.,” Romano said. “How about an activism story?”
Michael Steele, an executive editor, asked, “Should we build our own fake U.N., with celebrity heads and titles?”
Great idea, right? In fact, it was so good that the multi-Pulitzer-winning New York Times Magazine did pretty much the exact same thing this past weekend. It’s like Janice Min and Gerry Marzorati had total mind meld.
The Fourth Estate: Just Like Us! [NYer]
The Money Issue [NYT]
company town
Another Sad Day for SchwarzmanFINANCE
• Where has all of Steve Schwarzman’s money gone? A report saying that his fund would earn less than half of what was predicted caused Blackstone’s stock price to tumble. [NYP]
• Former Countrywide Financial, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch execs get ready to explain to Congress why they got huge paychecks as their shareholders lost billions. [DealBook/NYT]
• Financier Carl Icahn ups his stake in Motorola. [DealBook/NYT]
gossipmonger
For Cecilia Sarkozy, Revenge Is a Dish Best Served During the Venetian HourCecilia Sarkozy, the ex-wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, is set to get married to PR exec Richard Attias in New York on March 22. (Friends say it’s a “revenge” wedding.) Shelley Ross was so hated in her capacity as executive producer of CBS’ The Early Show that CBS News president Sean McManus didn’t even wait to find a replacement before firing her. Colin Farrell tried hitting on model Meghan Lowther at the Rose Bar, but found out the hard way that she has a boyfriend. The April issue of Elle features an interview given by Michelle Williams right after she broke up with Heath Ledger. New York real-estate giant Steven Fisher, best known for turning the aircraft carrier Intrepid into a museum, is trying to get his own TV show. Gossip Girl’s Conor Paolo wants, uh, Daniel Day-Lewis to join the cast.
company town
Joe Dolce, Former ‘Star’ Editor, Gets a Taste of ‘Culture’MEDIA
• Former Star editor-in-chief Joe Dolce resurfaces, bringing Culture & Travel magazine back into the spotlight. [WWD]
• Former Seventeen editrix Atoosa Rubenstein resurfaces, bringing Alpha Kitty back into the spotlight. [HuffPo]
• And for those wondering how to keep tabs on colleagues who are masthead hopping, check out e-newsletter Gorkana, brought to your in-box by friendly PR people. [NYT]
company town
The Gray Lady Lets Jim Impoco Come Crawling BackMEDIA
• Fired Portfolio editor Jim Impoco makes his comeback at The New York Times Magazine, where he’ll be a consulting editor. [NYO]
• NBC puts its traditional glitzy advertising on the back burner. That’s really too bad for the girl who was hoping to be assigned to keep tabs on John Krasinski during the day of the presentations. [NYP]
• Nielsen CEO David Calhoun charts a new course for his media-measuring company. [Fortune]
it just happened
A Harbinger of Things to Come? Hedge Funds Increase Share in ‘NYT’Avast! According to documents filed with the SEC, Firebrand Partners and Harbinger Capital Partners, the hedge funds seeking to put their nominees on the board of the New York Times, have increased their stake in the paper to 9.8 percent. (It was previously reported they owned 4.9 percent). We’re no good at math, but we’d say that there’s a 90 percent chance that soon enough, Firebrand’s vagilante founder Scott Galloway will be sitting on the board, breathing his fiery Johnny Walker breath all over Arthur Schlesinger and Times chief executive Janet Robinson.
Hedge Funds Lift Stake in New York Times [WSJ]
Earlier: Vagilante Shareholder Scott Galloway Takes on the ‘Times’
ink-stained wretches
Ten Questions From a Non-Genius to Lewis LaphamLewis Lapham is smarter than we are. See, he’s just brought forth this new quarterly, which will deal with history through the words, images, and thoughts with which that history was recorded. Yeah, that much smarter. Each issue of Lapham’s Quarterly will deal with a theme, and the first theme is “War.” In this edition, he includes essays, poetry, speeches, photographs, diagrams, lists, quotes and timelines from all of recorded history. Hence, works by Shakespeare, Virgil, Tim O’Brien, Herodotus (duh), Pope Urban II, Jessica Lynch, and dozens of others appear. Yeah, it’s like that, y’all. In Lapham’s introductory note, he explains: “The method assumes that all writing, whether scientific treatise, tabloid headline, or minimalist novel, is an attempt to tell a true story.” (FYI: That was about the shortest sentence in his essay, and therefore the only one we could include in a blog post.) In other words, Lapham’s Quarterly is epic. It’s historic. It’s all-encompassing.
But we have some questions. We are not historians, we are not experts in anything, we didn’t even read War & Peace in college. But maybe that’s why we can see the forest for the trees? After the jump, ten genuine questions a non-genius might ask Lewis Lapham about his new magnum opus .
obit
Norman Mailer for Mayor of New York, 1969As friends and family paid respects to Norman Mailer at his wake in Provincetown, Massachusetts, yesterday, we decided to dig up our part of one of Mailer’s most colorful personal stories: when he ran for mayor in 1969. “I am paying my debt to society,” he told Time that summer. “That is why I am running.” He ran alongside newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, who ran for City Council president. They began their campaign at the urging of friends like Gloria Steinem and Jack Newfield, at a time when they saw the city as a wounded place in need of healing. Breslin recounted his experience of running, and how Mailer convinced him to do it, in a May 1969 New York cover story. Click below to read.
MAILER-BRESLIN: Seriously? [NYM, pdf]
company town
Walters Says Greenspan Always Gave Bad AdviceFINANCE
• Alan Greenspan’s old flame Barbara Walters complained the G-man never gave good advice, insisting back in the seventies that she avoid an apartment on Fifth Avenue because it was a “bad investment.” [NYP]
• Henry Kravis got a little egg on his face thanks to the collapse of the $8 billion Harman buyout. Steve Schwarzman gets bragging rights or an excuse to back out of his own impossibly huge deals. [Deal Journal/WSJ]
• With computers taking over, the NYSE plans to cut the trading floor down by half from its historic high. The famous Main Room and “the Garage,” opened in 1903 and 1922 respectively, will remain open. [NYT]
in other news
And It Will Become Necessary to Destroy the Country in Order to Save ItSorry, this has no New York connection and is outside our usual bailiwick and all that, but, still:
How did this man get elected twice?
Bush to Invoke Vietnam in Arguing Against Iraq Pullout [CNN]
Related: Bush’s Iraq-Vietnam Parallel [The Lede/NYT]