At an event to accept the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, former Today and Dateline anchor and failed talk show host Jane Pauley says she was "glad to get out of town before Paris Hilton became a 'get.'" She then left early to get a jump start on bidding for Lindsay Lohan's crashed Mercedes. [AR]
• The NYT sees Jane Pauley's lawsuit and raises her "You knew you were doing an interview for an ad supplement. Or at least your flack did." Will she call? [WSJ]
• Tara Reid did Us Weekly last week, and the Today show today. Then there's co-hosting The View tomorrow, and The Tyra Banks Show next week. So many plastic surgery tales, so little time. [Planet Gossip]
• The only diet advice we trust is diet advice that comes from a restaurant critic. [Grub Street]
• The blogger fights didn't end with Perez Hilton. Last night at the MTVu Awards, a small brawl broke out between actor-cum-music hack Jared Leto and Stereogum blogger Scott Lapatine. [BWE, Stereogum]
• You're expected to report back to us on whether Judith Miller's thank you notes are scented. [WaPo]
• The Second Avenue subway line – staring down Moynihan Station for title of "most talked about, never seen transportation development" &ndahs; will be called the T line, for no better reason than the MTA's superintendant likes the letter. [DI]
Bringing those "Is Megan Mullally the next Jane Pauley?" rumors (in that her show is going to be canceled) around full circle is today's Smoking Gun item, which puts Pauley in the headlines for the first time in a while, thanks to her suing the New York Times. The charge? The paper allegedly tricked the former Today and Dateline host into participating in an advertorial for Eli Lily drugs. In her lawsuit, Pauley – who disclosed her battle with bipolar disorder in September 2004 – says she thought she was doing an interview for the editorial side of the Times, only to see a full-page photo of her accompanying an October 2005 "special advertising supplement." Pauley is after unspecified damages from Arthur Sulzberger & Co., along with DeWitt Publishing (a partner the advertorial). Also on her list of demands: A punchline from cartoonist-husband Garry Trudeau.
Just because Jane Pauley can't make it in daytime TV doesn't mean Tyra Banks can't. Granted, that logic doesn't directly connect — until you listen in as to how mundane the supermodel's talk show is looking.
The promo shown to the press looked more appropriate as an advertiser pitch, complete with lots of crying. Take, for instance, the requisite visit to her "old California 'hood.'
"I knew this was going to happen," she says, breaking down on camera.
Crying is always good.
There's a clip from Banks' camp for young women.
She cries there, too.
"My purpose in life is to give people the tools to make themselves better," she says.
That was clearly to get the viewers to cry.
And when it begins broadcasting, Nielsen numbers will have producers in tears too.
