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— Thu, Jun 15, 2006 —

After asking just about everyone under the gossip sun to join their staff, Page Six finally wrangled somebody from their own turf to fill the Page Six spot left open by the mass freelancer firing a couple months ago. Veteran New York Post reporter Bill Hoffmann will join Richard Johnson, Paula Froelich, and Chris Wilson at New York’s vodka soaked page.

Last month, the New York Observer reported that Johnson had been conducting a broad search for potential candidates, speaking with a number of gossip-beat reporters and bloggers about the position. The Observer described the position as “legwork on the party scene…going to events at night and trolling for sources and tidbits.”

Considering he’ll be doing the work of Jared Paul Stern, Fernando Gil, Chris Tennant, and Lisa Marsh combined, we hope he’s got of nightlife life left in him. Or, a year’s supply of Redbull.

Breaking: NY Post Vet Bill Hoffman Joins Page Six [Rachel Sklar, Eat the Press]




Ah, Intern Wendy. So hard at work checking her television message boards from Seattle. How she manages to stay ahead of the game while still being four hours behind baffles us.

She managed to find a (possibly fake) email on a nerdy TV message board. A (possibly fake) e-mail from Keith Olbermann. A (possibly fake) email from Keith Olbermann which has the host responding to another email with the words “go fuck yourself.” Too bad it didn’t contain “kill yourself” or “wronger.”

The MSNBC email address, which we’ve taken off for protective purposes (clearly our own), is legit … but whether or not the message is, we can’t say.

Fake or no, at least it makes for some fun reading material while you’re doing your boss’ expenses and getting invites addressing you as “Ms. Bitch Assitant.”

[More]

Read More: Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Top




— Wed, Jun 14, 2006 —

In the wake of rumored threats on Bonnie Fuller‘s contract, the shuttering of Celebrity Living, and the axing of Bonnie’s close personal assistant and long time fashion assistant, this lastest blow to company is sure to knock AMI’s security down another notch.

Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Muscle & Fitness Hers, Country Weekly and Mira! are dunzo at One Park, but will be up for auction for other suckers to buy. We can’t imagine these mags being anything but a cash drain, though the Wall Street Journal is reporting they pull combined estimated income of $84 million plus.

One reason sited for the dump is the lack ad sales — previously, the mags were pulling in cash from diet pills and fitness supplements, which aren’t so hot anymore. So, let this be a lesson to everyone: tooth whitening is just a phase. Don’t build an entire company based on the ad revenues of Supersmile.

American Media to Sell Five of Its Magazine Titles [Dennis K. Berman and Sara Ellison, Wall Street Journal]



— Mon, Jun 12, 2006 —

Reporting on the gay bashing of drag queen Kevin Aviance, the New York Times never did, outright, label Aviance as “a drag queen” in its two articles (one, by Kareen Fahim, and two, with Sarah Garland co-bylining) thus far about the incident — and that got Slate’s Eric Umansky in a tiff. Why the fence leaning on what to call Aviance, West 43rd? He’s labeled a “dance recording arist,” “Manhattan singer,” and part of a “group of like-minded people.”

Except, as the New York Observer’s Choire Sicha points out, there wasn’t that much ambivalnce to Aviance’s profession. Writing in to Romenesko (which is about the closest media folks can get to Penthouse Forum), Sicha retorts:

That paper’s first article on the attack of Mr. Aviance in the East Village appeared on June 11, was headlined “3 Arrested in Attack on Singer on East Side,” and is, oddly enough, slugged on the web as “11drag.html.” More relevantly, it contains this phrase: “Mr. Aviance performs in drag but was “dressed like a boy,” before the attack….”

On June 12, in a story called “Fourth Man Is Arrested After Attack on a Dance Recording Artist in the East Village” (slugged “12beating.html” on the web), a picture of Mr. Aviance in an off-the-shoulder gown accompanies the story.

The reporters at the Times on this story — particularly Kareem Fahim — deserve more respect, and a better reading of their work, than Mr. Umansky has given. (And perhaps Mr. Umansky could spare some outrage for the revolting conclusion of this incident: 40+ years after Kitty Genovese, and New Yorkers will still walk right by someone being beaten on the street without intervening.)

Reuters, however, is sticking to “gay performance artist.” There is no mention of “drag” in their report.

Umansky’s wrong about NYT [Romenesko]
The Times’ Drag Queen Problem [Eric Umansky]
Fourth Man Is Arrested After Attack on a Dance Recording Artist in the East Village [NYT]
3 Arrested in Attack on Singer on East Side [NYT]
Hate Crime Alleged in Aviance Beating [Reuters]




We knew we should’ve made better friends with Dan Abrams instead of Tucker Carlson but, alas, our interns can only do so much.

Abrams, TMZ is reporting, has snagged the top job at MSNBC, replacing the recently “resigned” Rick Kaplan. With his schedule now full of Rita Cosby voice lessons and Chris Matthews blood pressure monitoring, Abrams won’t even have time to do his own show, The Abrams Report — though he’ll retain the title of “chief legal correspondent,” which means you’ll still see him popping up at the Today show, Dateline, and Brian WilliamsNightly News.

So enough with the hair piece jokes; it’s time to get down to the real business at hand: clocking MSNBC’s ratings under the change.

(Image via FishbowlNY)




We, unknowingly, have been circulating the same parties as Dylan Stableford for months. Since joining Mediabistro as the newsfeed editor and taking over as head Fishbowler when the mysterious Greg Lindsay and lovely Rachel Sklar moved on, Dylan’s been hard at work serving the ever insatiable media gossips of New York.

How does the man who decides what everyone will read in the morning pick his newsfeed items? What does he do when he’s not blogging? Who’s actually in the fishbowl? Just for Jossip, the laid back University of Vermont grad turned media gossip and blogger spills it all.

From Asian porn consumption to other “guy shit” the feeder of the fish even goes so far as to blow up our favorite little drink spot — and for the record, he did not sway us into this Q+A by buying us rounds at literati Nolita hang-outs. For the full dish, complete with the media members who make him want to “puke blood” after the jump.

[More]




Aww — with all this hubbub over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie???s baby, we forgot that Matt Damon and what???s her face were expecting a kid, too. Well, today, the second hottest couple in Hollywood just welcomed their little baby girl to the world.

Damon’s wife Luciana gave birth in a Miami hospital on Sunday to Isabella, the actor’s publicist Jennifer Allen said. No other details were released.

“Mother and baby ??? everyone ??? is wonderful, fine,” Allen said here Monday.

Now Brad and Matt’s gals can grow up together like good little Hollywood spawn. It almost makes us feel worse for George Clooney‘s 20 illegitimate kids who will never get to roll with them.

It’s a girl for actor Matt Damon and wife [AP News]




What’s this we’re hearing? Ann Coulter lifted passages from other sources for her psychotically conservative book Godless? Oh, we really didn’t expect anything less from a woman who insults 9/11 widows and Anderson Cooper.

According to blogger Rude Pundit, Coulter has at least two passage directly pulled from other texts.

Here’s Coulter from Chapter 1 of Godless: The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River in Maine, was halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant previously believed to be extinct.

Here’s the Portland Press Herald, from the year 2000, in its list of the “Maine Stories of the Century”: The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River, is halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant believed to be extinct.

Another passage points out Coulter’s use of the word “saboteur” as an example of her “copying and pasting like a good college freshman.”

Here’s Coulter writing about an attack on the Alaska pipeline: A few years after oil drilling began in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a saboteur set off an explosion blowing a hole in the pipeline and releasing an estimated 550,000 gallons of oil.

Here’s something from the History Channel: The only major oil spill on land occurred when an unknown saboteur blew a hole in the pipe near Fairbanks, and 550,000 gallons of oil spilled onto the ground.

Maybe it wouldn’t be that huge of a deal if those were the only examples from the whole book, but the accusing blogger says this is only from Chapter One.

Like hell we would ever spend a portion of our meager bloggers pay on that piece of trash, but we’re hoping someone somewhere comes to the conclusion that chapter six is actually entirely lifted from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Because Some Things Are More Profane Than Profanity – Ann Coulter’s Possible Plagiarism: [Rude Pundit]
Coulter accused of plagiarism [The Scoop]




— Thu, Jun 8, 2006 —

What could possibly piss off Anna Wintour more than omelets in her presence or Meryl Streep? A cracked out Lindsay Lohan sprinting to the bathroom six times in the span of two hours. The sniffing little tart was Karl Lagerfeld‘s date to the CFDA awards, and the two were seated at the Vogue queen’s table.

As the host of the event, Anna (who also likes things quite proper) was not impressed with Lohan’s record breaking bathroom trips.

During the last trip, Wintour leaned over and whispered to a Vogue staffer: “Tell her, if she gets up one more time, she will never be invited to one of my events again.” Lohan’s date, Karl Lagerfeld, was then told, “Karl, this is your guest, control her!”

But that’s the thing about La Lo. Only one person can control her. And without Lesley Sloane Zelnick, the girl is completely helpless.

POWDER FRENZY [Page Six]




— Wed, Jun 7, 2006 —

The rumor mill churned, and the axe dropped: Rick Kaplan is out as head of MSNBC after two years on the job. He calls it a “resignation,” we call it “the most drawn out ousting since Dan Rather.” Kaplan announced his depature in a staff memo, where he was certain to point out his accomplishments:

Together, we’ve increased MSNBC’s viewership 25% in primetime and 19% in dayside. Over just the last year, we’ve had great success across the board, with Hardball and Countdown coming into their own. All of our primetime programs have improved tremendously in their production and content. Together we had a great election year in ’04 and you’re poised to improve on that excellence this fall.

Inexplicably left out of the farewell: The unfortunate hiring of Tucker Carlson, Rita Cosby‘s ratings disappointment, and what medication Chris Matthews is fed to keep his head from imploding.

The full memo, after the jump.

[More]




People Magazine, Hello!, and Getty images are none too pleased with this crazy thing we call Internet. Though they have no problem when blogs link to their website or publish other photos they own, this million dollar Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt photo is different. This is messiah we’re speaking of.

The mags have sent their lawyers out to attack the inboxes of bloggers everywhere, launching the most aggressive protection program we’ve seen since Colin Farrell and Jennifer Ansiton‘s lawyers went beserk.

People and Hello! magazines launched legal action Wednesday against two Web sites that published a picture of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with their newborn daughter.

The embargo on the images was broken when two gossip Web sites posted an apparent image of the front cover of Hello!

When we first saw this story, we thought for a flickering moment, we’re totally getting the crap sued out of us. But, then we researched the story a bit further to find out, no, it’s not us. The two sites being bombarded with legal action are Defamer and “a Live Journal blog.”

Just as People magazine announced it had landed exclusive North American rights to the first pictures of the baby, an image of the newborn Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt and her parents popped up on at least two Web sites as the cover shot for Hello!

The picture surfaced on celebrity-lampooning Defamer.com and the LiveJournal gossip blog.

Thanks, CNN, but, uh, there’s more than one Live Journal blog. So, with just one more Google News search, our final question was answered, and the unlucky pioneers were revealed.

The leaked photo first surfaced on US gossip blogs Oh No They Didn’t and Defamer on Wednesday.

We just knew that this little baby savior would create the biggest holy fuck war ever in the land of Tabloidia.

Hello! sues over Jolie photo leak [BBC]
Legal war as Brangelina pic leaked [CNN]
Celeb mags go to court over baby photo [AP]
Magazine launches action over leaked Jolie pics [People]




— Tue, Jun 6, 2006 —

Hey, what do you know … Page Six was wrong*.

Even though the photo looks a bit out of focus, as far as we know this Hello! cover is legit, and you are about to (maybe) feast your eyes on the first photo of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt cuddling with mommy Angelina Jolie and daddy Brad Pitt.

(Lawyers for Time Inc. and People forced us to take down the image of Hello! magazine with Shiloh Nouvel on the cover. We guess because they paid like a gillion dollars for that baby’s face.)

Awww, she looks like a baby! A really hot baby. And someday, when this little cutie saves Africa because her parents sold her to Unicef, they will build statues of her and write a really long book of scripture. So, even if this isn’t her baby sister, the point is that Zahara is clearly going to have some serious issues.

The moment you’ve all been waiting so long (a week or so) for: Shiloh photos [Mollygood]

*Correction: We failed to recognize that Hello! is a British pub, and that People may very well still get the US rights to own all photos of Brangelina’s baby.




— Mon, Jun 5, 2006 —

The print version of Conde Nast’s new biz title Portfolio is actually only half the fun: there’s going to be a full-blown website (maybe Flash video, too?!) to go along with. And that’s just a little of what 4 Times Square is offering from its online umbrella CondeNet. VanityFair.com hasn’t always looked so glam, and Men.Style.Com was once just a dirty pile of soiled socks next to Style.com. Now those web fashion titles actually bring in revenue! Who knew this online space was awash with ad dollars?

Si Newhouse & Co., that’s who. Because it’s not just the web versions of their treasured glossies that Conde Nast is taking an interest in — they’re also going after Janice Min‘s turf with Lipstick.com, a Digg-like website for the celeb worshipper in all of us.

The first tip-off that Conde is smearing its red MAC tube all over the Interwebs? The little note in Lipstick’s User Agreement notifying you that your Lipsticking will be watched by those sitting above the Midtown Nasdaq marquee. Add to it that Lipstick.com – which, we believe, is somehow connected to headline news site Reddit.com – is registered to 4 Times Square, and the Maltese is out of the bag. At least Tom Wallace can’t fault staffers for reading celeb gossip on company time.

Lipstick
User Agreement [Lipstick]
Lipstick.com [Whois]




There’s nothing like a good controversial cover to get interest sparked in a magazine. Hachette Filipacchi’s Shock seemed to be following this mantra when their little buzzed about first issue earned some attention via lawsuit.

You all know that photog Michael Yon claimed that Shock stole his photo for their cover, and the mag responded by blaming the shady photo agency who sold it to them. And in the midst of Yon’s psychotic determination to tear down the magazine (a.k.a. creating press) the level-headed lawyers reached an agreement.

But the two parties reached a settlement late this evening. In a statement, Hachette said, “Yon is satisfied that there has been a misunderstanding and that Hachette acted in good faith in procuring rights from Polaris to use [his] photograph in Shock magazine. They acknowledge that we have worked responsibly to find a solution, and, after discussions, we have agreed to pay Yon a licensing fee for the photograph that is on the cover of Shock and to make a contribution to Fisher House, a charitable organization dedicated to providing low-cost lodging to veterans and military families.”

And in turn, Shock is officially naming June 4th Michael Yon Day and celebrating the fact that without him, nobody would have ever talked about this magazine.

‘Shock’ Reaches Settlement With Photographer [Ken Wheaton and Nat Ives]
Earlier: Shock’s Schlocky Debut




— Fri, Jun 2, 2006 —

Leave it to Richard Johnson to get us out of our summer Friday, stealing us back to the computer to report on his drunk driving arrests. And to Perez Hilton and his ridiculous vendettas for breaking all types of shit. But, Rich is kind of going through a hard time guys.

Word has it that last night NYPD pulled Mr. Page Six over driving a Ford Escape. The “police allege” (which we think we can take out now that we have the police report) he was bombed.

“intoxicated… had watery and bloodshot eyes, had slightly slurred speech and had the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath.” The criminal complaint also says that Johnson “refused” to take a breath test.

Johnson has been charged with a misdemeanor.

And, if he gets convicted, he’ll do a year in jail. Yeah, that’s really gonna’ happen. Johnson’s lawyer says,

“Richard went out for a couple of beers after playing basketball, nobody got hurt, there was no accident. I don’t think he was drunk, he might have had one beer too many.”

Come on people. It’s not like he ran over sixteen people in the Hamptons. But, yeah, it’s still hilarious.

Page Six Editor Arrested [TMZ]
Richard Johnson Arrested! [Perez Hilton]




Who knew David Bradley‘s The Atlantic could be all things to all hired hands. For Judith Miller, it was a means for her resurrection. For new EIC James Bennett, it was a means to escape the persiflage of the Times. And for June issue writers Charles Mann and James Fallows, it was a means to plug their relatives.

From “How Not To Travel in Japan,” by Charles C. Mann, June 2006:

Renting cars in Japan is “not recommended for novices,” in the terse phrase of Gateway to Japan, which I would describe as the best guidebook to the country that I have encountered if it hadn’t been written by my sister-in-law June, and her ex-boyfriend. (The book is actually very good, though all the prices and some of the hotel and restaurant recommendations are outdated because June has been too busy with other things to produce a recent version.)

From “E-mail out of Every Plug,” by James Fallows, June 2006:

Meeting that small increase in demand is disproportionately expensive, because the extra generating capacity is usually more polluting and less efficient than normal plants. “If you can reduce the peak even a little bit, you can reduce costs a lot, especially in some regions of the country,” says Susan Tierney, a former utility regularoty in Massachusetts (and my sister).

Next month, look forward to the ubiquitous Clive Thomson plugging wifey Emily Nussbaum‘s book reviews.




As yesterday wrapped, Gawker reported that Spin editor in chief, Andy Pemberton was officially out at the mag.

As WWD predicted this morning, Andy Pemberton has been booted from his brand-new gig as Spin???s EIC … He???d produced only one issue, but, as a tipster points out, said issue ???was indeed a giant shitball.??? No word on a replacement.

Rumors of his booting began swirling yesterday morning, when WWD suggested that higher ups were not happy with his “first few issues” of Spin. So, where there three issues or only one? (Since Women’s Wear did report he’s been the EIC since February, we’re going to guess he probably worked on more than one issue, but only fully produced one?)

Now that we have none of that cleared up, let’s move on to what Pemberton has to say about his departure from Spin.

Oh, he says he’s not actually leaving Spin, he was just going to the beach. Now we get it. The rest of this mixed up mag gossip, in which the only question we answer is “how big of a shitball is Pembo?” … after the jump.

[More]




— Tue, May 30, 2006 —

When a magazine we’ve never heard of folds, it’s almost more saddening than when a big name guy bites the bucket. Magazine for prego mom’s to be, Bundle has decided to stop publishing, with Spring 2006 being its last issue.

Bundle, the year-old New York-based magazine for “pregnant women and moms with babies and toddlers, from 0 to 3” with a rate base of 300,000, has published its last issue, FishbowlNY has learned.

Bundle’s Spring 2006 issue currently on newsstands will be its last.

The move follows on the heels of the downshift of Meredith’s Child to a Web-heavy offering, as well as the quiet scaling back of Martha Stewart’s Kids.

Now that the reality of Brad and Angelina’s baby is here, not to mention the great influence Britney Spears has had over the new mommy community, everyone is getting all their parenting tips from Us Weekly, People, and the Post.

Is it at least comforting to know they’ll all grow up to be just like the Olsens?

Bundle Disbanded [Fishbowl, NY]




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