Richard Smith will be stepping down from his role as the most powerful man at Newsweek.
The editor-in-chief and chief executive is leaving pursue his charity work; he’ll keep his title as chairman of the magazine.
Newsweek exec Ann McDaniel will become managing director. In the role, she'll handle the business and editorial sides of the magazine, which could get awkward if Newsweek ever runs an investigation on big Pharma. Thomas Ascheim, former G.M. of Nickelodeon Television, will replace Smith as chief executive. No new E.I.C. will be named, which makes Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, the top guy.
Word around the Newsweek office is that “he was extremely tall and knew everyone's name” and made a lot of good toasts, which is the most you can hope for in a leader.
Paris Hilton is off to Rwanda, to, you know, give back or something. And like any heiress would be, she's a bit nervous about leaving the manor. She tells Newsweek:
“I'm scared, yeah. I've heard it's really dangerous," she says. "I've never been on a trip like this before." She says she'll resort to eating candy bars if that's what it takes to get her through any foreign-cuisine issues.
The idea of Paris eating candy bars is almost as unbelievable as her in Rwanda.
The profile swallows her "I'm smarter than I seem" act whole, and reports, "The biggest misconception [about Paris] is that she's dumb."
Maybe Newsweek needs to believe there's something more to her to justify giving 1000 words to someone so stupid. Oh Newsweek, denial ain't just a river Egypt.
IvyGate, the blog for smug Ivy Leaguers, has graduated. The pet project of Nick Summers of Newsweek and Chris Beam of Slate now has a staff of three writers. Summers and Beam will maintain a publishers role.
Summers was recently promoted at Newsweek from Periscope to covering the Clinton campaign for Newsweek’s special book project. Beam wrote our favorite Slate Explainer of all time.
You may remember IvyGate for destroying the life of Aleksey Vayner, a Yale student who took the Adidas slogan “Impossible is Nothing” to new levels of doucheness.
Since it is the first day of school, here’s a reminder to be happy you graduated:
• Newsweek reveals the real reason behind Bloomberg's crusade against fast food, and its not his irrational fear of the Hamburglar.
• We take it this Staten Island resident wasn't using Potassium Nitrate to make his pretty July 4th fireworks.
• Apparently, that Japanese guy's lock jaw won't stop him from sucking down Nathan's hot dogs!
• After nearly half a century, the National Park Service cheats on the Circle Line with some whore from California.
• Lastly, check out this gift-wrapped CBS headline: "Only In New York City: Pizzeria Offers Lap Dances." It's almost as though they knew we were short of material!
Who better than to school Hollywood starlets – nods to Lindsay, Paris, Britney, and a long ago Nicole – on rehab than the black sheep of the Reagan political family, Patti Davis? "It makes me angry when I see how the opportunity of being in rehab can be abused as nothing more than a slick PR move," she writes in Newsweek. "A brief retreat from the paparazzi. How lucky these celebrities are to be able to go to one of these facilities (which are not cheap) and to benefit from the wisdom and help that waits behind the gates."
Davis, to be sure, never went to rehab. Though, she admits, "I should have. I plunged willingly, desperately, into addiction at the pliable age of 15. My poison, my love, was speed. It came in pretty colored tablets called amphetamines. Over the years it changed to capsules—some clear with orange and black granules inside, some pure black. Like the devil. Like hell."
Except she didn't enjoy it in places like Winston's, Teddy's, or the Chateau. CONTINUED »
While Newsweek is happy to jump all over Katie Couric's most recent troubles – where her "Katie Couric's Notebook" feature was copied from a WSJ, leaving a CBS News producer fired – the magazine is, apparently, less prepared to jump all over Don Imus for his racial flap.
That might have a little something to do with the fact that Newsweek's pundits are regular guests on Imus' radio show.
CONTINUED »
• The Los Angeles Times: It's what happens when people stop being polite. And start getting 'real.'
• CBS News' online coverage of the Couric/Edwards interview already has 49 pages of comments. And counting…[via TVNewser]
• Tribune seems to favor Zell offer. Just as we reported. Then forgot about. And are now reporting again.
• MySpace "star" Tila Tequila attributes her success to "any pimply dork with a computer." Pimply dork responds by saying, "OMG, she said my name!"
• Time, Newsweek agree that Americans are "already over" Afghanistan.
CONTINUED »
Adding to the Men's Journal news that we just broke comes word that Rolling Stone art director Amid Capeci is stepping down after nearly three years on the job. He's headed back to Newsweek, which he left in '04 when the Wenner music mag came calling. UnBeige seems to have heard murmors of this last month.
It's fun watching the little Wenners run, isn't it?
• Newsweek to raise cover price in an attempt to have readers continue to dump the print version for the free online edition.
• Ariel Foxman secures gig as editor-at-large for Time Inc. First assginment: Trolling the halls of InStyle.
• Wet get it, we get it: Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn is the new Michael's.
• Watch as WWD recycles much of our October Fabian Basabe story.
• VNU continues the holiday cheer with five sacked at the Hollywood Reporter.
• NYT needs cash, turns to high priced rental market, looks to lease more floors in new building.
• Al Franken ditching Air America Radio. Or AAR ditched Al. Something like that.
The image currently featured on the MSNBC website shows the Newsweek covers from across the world. And as much as we wish we had spotted this phenomenon, we didn't. These guys did. (Though based on their question, we were pretty sure they were going to do something on Bill O'Reilly.)
Newsweek covers from around the world:
The U.S. version:
We're sure Annie Leibowitz is so proud.
If you want to know why the Media is fucked up [Rising Hegemon]
• Now we know how Paris Hilton ended up at Buddakan last week. She couldn't get into Bungalow 8, someone called her a human condom, and she cried. [Mollygood]
• For those of you who stalk the blog world as closely as we stalk New York's entire masthead, you'll be glad to know Blogebrity's back. Now stop looking through our windows. [Blogebrity]
• The Newsweek news we already knew — only now it's official. [FBNY]
• When Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie travel, they need to buy a house in whatever city they go to. Hey, if you had like 20 kids and that many millions, you'd do that same. [Star]
• Celeb stylist cum Interview fashion director, Annabel Tollman is being replaced by another stylist. With more famous clients. [FWD]
Ready for the most boring news ever? We are really, really trying here folks, to scrounge up something as juicy as Richard Johnson knocking up his wife or Atoosa Rubenstein's staffers fleeing from the Hearst Tower.
But, all we have is this boring Newsweek "gossip." Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor since '98, is going the route of Jim Kelly and moving to the great upstairs office. Jon Meacham, the managing editor, will take over as head of the mag.
Insiders acknowledge that the rumor mill seems to have erupted with intensity in recent days, and many feel it is tied to the need to offset some of the changes afoot at its archrival, Time.
Yeah, we can really feel the explosive gossip bursting from the Time Warner center. Though, maybe this will on some level affect our lives. For instance, maybe the magazine will stop suggesting the best new program on television is Shark — TVs 3,000th attempt at making a law show last.
NEW DAY AT NEWSWEEK [Keith Kelly, New York Post]
Remember how much fun it was to elect people for student council back in high school? No? Well, let the ASME board of directors refresh your memory with its fabulous reenactment.
If they're going to pick a girl to be president, 9 times out of 10, they'll choose the homecoming queen. This year, fittingly, ASME appointed Cynthia Leive , the editor-in-chief of Glamour. VP is usually someone a bit nerdier. Like the guy who's in all the AP classes, but noboby ever really remembers his name. Enter Evan Smith, editor at Texas Monthly. You have no idea who he is.
The cute foreign exchange student with classy sex tips always makes a great Secretary (Roberta Myers, EIC of Elle) and of course you need a spot for the popular party boy for treasurer — and we're sure Adam Moss is great with money. Just look at those ad pages!
Lieve fills Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker's spot as president, and the new club will begin its reign over all the land just as soon as those much awaited popularity awards … er, Ellies … are announced. Assembly dismissed, everyone please return to homeroom.
Cindi Leive Named ASME President [Dylan Stableford, Fishbowl New York]
• You know that whole ethics thing where reporters aren't supposed to accept any swag from anyone? Yeah, Richard Johnson and his entire staff must have skipped that class. [Daily News]
• Katie Couric, on the cover of Newsweek. God print media, this is so last week. [Fishbowl, NY]
• Turns out J-Schoolers just getting out of college won't only be greeted by coworkers who aren't very hot, but the job market's not looking too good, either. [CNN]
• Forget The Devil Wears Prada, Ann Coulter's soulless bod sports Spandex. [Drudge]
• The price of nobody wanting to take your picture? You have to relinquish your "secret Hollywood salary." [WSJ]
• Giant magazine lives up to its name in staff cuts. [Gawker]
• Hachette's new website is so bad, it's even worse than Office Pirates. We didn't think it was possible, but simulating sex next to a car bombing? That's wrong even in our book. [WWD]
Time and Newsweek publishers are shouting "thanks a lot bitches!" to likes of Emma Watson and Lindsay Lohan today. The liquor industry has just announced that liquor companies will soon have to start facing tougher regulations when it comes to magazine advertising.
The liquor industry is toughening some of its ad standards for magazines, recommending that spirits makers should cease running ads on the back and inside covers as of July 1 in millions of copies of five major titles, including Time and Newsweek, unless the publishers can figure out a way to send thousands of school-library editions without those ads.
As of now, back page ads, which are at the top of the expensive page pile, can not be bought by liquor companies unless the publication has an adult readership over 70%. Yet, for some reason, schools think that kids can learn from magazines like Time, Newsweek, and ESPN, so these magazines (liquor ads and all) are often kept in the library. Makes it kind of tough to keep track.
Starting this summer, that means no more millions of dollars for those publishers, unless they can come with a solution to stop enticing kids to drink. (We're sure the kids won't mind if you just stop stocking their library.)
The liquor companies do have a point though. Middle schoolers would probably would never even wonder what drinking was like if all those ads in the library weren't forcing them to consider binging.
While advertising is at it, maybe mags should take out the perfume ads, too. Surely that would stop junior high kids from thinking about sex, too.
MAGAZINES GRAPPLE WITH SCHOOL LIBRARY LIQUOR AD BAN [Ira Teinowitz and Nat Ives, Ad Age]
• Mandy Moore's flak attacks, but has no idea what she's talking about. Apparently, every time "many more" is included on an invite, Mandy's illiterate rep throws a hissy. [Page Six]
• Kate Moss can barely remember her name, where she put her clothes, or where that coke stash came from. [Sun]
• And in other stupid model news, Heidi Klum counts numbers before she adds. [OAN]
• Newsweek fills the Baby Boomer quota for naked magazine month. At least we didn't barf in our mouths as much as we did when we read the New York Times magazine cover story about really old ladies gettng laid. [Fishbowl NY]
• When celebrities cry, Ben Wasserstein is there for them to blow their snot on. [Slate]
Buck? Buck? Newsweek just couldn't resist the gay intonation, now could they? "Challenges," "defies" and "resists" all could've worked without the obvious homo overtones.
Forbidden Territory [Newsweek]
• Embroiled former CBS News prez Andrew Heyward would've given up his post a while ago, had it not taken till October 29 (his 55th birthday) for his lucrative pension plan to kick in. [Radar]
• Thanks to a keen eyed Newsweek staffer, the mag's baby boomer issue this week hit newsstands with the real Cher on the cover, not a drag queen. Now if only People's eye check-ups were more frequent. [R&M]
• A Fox News exec used crude language to describe the female body? That's as far fetched as a MSNBC primetime show scoring a 2.0 rating. [NYDN]
• Jay Leno is now leading David Letterman by more than his chinny-chin-chin. The latest ratings results show the NBC comedian's ratings are up 4 percent this year while his CBS counterpart saw viewership slide 5 percent. [Fox News]
• Anderson Cooper said hello to his new timeslot (and Aaron Brown's old viewers) last night, complete with a new set that's getting a better response than Jon Stewart's. [TVNewser]
Seriously, the New York Times has answers for everything, and not just in their editorials or Maureen Dowd's calm tirades. Normally we turn to Campbell Robertson for sage advice, but today we've got Roben Farzad to thank with her service journalism for editors piece, "To Market a Magazine, Fill It With Celebrity Gossip."
While newsweeklies like Time and Newsweek and men's magazines like GQ and Esquire are seeing their circulation stall (well, unless they're going the New York Post route), "curiously" celebrity-focused titles are seeing remarkable gains.
Funny, because we've been having a terribly difficult time distinguishing between GQ and In Touch.
Editorial Director
