Earlier, we told you Page Six had taken a preemptive strike at former freelancer Jared Paul Stern in a lengthy item entitled "Lies & Smears Aimed At The Post." Despite the fact that, as recently as four months ago, the very same column attempted to cast Stern as a martyr, today they opted to actively discredit him, addressing his defamatory allegations—and the incendiary Ian Spiegelman email—head on, and contesting the litany of charges in advance of the upcoming court battle.
And though the Posties predictably brushed aside most of the charges and as complete and utter falsehoods, they did, however, acknowledge that, on one regrettable occasion, Page Six's Richard Johnson made a "grave mistake" in accepting a $1,000 gift from restaurateur Nello Balan back in 1997, and they offer a prompt (albeit rather vague) apology for this transgression.
Following this morning's testimonial in the NYP, The Smoking Gun re-examined the circumstances surrounding the Payola Six scandal, and questioned whether or not their apology addressed all of the relevant facts.
CONTINUED »
• WSJ staffers outraged the paper is willing to do anything to make a buck.
• Editors of magazines filled with cliches have New Year's resolutions filled with cliches.
• Prince set to launch 3121 Magazine, which will be like Alternative Press, except with fancier graphics and more fake smoke.
• Friday Night Lights is so much more awesome when you can watch it on NBC.com.
• It was a black Christmas for Black Christmas, and Nikki Finke won't let you forget it.
• Reviewing a year in media with a "Mo'" and "No Mo'" rating system is, quite frankly, brilliant.
• James Brady sums up a year in media, sentence by sentence. It's a great review guide. We're printing it out.
• MTV launching MTV Arabiya after finding twelve square feet of land mass it doesn't already reach.
• Elliot Spitzer snags one last payola payment before exiting the attorney general's office.
• The news networks will get all hot and bothered over Gerald Ford's funeral, but not in the same steamy way they did Ronald Reagan's.
• Former tabloid staffers joined the Dirt writing pool to add that extra bit of gossip rag pizzaz.
• First magazines, now ad agencies are jerking off to anything green.
• If a guy with Windows Movie Maker and access to Google Images can lay down funnier lines than Best Week Ever, maybe that United Talent Agency web initiative has some feet. [Jackson Blue]
• Celeb press corp tires of Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn relationship charades. This blog tires of (but will continue reporting on) meta coverage thereof. [Radar]
• Porn empresario Michael Lucas throws down with New York magazine. [Queerty]
• Comely Whipple's World host George Whipple lets his pocket protector come loose on Friday nights. [Radar]
• Ken Sunshine pours the haterade on bloggers. That's "bloggers," code word for "anyone who hates on my clients." [FBNY]
• New Republic associate editor Spencer Ackerman becomes the first person fired from the title since Stephen Glass, in '98. Spencer's crime? Hating on TNR on a blog. Kids these days. [NYO]
• Former Sarah Gray Miller Budget Living cohort Alex Bhattacharji becomes Daniel Peres' newest bottom at Details. [NYO]
Payola fabulist Armstrong Williams (not to be confused with a fame-seeking gunshot victim) will have his slate wiped clean – well, he doesn't have to admit to wrong doing, at least – with a tidy $34,000 payment. That's how much prosecutors decided the syndicated columnist was overpaid, on his annual salary of $240,000, for work that may or may not have been performed since his contract's 2003 beginnings. Not part of the investigation: Whether Williams violated any statutes by unethically promoting the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind policy. Or, as we like to call it, The Only Reason Armstrong Williams Was Worth Investigating.
No, "Scrushy" is not some cute pet name like "Scooter." But it made us giggle all the same.
Sadly, given Armstrong Williams' history with for-pay editorial and that Audrey Lewis, the writer at the center of this story, reported for the black-owned Birmingham Times, you know it's only a matter of time before newspaper payola is labeled "the black disease." Though perhaps it's only fair, what with the billion dollar fleecing of American corporations branded "white collar crime."
Writer Says Scrushy Paid Her to Write Favorable Articles [Simon Romero & Kyle Whitmire, NYT]
• Without Ted Koppel, the new Nightline looks more like 20/20. And without Barbara Walters, the new 20/20-esque Nightline looks like decoupage. [USA Today]
• Get Eliot Spitzer's heart medication. Not only is the radio industry engaging in payola tactics, but now the U.S. military is buying off Iraqi newspapers to publish favorable stories penned by American soldiers. [LAT]
• Brian William's nightly news lead continues to grow, thanks to all that viewer email he's responding to. [AP]
• At John Huey's super secret succession initiation at Time Inc., where Norm Pearlstine finally moves on out, guests were treated to hot water-revealing mugs of Huey's, ahem, mug. [Gawker]
• Since the U.S. is far too flooded with celebrity weeklies, they're now invading Canada. British tabloid Hello will set down across the northern border next August, where it'll hope to beat native Bonnie Fuller at her own game. [Toronto Star]
• Blogger Panopticist goes way too far with the half-assed satirical rumor of the New York Times buying Gawker. Way. Too. Far. [Panopticist]
• Obligatory note: NBC makes official Steve Capus' position as NBC News president, a role he's filled since September anyhow. [NYT]
• You might be spending Friday shopping among the masses, but you'll find us hunched over at the newsstand, oggling People magazine's (exclusive?) pics of Britney Spears with baby Sean Preston. [Access Hollywood]
• Michael Jackson is once again in trouble with the Jews. A decade ago it was his "kike me" lyrics in "They Don't Care About Us," but now it's his phone messages calling Jews "leeches" that have been working to leave him "penniless." Can't minorities just get along? [NYDN]
• They said it wouldn't last, and it didn't. Lovebirds Lindsay Lohan and Jared Leto have bitten the dust — and Jared's coping with his heartbreak by going to Vegas and hitting on blondes. [Page Six]
• Kate Moss Watch™: If you hear about another virgin birth, it's not the one involving Baby Jesus. Kate Moss is going to be the face of Virgin Mobile. Meanwhile, her pals at The Sun celebrated her new gig by snapping topless photos of her cavorting on a beach. [Mirror & The Sun]
• Warner Music joins the likes of Sony BMG in settling its payola accusations with attorney general Eliot Spitzer. They're ponying up $5 million for illegally bribing DJs to deliver more Madonna than she deserved. [Fox 411]
• He doesn't have the same fan base as 50 Cent, but Bret Michaels has similar, gun-toting enemies. The Poison singer escaped injury when his tour bus was fired at. And police don't think it's a random shooting, since the bullets were aimed at the living quarters in the rear. [AP]
• Following in the egomaniac footsteps of Diana Ross, Lauryn Hill is making everyone call her "Miss Hill." Or, as we like to call her, "Miss Has Been." [Lowdown]
• The American Music Awards were on last night. And, now let's move on. [AP]
• Good Morning America's much sought after weatherman Tony Perkins is splitting the Disney network for, uh, local news. He's signed on with Washington's Fox affiliate WTTG-TV, where he'll be a "weather anchor and as a contributor in other ways." Moral advisor, maybe? [TVNewser]
• Judith Miller is back in front of a grand jury today, where we're hoping she'll finally shed light on how she continues to look angrier than look-a-like Anna Wintour. [E&P]
• Disney joins Viacom and NBC Universal in suing to quash new FCC rules that require expanded children's educational programming expanded. Yes, the Mickey Mouse company doesn't want to be forced to brainwash children. [LAT]
• If it weren't for Jon Friedman's daily ramblings on media shlack, you might not have known that the New York Times' purchase of About.com didn't fit into the company's news empire expansion. [MarketWatch]
• Crime doesn't pay, except when you illegally pay radio stations to play your clients' songs, and then it pays quite nicely actually. Well, until you get fired. [LAT]
• Is anyone really surprised to see another gay-themed article by Choire Sicha? Color us impressed. [New York Observer]
• Martha Stewart's TV exec Heidi Diamond quit in a huff after seeing most of her responsibilities handed over to reality TV overlord Mark Burnett. Diamond joins the list of other Stewart execs with Stepford names to ditch, which already included Sharon Patrick and Suzanne Sobel.
• In the latest round of Internet pickups, Rupert Murdoch is rumored to be continuing his buying spree with the acquisition of VoIP phone company Skype.
• New York magazine is facing accusations of plagiarism from writer Gail Goldberg, who penned an item on T-shirt design company Dangerous Breed for RareI.com and then saw a remarkably similar article in the magazine's pages.
• What's Jane magazine without Jane Pratt? Jane magazine without its A-list advertisers, perhaps.
• DMX is back in legal trouble, facing charges he violated his plea deal stemming from last year's crash through an airport parking gate while hopped up on Valium.
• It turns out the FCC will indeed get off its ass to look into Eliot Spitzer's allegations of music industry payola.
After Eliot Spitzer's much touted payola crackdown that saw SongBMG paying $10 in fines and admitting publicly to wrongdoing, the FCC is proving the be the buzz kill we took it for.
Rather than pounce on the recording industry before it has time to launch a PR assault, the FCC is taking a backseat approach to prosecuting those involved in the latest pay-for-play scandal. While democratic FCC panel member Jonathan Adelstein wants immediate action, republican chairman Kevin Martin has yet to announce an official inquiry.
The FCC has two seats to be filled, and it's rumored Martin wants to hold off until President Bush appoints new panel members before going tackling the payola revelations. Or at least until his friends in the biz can work out the kinks in their defense.
(Image via)
Is that "Big" or "B.I.G."? And who's this Edge fella, 50 Cent's latest protege?
Payola! Scandal! Shocker! It's Eliot Spitzer's latest investigation that will suddenly make an industry look inward on itself, then issue public statements about how only certain people were involved while most had no idea radio programmers needed to be paid to punish listeners with Jennifer Lopez's songs.
Now, any semi-regular Salon reader knows all about payola — the practice of illegally paying radio stations to air your songs. Record companies thought they got around that little snafu by enlisting the help of middlemen who paid Clear Channel and Infinity stations, among others, to be the exclusive song procurer, then collected a fat check from the record companies.
Now Spitzer is all up in Song BMG's shit .. and look, here come those finger-pointing announcements.
Sony BMG, home to such artists as Tony Bennett and the Dixie Chicks, promised Monday not to pay radio stations in exchange for airplay. The company issued a formal statement acknowledging that "various employees pursued some radio promotion practices on behalf of the company that were wrong and improper." The company also fired an executive vice president of promotions at one of its labels.
Here at Jossip, we promise not to engage in such scandalous practices. Unless, of course, we get paid. Heavily.
