Pete Wentz may have knocked up Ashlee Simpson, but he still gets shit for being a homo. The Fall Out Singer tells Out that he regularly gets called out on the street - and he’s all right with that. In fact, he’s basically embraced the abuse:
Do some news anchors “slip” and mix up Obama and Osama on purpose? Yes. Do many of them work at Fox News? Yes. Do others accidentally mix up the two names because they actually do sound similar? Yes. Matt Lauer, who referred to America’s most hated terrorist as Obama bin Laden this morning, likely belongs in the latter group. It happens.
It was only last week we were foolishly hoping for an end to studies about things we already know, where the results of such studies would reveal what is already believed to be true. Alas, progress: No study was required to find out that words like “secret,” “sex,” “green,” or “easy” catch the attention of Americans, and the news media. [NYT]
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 »
Broadcasting from the hills of Wyoming yesterday, Meet The Press, the third since Tim Russert died and Tom Brokaw’s first since being named permanent interim moderator, was, by all accounts, nothing like the broadcast viewers remembered. Brokaw anchored a (taped) segment from the Western Governors’ Association. Invited guests, usually booked to at least spur some argument, included Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado and Gov. Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming, who “me too’d” each other. The only modicum of debate? With NBC’s own political director Chuck Todd. CONTINUED »
Yes, the woman at right is missing a limb, as are the ladies below. Because of this, each and every day they are faced with unique obstacles most of the rest of the world will never understand, and they’re certainly all the stronger because of it. Good for them. But we’ve got one question: How pretty are they compared to one another?
A new show on the BBC seeks to get to the bottom of that query, so that the world may finally know who is the most beautiful, English, female amputee around.
James Wolcott, the media and culture “expert” who, rather than be hired away by a university looking for somebody to produce immutable soundbites about things like media and culture, scribbles a column for Vanity Fair, takes on the “next wave” of Hollywood (see: Gossip Girl) in this way: CONTINUED »
In the July issue of Portfolio, now-former American Media editorial director Bonnie Fuller took over the back page to do two things: Wrap her arms around an issue of Star, and reveal almost nothing about where she’s headed from here.
Then, in the Times’s Sunday Business section, she did something similar: She posed in the same position (sans tabloid) and said, well, almost nothing about where she’s headed from here.
Despite what one errant blogger may claim, Ms. Fuller is the Queen of All Media.
From YM and Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan to Us Weekly and Star, Fuller has earned – some might argue rightfully – a reputation as a ball-busting, no-nonsense editor who routinely brought her staff for a visit to the brink of sanity all in the name of a close. And now that she’s heading off on her own, with a venture aptly titled Bonnie Fuller Media, and funding from former Viacom interactive chief Russ Pillar’s 5850 Group, perhaps it’s time to stop counting all of Fuller’s flaws, sand your bedpost smooth, and begin notching her successes. CONTINUED »
The endless back and forth speculation about YouTube crack smoking star and amateur fighter Amy Winehouse, back when she was expected to perform at the Grammys – but, uh, wasn’t exactly “healthy” enough to do so — accomplished at least one thing: Incredible interest from the American public (and British tabloids) in the broadcast.
In the end, of course, Winehouse couldn’t make it to the stage, phoning in her performance via satellite; and while the blogs and trades were abuzz with rumormongering, three million fewer viewers bothered tuning in to February’s show.
Just imagine what those audience numbers could’ve looked like without the Winehouse gossip. So it makes sense that producers of the show, while of course concerned about the health of the celebrity music acts they invite to perform, are at least equally as interested in the buzzworthiness of their headliners.
Which explains why MTV Networks Music president Van Toffler is already speculating on a certain blonde pop tart who may, or may not, be ready for a repeat appearance at this year’s VMAs. CONTINUED »
Somehow we’re completely ready to trust the gaydar of New York online editor Chris Rovzar’s gaydar regarding Gossip Girl “roommates” Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick, who calls B.S. on rumors they’re dating. Also, we’re completely despaired. And not actually ready to trust anything. [NYM]
It’s certainly not our personal mission to make Google a cause célèbre, but we have a special place in our hearts for any company that challenges Nielsen Media Research, the bumbling audience analytics firm headed toward further catastrophe by David Calhoun, the former General Electric vice chairman. Google recently unveiled Google Ad Planner, a new framework that combines website metrics with media buying, which is supposed to replace the guesswork employed by companies like Nielsen and comScore, which use a complicated and mostly flawed mixture of audience panels and computer logging to tell clients how many people visit a website, and what type of people they are. Google, which collects metrics data itself, directly from websites that carry its tracking code, wants to challenge these industry leaders in a market they’ve long owned, and which media buyers have always had to rely on to know where best to spend their millions in ad buys. Except now that the service has debuted and the biggest media agencies have had a look, it appears Nielsen isn’t in much danger of no longer holding clients hostage. CONTINUED »
FoxNews.com gossip Roger Friedman, most recently seen finger-pointing Warner Music’s way for leaking negative items about exiting client Madonna, is back on his usual Madge-hating rampage. Never one for cult religions like Scientology, Friedman has a special part of his tongue-lashings that he saves for Kabbalah and its red-string wearing celebrity leader. For one: She wore a baseball cap to a bar mitzvah. CONTINUED »
The most interesting thing about this clip of Grammy-winning maybe-emphysemic Amy Winehouse getting angry at a fan isn’t that she tried to physically lash out at the audience member who was pissing her off, but that she is so frail the best she could muster was a half-hearted elbow and some shoving.
Below, one of our other favorite clips of a music act getting pissed at her audience. CONTINUED »
“In the first five-and-a-half months of 2004, the last presidential election year, Fox’s prime-time audience among viewers aged 25 to 54 was more than double that of CNN’s — 530,000 to 248,000, according to estimates from Nielsen Media Research. This year, through mid-June, CNN erased the gap and drew nearly as many viewers in that demographic category as Fox — about 420,000 for CNN to 440,000 for Fox. Meanwhile, CNN has added 170,000 viewers a night, on average, when compared with the last presidential year, while Fox has shed about 90,000, according to Nielsen. (MSNBC, which added 181,000 viewers in that audience, much of it courtesy of gains by “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” still lagged in third place, with 303,000.)” [NYT]
Christian Audigier, the ridiculous fashion “designer” who prints cursive letters in gold colors on hideous T-shirts, and the guy who pays Michael Jackson to show up at his birthday party (Britney Spears came free), is opening his own nightclub in Las Vegas, aptly titled Christian Audigier The Nightclub. It is, and we believe you’ll agree, the most grotesquely themed nightspot Vegas has ever seen, and you know how much weight that statement carries. Look at this crap, below. CONTINUED »
Firing back at Mary-Kate Olsen — who, on Letterman last night, labeled Spencer Pratt a rageaholic with a sweat problem — the reality TV opportunist says, “I know I’ve made it in Hollywood when a famous troll is talking about me on Letterman.” Adds Spencer: “I don’t really get why she’d use my name to get press for her little indie film that no one’s going to see. She should probably focus more on not getting dressed in the dark than on me.” Aww, sad! Because back in high school, the duo were at least friendly enough to snap this photo together … which Pratt later sold for $50k.
Rapper Nas, who made headlines last year when he announced he would call his forthcoming album Nigger, and went so far as to walk red carpets wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the title, will finally debut his new record July 15. Nevermind that the his label Def Jam forced him to rename the album (it’ll be in stores as Untitled).
But one of the tracks on there, titled “Sly Fox,” might be of particular interest the readers of this site — because it’s an attack on Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch’s entire News Corp. Some of the lyrics go a little like this:
Propaganda / Visual cancer
The eye in the sky / No. 5 on the dial
Secret agenda / Frequency antenna / Dr. Mindbender
Remote control / Soul control […]Fox has a bushy tail / And Bush tells lies and foxtrots / So I don’t know what’s real […]
(chorus:)
Watch what you watchin’ / Fox keeps feeding us toxins
Stop sleepin’ / Start thinkin’ outside of the box
And unplug from the matrix doctrine
Though, as is the case in all of these types of battles, this wasn’t the first bullet fired: Fox has attacked Nas before, which he specifically addresses in the song. CONTINUED »
Suddenly, after several years of being at the bottom of the fashion heap, black models are back on top. In a big way. Not only are they exclusively populating the pages of this month’s super-hyped Vogue Italia, Wintour & Co. also begrudgingly gave them some attention. At Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week, the designers of Dsquared used a group of models, led by Tyson Beckford, made up almost entirely of black men. And rumor has it that Lanvin’s show next week has an “all-ethnic lineup.”
We’re hearing Rob Shuter, the lying former Jessica Simpson publicist who just took over OK!’s executive editor post (since arriving as entertainment editor, then being named deputy ed), just named editorial manager Katie Caperton to the deputy editor slot, while nightspot staple Shauna Bass (of Life & Style) was installed as news editor. We’re also told tabloid vet David Caplan, currently at People, was offered the exec ed slot by EIC Sarah Ivens about a month ago, but turned it down.
Oh this is just brilliant. “Project Make McCain Exciting: Gray Ambition,” a mash up between Madonna’s “Vogue” and the Republican presidential hopeful’s talking points, is exactly what Internetphobe John McCain needs to reach the progressive Web savvy set. Funny, because it’s also what Madonna needs to reach conservative crowd.
Editorial Director
