Journos beware: If you work for a notoriously biased newspaper, don't expect the oppositional candidate to save a place for you on his private jet. This close to the election, you'll be replaced quicker than Sarah Palin's original wardrobe choices (moose hide vest didn't go with shoes).
And no, it's not all John McCain and the cranky GOP doing this, although so far Maureen Dowd and Joe Klein have been nixed from their in-flight list. (Hopefully Ana Marie Cox won't fundraise all that money in vain once the McCain staffers figure out she used to write for Wonkette.)
Make of this news what you will:
CONTINUED »
There's more than sliding profits that's rocking the New York Times — there's a brewing "made up quote" scandal. Involving quote-inventor Maureen Dowd! And Harry Truman! And the one guy who's making a stink about it! CONTINUED »
Everyone is having a great laugh at the Barack Obama smear email being forwarded around, pointing out how so obviously fake it is. The email's focus is a fake June 29 Maureen Dowd column that has the Times columnist explaining how she found out Obama's online fundraising effort is working so well because it's really being pumped with cash by wealthy financiers from "Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries." The fictional column also says, "I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started to come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so."
The truth busters at the Huffington Post point out, "for starters," that "the average Obama contribution has been around $100, not $15." Well, obviously! Every vote knows this!
Except, uh, they don't. And thanks to the "comically absurd" (HuffPo's words) email's well-executed mock up of an actual Dowd column, complete with the Times' font and her byline, people on the receiving end of this email might actually believe it. And as HuffPo thought to do, clicking on over to the Times website to see if the column is for real isn't an extra step most recipients would take
That's why these smear email campaigns work.. CONTINUED »
Gail Collins, the former Times editorial page editor and current op-ed columnist, has come to the defense of colleague Maureen Dowd over attacks, including from the paper's own public editor Clark Hoyt, that the flame-haired pundit is brewing with sexism. And it is awesomely, and unintentionally, backhanded. CONTINUED »
Have you heard about those fake news anchors on Comedy Central? Not only are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert great for pushing books, but they're great for pushing the political dialogue further. Two important people think that way, so it's nearly almost certainly true. CONTINUED »
You know what's hard? Having opinions about current events. Because not only do you need to, you know, read about current events, you also have to make judgments from objective information. Also, forming coherent opinions with rhetorical flair? That's the worse.
CONTINUED »
How did Stephen Colbert end up writing Maureen Dowd’s most-emailed column last week? Colbert was duped, he admits to Frank Rich at an interview last night at the 92nd street Y:
She didn't know I was going to run for president when she called me up. She said, 'How would you like to write my column this weekend?' And I said, 'Why?' And she said, 'Why did Tom Sawyer want that boy to paint his fence?"
That just might be the funniest Maureen Dowd anecdote of all time.
Stephen Colbert's mock op-ed column in Sunday's Times inexplicably continues to dominate the "Most Popular" list, thereby facilitating the following mini discussion in Jossip HQ.
Editor #1: Wait, Dowd's column is still #3? Do we think it's funny?
Editor #2: Yeah. (Pause) Well, it's "New York Times' funny."
Which is to say, "Not really."
"Dowd Nails Schlesinger." Could it be? Yes, yes it is. The most disappointing headline. Ever. [Forbes]
After two years of charging us $7.95 per month to read about Maureen Dowd's personal life, the New York Times has finally seen the error of its ways and agreed to cancel the odious TimesSelect service. And despite pulling the plug, the always obstinate NYT still refuses to acknowledge that the short-lived TimesSelect experiment was a profit-draining, money hemorrhaging failure.
The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.
“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.
Which is to say that they didn't actually lose money so much as they made exponentially less than they would have made in online ad sales had they not made a HUGE FUCKING MISCALCULATION and started charging for their content.
Have you heard about the concept for MTV's latest reality show? It's an 8-episode look at what goes on behind the scenes of something interesting a high school newspaper!*
"Paper," set at Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla., will go behind the scenes at the highly regarded Circuit, spotlighting students early in their journalism careers," chirps the Hollywood Reporter.
Which means it will be amazing in a voyeuristic "see nerdy overachiever types placed in predictable high-stress situations" sort of way!
• Galleycat calls Maureen Dowd a woman-hater; we just call her "Firecrotch."
• In addition to eating ramen noodles and using pretentious words like "sesquipedalian," NYU kids enjoy setting their dorm rooms on fire.
• Michael Jackson to make a cameo on American Idol? Related: next round of Idol auditions to feature Caucasians attempting to moonwalk?
• Ivanka Trump to Paris Hilton: Worst. Heiress. Ever.
• John Edwards' blogger resigns after being branded an "anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigot." What a wuss.
• Can't wait for all the NCAA March Madness to begin? Tide yourself over by filling out an Anna Nicole Baby Daddy Bracket. Seriously.
• Time mag attempts to poach The New York Times' columnists; gets "brutally rebuffed" by op-ed contributors MoDo and Tom Friedman.
• Jared Paul Stern is cleared of extortion charges, plans to celebrate by throwing a really big lawsuit.
• Rupert Murdoch enters the billionaires' bidding-war over Tribune, hoping to combine the New York Newsday and the New York Post into new, crappy hybrid.
• GMA anchor Chris Cuomo comes this-close to being killed in that Iraq war President Bush keeps promising us we'll win.
• So apparently, you're not encouraged to take $50K joyrides on the company's private jet.
• The pervy NYT was right on the money-shot! Porn industry expected to determine the future of HDTV.
Now that spammers have figured out how to insert their Viagra pitches into images to trick filters into letting their emails pass through unscathed, we've lost all grasp on which bold subject lines in our inbox are legit. But anyone wise enough to put "Maureen Dowd" in the subject line to an email to us instantly wins at least a single left-click and a glance, even if we're nearly certain we're looking spam in the face.
Which meant we opened this email. Subject line: "Maureen Dowd joyful feet."
Yes!!
I seek Maureen Dowd's joyful Feet.!!.
Since G.W.B.took this great nation
to hell.
Rainbow man has been spreading
joy one step at a time;from The Big island of Hawaii.
Maureen Dowd has purpose and truth,i respect the
path she chooses the walk.Crossing lines,openning
readers minds,and giving others something to "JoSSiP about.
Over the past 5years i have custom painted 2000 and sold Aloha Slippers,
to women.They have joyful insight and knowledge to keep this planet whole.
Please inform Maureen Dowd of my quest to seek her Joyful Feet.!!.
Mahalo ihi
Though the email was sent from a one "blake HERMAN," we have it on good authority it was shoe fetishist Michael Cooke behind the note. Or, you know, no authority at all.
Just what we needed to hear this early in the morning: While penning her Bush bashing blog posts, Arianna Huffington is getting moist between the legs. As Frank Rich punches his keys to spell "quagmire," he boxers are getting stained. And we won't even tell you what's going on at Cindy Adams' desktop. Says a new University of San Francisco study of columnists, a good portion of them compare their job influencing the opinions of others to a romp between the sheets.
When asked "what writing a column is like," 26% of salaried columnists called it a job and 17% likened it to sex. But Robertson explained that this wasn't necessarily a positive thing; he said some columnists feel like they're "married to a nymphomaniac" because they have to start working on another column as soon as they're finished with the previous one.
While others compared their work – penning one column among many printed in the same newspaper – to a gang bang.
Survey Shows Some Columnists Get "Hot" While Writing [Dave Astor. E&P]
Big surprise here — Maureen Dowd relates to the "devil" character in The Devil Wears Prada. No, we're not saying MoDo is a raving bitch … it's just that we would naturally expect her to relate to the older, more established character of Mirandy Priestly than to the shat on peon assistant Andy Sachs.
In a bootleg TimesSelect column, we can read Dowd's confessions: she treats her assistants pretty fairly (if forcing someone who went to Yale to help you pick your cellphone ring is fair), and she sympathizes with the panic inducing fear that other high-powered media people install on their assistants. Yet, she asks, isn't that paying dues? Shouldn't fashion assistants have a clue about what the fuck is going on in the Monolo clad world around them?
Is it so wrong of Miranda to expect her assistant, Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway), to know how to spell Gabbana, reach Donatella and ban freesia? Is it so bad to want help getting a warm rhubarb compote for Michael Kors? Or to have an assistant who knows what an eyelash curler is?
Of course it isn't wrong to expect those things. What's wrong is when you scream and yell and throw coffee in your assistant's face, or send her cross country with a dress only to turn around and come right back, or keep her tied up all day on Saturday with your personal shopping, Christmas wrapping, and doctor appointment scheduling. Dowd concludes that maybe Anna Wintour is a monster, but "it's more admirable to be the beast to which the parasite attaches itself than to be the parasite."
And yet, to overworked, underpaid, under-appreciated, struggling assistants everywhere, Andy is the hero. And while Lauren Weisberger may be a (really annoying) parasite, the bitchiest thing any successful person can do is scoff in the face of the successful underdog.
Sympathy for the Devil By MAUREEN DOWD [Donkey OD]
Sympathy for the Devil [Maureen Dowd, New York Times]
We devoted our morning to the desperate search of Christopher Hitchens' Vanity Fair article which promised to teach us all about the history of the blowjob. Ok, not exactly, but we were awfuly interested in reading the article, As American As Apple Pie in which the writer discusses the patriotism of sucking dick.
Basically, Hitchens tells us how the blowjob started, and answers the age old question, to blow or to suck? by defnining Souffler ("to blow") and fellatio ("to suck"). But, his analysis is specifically on the blowjob in America. Hitchens makes sure to fully stereotype sex, examine this subject from a strictly heterosexual male view, praise pornography, and objectify women to the fullest all in one essay. He did throw in a few examples of guy on guy as well (using the term "faggoty") but immediately turned away from the subject with discomfort to focus on the straight man's peril of not being able to give himself oral pleasure.
Well done, Hitch. After the jump, our full (slightly feminist and reactionary) take on this less than informative and wholly disappointing essay. Oh, and we used some of the PG 13 quotes the Daily News wouldn't print.
CONTINUED »
We were first drawn to this story on new literature because of the Anderson Cooper on Oprah mention. Not that we should be shocked, but, the painfully obvious favoritism by Oprah towards the Coop just goes on and on. The CNN anchor just wrapped a show with the queen of Daytime that focuses on his book Dispatches From the Edge.
And just as we were ready to go on yet another rant about how every time Coops goes on Oprah, it gets mentioned on CNN (creating this double promotional campaign hidden behind the guise of "save New Orleans") we were silenced by this.
There was also a glimpse of the glam New York Times shopping reporter Alex Kuczynski, who finally is ready to roll with her book "Beauty Junkies," exploring America's $15 billion obsession with plastic surgery. There were no advance copies of Kuczynski's book, but one insider who saw the galleys said that the fair Alex details some of her own self-enhancements, including trouble the author had speaking during a eulogy for a friend the day after she had a collagen injection in her lip.
Alex K is coming out with a book? And in this book she talks about being unable to give a eulogy because of her collagen injection? And nobody told us about this before? Oh, this is for sure going to be our next subway literature, to be filed on the bookshelf right between Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary? and Bonnie Fuller's Joys of Much Too Much. Female journalist chick lit totally trumps male journalist Katrina coverage any day.
COOPER HOPING FOR OPRAH POP [Keith Kelly, New York Post]
"All the news that fit to print" doesn't actually fit into the New York Times. Hence, the desperate need for the TimesSelect.
You know the TimesSelect. It's like the orange light district of online articles, with the oh so very catchy headlines and "please buy me" decks that reveal, like a whore's leg in Amsterdam, just a little peak at what one can get for $7.95.
As if taking away the really great articles on bagels and talking to animals weren't enough, now you have to pay to e-mail someone at the Times? Oh, hell no.
[Times spokesman Toby Usnik] denied that the limit on e-mails was an effort to get readers at newspapers syndicating the columnists to pay for TimesSelect instead of their local paper … when asked what those newspaper readers should do to be able to contact the columnists, he urged them to sign up and pay the additional fee.
Here at Jossip, we believe in freedom of the press, even for the impoverished interns, bloggers, and EA's who don't make enough money to afford a Times Select membership. You wanna email "Maureen Dowd, Nicholas Kristof, Frank Rich or any of the Times' regular Op-Ed columnists." You just have to be a Jossip reader.
We snuck into TimesSelect and ripped out the necessary HTML code to produce the following email forms. Attemps to send email through them while not signed into TimesSelect seemed to be successful (we made it to the "thank you for submitting" page), but so far we haven't heard back from MoDo & Co. Perhaps we should've tried dowd@nytimes.com just to be safe?
So we offer to you, dear readers, the slightly better than shot-in-hell chance of being able to email your favorite roped-in Op-Ed columnists. Just click the links below to reach the proper forms.
• Maureen Dowd
• Tom Friedman
• David Brooks
• Bob Herbert
• Nicholas Kristof
• Paul Krugman
• Frank Rich
• John Tierney
Obviously, because you are the wittiest and most well read of blog readers, you won't be emailing David Brooks about your cat. Why don't you ask Maureen Dowd about selling Barbie collections on eBay? We bet Bob Herbert has some interesting thoughts on Hillary Clinton's recent public comments. And, while you're at it, just tell Frank Rich we say "what up."
Want to e-Mail a 'New York Times' Columnist? Better Subscribe to TimesSelect [Joe Strupp, E&P]
Related: What is Times Select?
Just weeks after the New York Times ran their infamous "wiretap story," James Risen 's secret CIA book hits stands. While everyone knows that the Times piece was a promotional stint for Risen's book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, the publishers pretend to feel threatened by the paper's reporting. Closing in on their sales? Like anyone would read this book if it hadn't caused a wave of controversial convo.
We highly doubt that the Times three week publicity stunt reportage could possibly hurt sales of the book. This is such old news, but the on-going hype still hasn't tapered of, and we can't figure out why. This stuff is getting really boring!
Risen will probably pretend like people care about the few Times-excluded facts that appear in his "rather slim," book "with a garish red cover that brings to mind an old Andreas Serrano photograph." Knowing New Yorkers, though, they will just buy it for carrying around, so they can look like they care about what's going on.
Sort of like we do with Maureen Dowd's book.
Risen Publishes Wiretap Book But Times Beats Him [Gabriel Sherman, NYO]
Editorial Director
