The sky falling isn't the only noise being made inside MSNBC's halls. That drip-drip-drip into the cesspool of water collecting in amidst the rubble? It's Rachel Maddow, whose upcoming namesake show provides newspeg for a slew of profiles about the "accidental radio personality"-cum-television star. Two we managed to get through were Time's and the Boston Globe's. Not surprisingly, because Maddow is a woman, both had to comment on her physical appearance. CONTINUED »
Lloyd Grove wasn't the only gossip causing stares at Fox News' White House Correspondents Dinner. That honor goes to the Boston Globe Mark Shanahan, who, the Boston Herald gleefully points out, was 800 thread count sheets to the wind. CONTINUED »
For a magazine that just moved from Boston to Washington, New York seems like an odd location for The Atlantic’s 150th Anniversary party. But as Andrew Sullivan says, “You can’t have a party unless it’s in New York.”
Fair enough. But that doesn’t explain The Atlantic’s venue choice: a theater in the village. With a full audience, the party was one-part open bar, one-part performance piece. While we drank, we couldn’t help but feel bad for The Atlantic fans in the crowd who had to watch a New York magazine photographer take pictures of Jared Kushner. The New Yorker festival seemed modest by comparison.
If there's one thing the New York Times Co. is doing well, its magazines. The Sunday Magazine, Play, and T are all performing quite well. Or at least better than the flagship newspaper. So it makes sense that NYT-owned Boston Globe would introduce another one of its own. (Its third, to be precise.)
Meet Lola, "an on-the-go lifestyle magazine that brings Boston women a best friend's take on everything and anything that can make local life a little better. Designed for Boston women in their 20's, 30's or 40's, Lola will be full of locally relevant information with a lively mix of the practical and the impulsive.." It hits in November, goes monthly in January, and won't cost you a penny, since it'll be available as a freebie at cafes, bookstores, and abortion clinics. You know, because those fit in with the mission to "make local life a little better."
Noted Boston Globe plagiarizer Jeff Jacoby is said to be at it again. Jacoby, an op-ed columnist who's been suspended in the past for "serious journalistic misconduct" (read: "he recycled, without attribution in his column, the work of others") after ripping off a WSJ piece, now stands accused of reproducing another writer's work.
His column yesterday, "The fights on the right," sounds remarkably similar to a May piece in the WSJ's Opinion Journal titled "The Conservative Mind." So unfortunate, too, when you consider we normally have to turn on cable news to meet our quota of recycled rhetoric.
• Verbal grudge-match heats up between staffers at the Today show and Good Morning America, yielding doozies such as "Gay-MA" and "Today? More like 'Yesterday.'" Zing!
• Scooter Libby might actually go to prison. Fortunately for him, Paris has made it "all the rage."
• Did Departures magazine play too prominent a role in the episode leading up to The Sopranos' departure?
• 'Eric Alterman is the aging-lefty Lindsay Lohan!' proclaims Lloyd Grove in New York magazine. And here we thought Lloyd was an aging-lefty unemployed gossip gossip columnist.
• Boston Globe rips Conservapedia a new one.
• Hillary Clinton stops by Skadden Arps. Relax, it was nothing litigious—she was probably just picking up her latest truckload of campaign donations.
• Wal-Mart is in trouble for taping New York Times reporter's phone calls. 'Yo, that's fucked up!' says the NSA.
• Meanwhile, advertisers, Norman Mailer not big fans of New York Times' book reviews.
• Ron Burkle banks $200 million; Jared Paul Stern wishes he could go back in time and extort him for a whole lot more.
• New Nightly News exec producer Alex Wallace started out working for CBS and NBC. Looks like she finally backed the right horse.
• "Seriously, Brian Williams' trip to Iraq isn't a ratings stunt. He just really, really, wanted to go," says NBC.
• Boston Globe sportswriter suspended for plagiarism; experts say this reporter's "a few yards short of a touchdown."
• Perez Hilton founder Mario Lavandeira to be sued for posting topless Jennifer Aniston pics. When reached for comment, an unfazed Perez drew fake cocaine over the lawsuit and described it as "shiteous."
• Meet Dean Baquet, the "Barack Obama" of the New York Times. But will he or Jill "Hillary" Abramson take over for retiring exec editor, Bill Keller?
• Boston Globe stands by its decision to run trashy tabloid fodder about how Tom Brady dumped his preggers girlfriend.
• Weatherman Chris Knowles is leaving Fox News Channel, less than a week after hottie wife, Kiran Chetry, departed. Current outlook: Hazy, with a 60% chance of CNN.
CONTINUED »
• Breaking: Positive press bonanza ends for Barack Obama as unreliable sources report he was a 6-year-old terrorist.
• 60 Minute alums strive to follow up success of boring, news magazine show with boring, news magazine.
• World News Tonight bounces back from Peter Jennings, Bob Woodruff tragedies to bitch-slap Katie Couric in the ratings.
&bull: Related: CBS is 'absolutely thrilled' with Katie Couric and her low-ranking news broadcast.
• The Boston Globe to cut costs, save lives, by pulling its reporters out of Iraq.
• Ron Burkle, Eli Broad fly to Chicago to fight over a company no one else cares about.
• Ed2010 founder lands her dream job 3 years ahead of schedule.
• ABC drops out of the pool of broadcasters hoping to convince the FCC that a little "shit" on-air isn't so bad.
• Paula Zahn missed the point. CNN staffers yawn with non-susprise.
• NYT Co. rebuffs ex-GE chief Jack Welch's offer to take the Boston Globe off its hands.
• Gay Talese is one person you can count on O.J. Simpson's side. Then again, his wife is Nan Talese, as in James Frey's Oprah cohort.
• Thanks to Michael Richards needing to apologize for his racist rant, David Letterman leap frogs over Jay Leno's ratings.
• Patty Hearst's (lesbian) Hollywood screen kiss will not, after all, come to fruition.
• Domino goes green for March.
• Jon Friedman suddenly has a problem kow-towing to the famous. [Marketwatch]
• Hipsters don't just have their own language, they have their own scripted series. [NYO]
• Another roadblock to gay rights: Calling someone a "faggot" just doesn't conjure the same uproar "spic" ever does. [AfterElton]
• The Los Angeles Times receives an envelope filled with a white powdery substance. It's either sugar, anthrax, or Dean Baquet's stash. (Note the "From a Times Staff Writer" byline.) [LAT]
• It's always wise to take advice from someone with a cocktail in hand at a party. Especially when that hand belongs to Alex Kuczynski and the advice is about lipo-ing your ass. [NYO]
• Two of Boston's richest (including former GE chief Jack Welch) consider making a bid for the Boston Globe. Owner NYT maintains it's not for sale, though its dignity is. [Boston Globe]
Sen. Ed Kennedy led a pack of 20 Massachusetts politicos in penning a stern letter to New York Times chief Arthur Sulzberg, demanding – and even we don't believe it – that Pinch leave the Boston Globe's ranks alone. They're losing too many staffers, cry the officials. Which, and we're just using logic here, most politicians would be overjoyed with: Fewer muckrakers all up in their business trying to eek out a scandal or discover a conflict of interest. Not as many calls to return.
In a letter to Sulzberger, Kennedy and others said "a troubling pattern of disinvestment, downsizing, outsourcing and cost cutting has emerged" to damage the fabled paper.
"A shrinking news hole and the elimination of bureaus have stung the morale of employees facing in creased health care costs and wage freezes."
The group said "Boston Globe journalists have risked their lives and, in some cases, given their lives" to uphold "a long and storied tradition of excellence."
"What a terrible shame it would be if the premier brand in journalism - The New York Times Co. - was responsible for doing genuine harm to that tradition."
Sure, perhaps some of the politicians are frightened at the thought of losing close confidants who've been instrumental in leaking items about their opponents, but thanks to their criticism and yesterday's annoucement of a NYT Co. profit mudslide – from $23.1 million last quarter to the current $14 million, or a 39 percent dip – the company's stock slipped a couple points. We're not financial professionals or anything, but acting as a catalyst to destroy the Times' revenues doesn't seem like a sound gameplan to keep Globe staffers employed.
SULZBERGER SLAMMED AS PROFITS DROP 39% [Paul Tharp, NYP]
• The hype over Vogue Living? Totally uncalled for, reports the hype machine. [Gawker]
• Kazakhstan finds a way to get in the headlines without the help of Borat. [Reuters]
• Record labels more douchey than previously assumed. [WSJ]
• Calvin Klein leaks all over Jean-Georges Vongerichten, loses choice tables throughout city. [NYDN]
• Surprise! Boston Globe staffers don't want their salaries tied to the sinking ship of newspaper revenue. [E&P]
• It's about time Kurt Andersen understands he's now part of the very bastion of media elite that Spy would've harped on. [Ocean Drive]
• Leonardo DiCaprio tries the same "green TV" stunt Cameron Diaz already attempted to force us to watch. [THR]
Over at the Boston Globe, things are getting heated in the newsroom. In preparation for a visit by head hancho, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., staffers are protesting.
All 12,000 Union members were given t-shirts to show their distaste with the possibilities of job cuts at the paper, and while this all may sound very University of Berkeley, the newsers feel that have legit reason to be worried. The latest numbers on the New York Times (proud papa of the Globe) don't look so good.
Those figures have fueled speculation that Sulzberger might be in town to discuss further cuts at the Globe. The broadsheet cut 130 employees last year, mostly through buyouts.
Of course, while everyone in Boston is writhing, Times staffers are surely raising an eyebrow over the latest numbers as well.
Because though employees fear they will lose their jobs, and the NYT is losing money faster than Nicole Richie lost 100 pounds, good Ol' Pinch (along with Times CEO Janet Robinson) are pulling in the big bucks from their doubling and tripling stock options.
Of course it's all explained in money mumbo jumbo terms, but we can't help but have that familiar corporate feeling creep up. If only it were Christmas time, it would feel like holidays with Time Inc. all over again. Minus the "please don't fire us" tees.
Globe feels the pinch: With boss in town, union worries [Jesse Noys, Boston Hearald]
TROUBLING TIMES [Keith Kelly, New York Post]
Today is awesome because it's all about equality. Not only are we celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and the election of Michelle Bachelets, as Chile's first female president, but Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has just been sworn in as Liberia's new president as well.
As Africa welcomes it's first elected female head of state, what is America doing? Bitching about how there aren't any more men on TV as news anchors, of course.
You don't have to decode statistics, though, to see the evidence. At the highest levels — network news — TV executives have had a hard time finding anchormen with star potential to replace Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. At CBS, Bob Schieffer has stayed far longer at "CBS Evening News" than expected, while Katie Couric reportedly mulls a whopping offer to take the seat permanently. Where Jennings once reigned alone at ABC's "World News Tonight," Elizabeth Vargas now shares anchor duties with Bob Woodruff.
Evidence? Is being a female news anchor a crime now? Oh, wait, it's Ok, men are being encouraged to be rocket scientists and stuff, so we can keep not paying women to put on make-up and pretend to be adults.
Thank you, Boston Globe, for showing us that America is such a progressive country.
New leader's pledge: Unite Liberia [CNN]
The vanishing anchorman [Suzanne C. Ryan, Boston Globe]
Editorial Director
