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 »
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]
New York Times television scribe Tim Arango, until recently last seen here but whose scandal was drummed up again by his own colleague David Carr, is reporting from Sun Valley's annual power orgy alongside girlfriend (not fiance, right?) and New York Post photographer Victoria Will.
Does this mean Times' Dealbook blogger Andrew Ross Sorkin is bunking with the Post Peter Lauria?
To be sure, it's quite fair that Lynsi Smigo — the fiance of Opie & Anthony radio host Gregg "Opie" Hughes — would be so disgusted that somebody would insinuate she made a sex tape with Jackass' Bam Margera that she would sue over the matter. It's just sort of silly to think that the matter will see a courtroom.
Back in April, Page Six ran an item with the sex tape claim, provided by Steppin' Out editor Chaunce Hayden. Which explains why, in addition to the Post, Hayden and P6 editor Richard Johnson are named as defendants. Nevermind that Johnson & Co. have since thrown Hayden under the bus, blaming him for the erroneous report and severing a lengthy relationship with the column regular. But it's not like Hayden has the cash Rupert Murdoch's Post does.
Smigo is looking for $10 million. As a consolation prize, she'll take 10 minutes with Hayden's tongue. [TSG]
While we sort of expected to see another rant from Roger Friedman about the newest cover of TV Guide — still no Tim Russert, but plenty of reality TV stars — we were turned on by his rumormongering about who might be behind the anti-Madonna reports that have been popping up lately.
Friedman, as he so often does with the New York Post, is battling back against the paper's report yesterday that concert ticket sales have been sluggish for her upcoming Sticky & Sweet tour. Though Madonna has racked up $74 million in sales for 13 European dates, the Post says "just over half of the 43,000 seats available for a Nov. 6 date at Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium - 27,000 tickets in all - have been sold in their first three weeks of availability, raising red flags about the limits of US demand for the 49-year-old Madonna at this stage of her career."
Worth mentioning: This is her first fourth tour with Live Nation but her first since signing a $120 million "360" deal that covers all of Madonna's recording, touring, and merchandising, though these mega-deals have also led to reports (also from the Post) of massive layoffs at the company to follow chairman Michael Cohl's ouster.
But Friedman, a regular Madonna foe (don't get him started on her Kabbalah), notes, "Dodger Stadium is the only venue Madonna hasn’t sold out. Of course, the show isn’t for five months. The fact that she’s sold half the stadium now for November is pretty darn impressive."
So if that's the case, and many of her shows are selling out in minutes (like her three dates at Madison Square Garden), how does the Post manage to print the headline "Madonna Sale$ Sag: Live Nation Defends Limp Response to Her U.S. Tour"? CONTINUED »
Sean Delonas must have drawer’s block.
The NY Post cartoonist has taken two shots at pregnant trans man Thomas Beatie. The first came back in April, when Beatie first burst on the scene. And now, inspired by news of Beatie’s forthcoming delivery date, Delonas again turned his attention to the baby daddy.
Too bad Delonas couldn’t stretch his imagination, huh?
Alternative headlines passed over by the tabs: "Victory!," "Definitively!," and "Finally!"
Jeff Zucker has long been rumored to be one of the New York Post's biggest anonymous sources on all things GE/NBC. Surely not every story with a Peter Lauria byline carries Zucker's fingerprints.
But many do.
So we sort of read the paper's Business section with that always in mind.
So today's article, about how corporate overlord GE is so afraid of tarnishing its triple-A credit rating that it refuses to give Zucker's entertainment division the cash it needs to do anything but mosey along to the beat of a tired drummer, and how Zucker is "doing everything he can to grow the media giant" despite that fact, screams of a Zucker plant. CONTINUED »
The Post is in quite a sympathetic mood with Tatum O'Neal this morning. First at bat is Andrea Peyser, who would normally take so much glee in kicking somebody while she's down. But not this Oscar-winning actress.
Somehow O'Neal's camp arranged for a softball piece with Peyser, which explains why she was at the top of the list of phone calls to make after getting sprung from the clink. Why Peyser? "She called me to explain herself," writes the columnist. "Also, because she liked my columns slamming another discarded wife, Dina Matos McGreevey." O'Neal retells her crack/coke arrest tale, but also!, how she wants to help the guy who sold her the goods. CONTINUED »
In between plugging Cyndi Lauper’s "True Colors" tour, which hits Radio City on Tuesday night, with special opener Rosie O’Donnell, Roger Friedman sneaks in this bash of the New York Post, continuing an on-going feud: "Somehow, though, both Rosie and Cyndi were left off of the New York Post’s extremely odd '50 Most Powerful Women in NYC' List on Sunday. The list is so wacky — who is Tinsley Mortimer? Powerful? I doubt it." [Fox 411]
Were our mouse a virtual baseball bat, we would use it to beat this virtual girl over the head. Dammit, New York Post; there is nothing more annoying than some layer ad that tries talking to us while we're reading our Olsen Twins gossip. [NYP]
Earlier this month, one of those media meme's popped up that worth a few seconds of your slack-jawed reaction: The New York Post published an editorial, about how racial profiling by the police was on the wane, on the same day one of its own writers filed a lawsuit against the city for racial profiling. Now, that freelance crime reporter, Leonardo Blair, is out of a job. CONTINUED »
Regarding the Post's scathing report that WNBC Sue Simmons enjoys a little sauce between news broadcasts: "Not one word of it is true. I haven't had an alcoholic drink between shows for at least 15 years or more. [...] I understand more now why many people don't trust the media." [NYP]
PRICE HIKE Rupert Murdoch yesterday told shareholders he was raising the price of the New York Post from 25 to 50 cents. It's a move to stem the paper's annual $50m losses. Though it's the same stunt he pulled last year — which lasted exactly 10 days before reversing course. [Portfolio]
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