Hoser found! After what must have been hours of rather simple but tedious work, the New York Daily News was able to track down Bristol Palin's fertile young mate, a self-professed "fuckin' redneck" named Levi Johnston. Apparently, the paper then fell in love with the 18-year-old hockey player:
'In the latest turmoil to rock the Daily News newsroom, Ian Bishop, a top political editor, has been suspended for two weeks after tossing a telephone at another editor's office, shattering a glass wall. … The incident happened Saturday morning, when Bishop apparently became irate with someone he was speaking with on the phone and tossed the phone in the direction of the office of Stuart Marques, the paper's managing editor of news. … "Nobody was hurt, but people in the newsroom at the time were a little shocked and a little scared by his behavior," said one source. People familiar with the matter said that Bishop, the paper's deputy managing editor for politics, apologized to staffers by the end of the day. By Sunday, the brass handed him a suspension.' [NYP]
Page Six gossip Paula Froelich wrote a book. Ex-colleague Jared Paul Stern writes for a blog. And retired Gatecrasher and current Star television face Ben Widdicombe is probably scribbling something between two hardcovers right about now. But former Rush & Molloy stringer Patrick Huguenin? He's gone and wrote himself a play. It's called Paper Dolls, opens tomorrow at the NYC Fringe Festival, and centers around a one Claire Cunningham, a the gossip columnist conceit who "once cried her way onto a plane to spy on Madonna." And there is scandal! Worse than anything Hud Morgan did on Daily News reality show Tabloid Wars! [Paper Dolls]
Both of New York's finest newspapers, the Daily News and the Post, hit today with items regarding a former senator named John Edwards and a racy love child scandal the mainstream media doesn't want you to know anything about. Except the News and the Post, um, are the MSM, so this gets confusing! They're both basically saying the same thing — which is to say they're reiterating what the Raleigh News & Observer already told you: the Dems want this matter cleared up before the convention, yo. But it's a moment of significance, because two newspapers the city actually reads are saying this! CONTINUED »
While Steppin' Out may battle Our Town for the least-read NYC-area publications, it does get its name in the news thanks to Chaunce Hayden, the magazine's editor and one-time Page Six item planter (before a nasty little libel suit put an end to that). The magazine is a place for mini-somebodies to make names for themselves.
Enter this as-yet-unpublished cover of Steppin' Out, featuring a one Shallon Lester. Who? She's the Rush & Molloy gossip stringer who speaks with a slight lisp, and whose "single girl" videos for DoubleAgent.com are actually funny. (She's also only been to the Hamptons, like, once, so she's insta-likable.)
Lester is also the star of an upcoming reality show, which means this cover may be only the beginning! CONTINUED »
Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News exist, at least in part, to carry on a city tabloid rivalry that lets blogs have a good laugh by posting their front pages side by side and counting the puns. But the two papers are also victims of an industry reality: printing newspapers is, like, expensive. So they are firming up talks that began in May, when Long Island's Newsday was in play, to share back-end expenses by joining forces, with printing and home delivery operations being rolled into one cost-saving machine. (It's unclear whether the papers would combine their advertising operations, which is a whole other animal.) Of course, such a team up would further muddy the waters between the Post and News never-ending — despite multiples truces — bashing of the competition, through their respective gossip and business columns, about circulation woes, advertising fears, and intra-office scandal. Not that either paper is exactly a stranger to conflicts of interest. [NYT]
Alternative headlines passed over by the tabs: "Victory!," "Definitively!," and "Finally!"
When Ben Widdicombe sprung his departure from the New York Daily News on his bosses last month (well, he did quietly give two weeks notice), the paper found itself with quite the dilemma: Without Widdicombe's Gatecrasher, it had a single daily gossip column, Rush & Molloy. Indeed, former junior gossip Jo Piazza began penning the weekend-only Full Disclosure, but we hear the News still wants more gossip-centric fare.
So when Krissy Mac, who'd been penning a column about celebrity tabloids for the past two years, announced her exit, there was a rush to fill the void.
Enter Patrick Huguenin, the former R&M stringer. He'll be taking over the Friday space, beginning tomorrow. Huguenin's sheet will be called "Newsstand Junkie," and, if he can get his copy through editors without too many changes, it might just read like the witty fella he is.
Though the Daily News does photo caption her as the "disgraced" governor's wife, its article about Silda Spitzer's first return to the public spotlight is generally favorable: "Shedding the shame of her husband's downfall, a radiant Silda Wall Spitzer emerged from self-imposed exile Wednesday night - looking stunning in a designer evening dress and heels. The former First Lady of New York held her head high, greeting friends with hugs and kisses at a midtown benefit for the Children for Children foundation she founded." It helps that she did not bring her husband as her date.
In a "this wouldn't even be a cute April Fool's Day joke," Ben Widdicombe is leaving the gossip pages of the New York Daily News after something like a decade in the rumormongering industry. "Oh no! After four years (which is 28 in liver years) Gatecrasher has crashed its last gate for the Daily News. I hope you've had as much fun reading the column as I have had writing it, but today I am leaving to pursue my ambition of becoming the world's first plus-size hand supermodel. Wish me luck!"
Talking points:
• What will Widdicombe's next gig be? Voice-over work?
• Since his Gatecrasher column took over the daily void left by Lloyd Grove's Lowdown, will the News be looking for another daily column to run alongside Rush & Molloy? And will that honor go to the Sunday-only Full Disclosure from News gossip veteran Jo Piazza? So far, we hear that plan hasn't been made.
It's clear neither the New York Times or Post appreciated new governor David Paterson silver-plattering he and his wife's extramarital affairs story to the Daily News — and you don't even need to ask the reporters working the stories. You can see it in their reports. CONTINUED »
Where have all the critics gone? News hit yesterday that Newsday movie editor Pat Wiedenkeller and veteran critics Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour were accepting buyout offers, which sent the world of film scribes into a tizzy as everyone tried to figure out whether this was more evidence of a Kill The Critic trend, now that newspapers are getting out of the business of reporting on anything other than Britney Spears. Those worried about the job security of the critic niche have ample evidence; the Daily News' Jack Matthews retired last month. And don't forget even Maxim had to fire its movie critic Pete Hammond, but that was mostly because he had terrible taste in film. So is there reason to trust all this fear-mongering? Let's put it this way: If you're paid to write down whether you love or hate something, your job is on the line.
Because a Google search for Daily News gossip Jo Piazza returns a Jossip page as the first result, we're guessing an email from Sopranos actor Vince Curatola, pictured here on the left, that arrived in our inbox but was addressed to Jo, got sent to us by mistake.
Bummer. For him.
The note is a response to Jo's Full Disclosure column on Sunday, where she was talking about the possibility of a Sopranos movie. At the launch for Lorraine Bracco's new wine label (which didn't even get a mention!), Jo namedrops cast veterans like Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti), Steve Schirripa (Bobby 'Bacala' Baccalieri), and Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior).
But no love for Curatola, who played Johnny 'Sack' Sacramoni, or Tony Sirico, who played Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri.
And Sack is sorta upset. CONTINUED »
I SEE YOUR TRUE COLORS SHINING THROUGH A thing so simple as color has escaped our New York dailies. But by the end of 2009, promises Mort Zuckerman, the Daily News will become the first major daily to be printed with the full spectrum. But don't think the added value is going to benefit you, readers. The real push here came from advertisers, who wanted their campaigns to appear glossy, high-res, and fierce. [MP]
Editorial Director
