Back when the Drudge Report was a relatively new concept, and media watchdog groups were mostly confined to zines and the occasional Angelfire-hosted website, it seemed a novel idea to have a group of young professionals work entirely on the Internet, fact-checking the mainstream media against possible bias.
Now, at least 8 years later, the zeitgeist has come and gone. Well, not gone, exactly. Watchdog groups are still found mostly on the web, and Huffington Post was accredited with more political coverage this election cycle than any other organization in previous years.
But the thrill, the novelty, and the sheer naivety in thinking that these websites can survive and flourish simply because they are not print journalism but "new media" is increasingly harder to swallow. And during a time where gossip and snark rule most of the sites covering media, is it profitable to be an earnest blogger?
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Now that Barack Obama is making some gestures that seem p. serious towards Hillary Clinton becoming the next Secretary of State (which includes a lot of fun trips to Bosnia, no doubt!) the senator from New York is going to relinquish information her husband's closed-door financial activities.
Which is sort of amazing, because Bill Clinton's ties to investors like Ron Burkle and Canadian mining executive Frank Giustra have been shrouded in secrecy for years, meaning that if Hillary wants this spot, she might have to sell her husband down the river a tad.
Not to mention his international consultant agency will be nixed, and that $500 million Bill has already raised from his foundation might be the last he ever sees of that kind of money.
So what's it going to be, Bill? Your money, or your wife's power?
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Raffaello Follieri, the con-man who duped Ron Burkle and other investors with claims of ties to the Vatican (but will always be referred to as Anne Hathaway's ex) does not find prison to be the Trump Towers he is normally accustomed to.
A letter from his lawyer reveals that Follieri has blood in his urine and finds poop on the wall of the shower! And the place "smells really bad." Ew, so disgusting! So vile! So utterly Les Miserables!
Two Fridays ago, the publishing world was shocked by the news that Radar magazine folded, and that secret financier Ron Burkle had sold the online equivalent, including the blog Fresh Intelligence, to his frenemies over at AMI.
And David Pecker's first move as chief-in-charge was to fire all the writers of the blog, and install some putzes from his Star and National Enquirer staff to give daily updates about tabloid-y celebrity escapades. No one has looked at the site since.
But! Once in awhile we venture back to see how the AMI is treating the once clever site, and it never ceases to depress us after we do so.
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Ron Burkle, the not-so-secret secret financier of the now-defunct Radar, is most famous for his BFF'ness with the Clintons. So his panties would naturally be in a twist after reading The National Enquirer's constant smears of Bill Clinton and his "secret orgies."
His counter-attack: sending the snark brigade at Radar after AMI's scent, and specifically after David Pecker, the chief of AMI (which owns National Enquirer, along with Star magazine). Ooh, AMI is running out of money!
So how come Pecker and Co. were able to buy Radar's online domain, now that Maer Roshan has run the magazine into the ground? And is it good business sense or just sweet, sweet revenge?
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Ciao, bella: International con artist and Anne Hathaway's ex boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, got handed a 4 1/2 year prison sentence after pleading guilty to 14 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering.
The Italian gentleman had promised investors, including Clintonite/Jared Paul Stern-outer Ron Burkle, that he would use his connections to the Vatican to ensure their money was put in the right expenditures, Follieri instead used the cash to pony up expensive trips and gifts for Hathaway, while living with his parents in a $37,000-a-month apartment. So he may have been a terrible liar, but he was a wonderful son:
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Italian grifter Raffaello Follieri is reportedly close to reaching a plea deal in his federal criminal case. According to the Wall Street Journal, Follieri will plead guilty to fraud and money laundering, charges for which he could face four to five years in prison.
You'll recall that just two years ago, Follieri was living a life of milk and honey in WASPy yachts and luxury Manhattan apartments. He even got himself a famous girlfriend, actress Anne Hathaway, despite looking like a damn Disney-movie villain.
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It's not that Anne Hathaway's ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri is a con artist. It's that he's a bad con-artist. How to tell? He was arrested! That's sort of the biggest criteria for finding out if a con artist is bad at his game. The second piece of criteria? Going to prison, which is where it sounds like he's headed.
Trying to buy some sway with the pope, because you told your investors you were the Church's financial manager, by donating $387,000 of your investors' cash to the Vatican? And when that didn't work, you hired a pair of monsignors to travel with you and then asked them to change into a more seniorial robe to send the impression you were down with god's No. 2? If this sounds like a caper out of one of, uh, Hathaway's movies, add to the film treatment many more hundreds of thousands of swindled funds that went toward funding a lavish lifestyle including a Trump Tower duplex, custom tailored clothes, and luxurious holiday travels, and you're really on your way to the bumbling about of Get Smart. CONTINUED »
Former Page Six scribe, Law & Order inspiration, and current UrbanDaddy blogger Jared Paul Stern's second (alleged) attempt at extorting money from Ron Burkle has failed. The first time around, he was reportedly caught on tape offering the Friend Of Clinton the opportunity to pay for favorable coverage in the column with cold hard cash. This time, he sued over defamation about that first time around. Oh well: A judge has tossed his lawsuit against Burkle and the Clintons.
J.C., Clinton!
After Vanity Fair's long expose – a writearound, in fact, given that Bill Clinton refused to participate – in the July issue, which is getting more play thanks to the voluptuous Angelina Jolie gracing the cover, the ex-president's camp appears to have copy/pasted from its defense playbook, countering the article and the magazine that has a "penchant for libel."
Todd Purdum's article arrives just in time, because at some point this week, wife Hillary will be an after-thought as Barack Obama champions toward November, and our focus, genuinely, jumps to Obama vs McCain.
So while the public can still be relied upon for its interest in the Clintons, VF hits with "The Comeback Id," which opens with a not-so-kind portrayal of Clinton and his skeevy friends, like Ron Burkle, owner of the plane "Air Fuck One," and Steve Bing, whose favorite pastime is litigation. (Though there is this line: "In fairness, it should be said that Clinton’s entourage that weekend also included his daughter, Chelsea, and her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, and no one who was there has adduced the slightest evidence that Clinton’s behavior was anything other than proper.")
The article, all nearly 10,000 words of it, which jumps around from his presidency and his scandals to his new sources of income and his role in his wife's campaign, can be summed up in this way: "What’s the matter with him?" CONTINUED »
Somehow the travails of Buzz Bissinger v. Will Leitch, Jared Paul Stern v. Ron Burkle, Page Six v. Vanessa Grigoriadis, Cathy Horyn v. Giorgio Armani, Dale Peck v. Rick Moody, and Leonard Wieseltier v. Andrew Sullivan get boiled down to what's going on between Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag: CONTINUED »
• The $1.08 billion in debt American Media is carrying is bad debt, says analyst troupe Moody's, which just downgraded the company's rating. This puts more pressure on David Pecker to work out a deal with Ron Burkle, who's shown interest in snapping up the company but hasn't exactly moved forward with the deal; something about involving more cash in the deal thanks to fearful banks. [Keith Kelly]
PROFITS FOR PRESIDENT Did Magic Johnson's business relationship with Ron Burkle cause his support for a presidential candidate to swap from Barack to Hillary? Official spokespeople say NO; common sense says YES. [HP]
… just how coincidental it is that the National Enqurier – owned by American Media Inc., which Clinton family friend Ron Burkle is looking to buy – pieces together a "secret love child" story about John Edwards just in time for the Iowa primary.
Ron Burkle, BFF of Hill and Bill, is set to acquire AMI, which owns Shape, Star, the National Enquirer and Men's Fitness. GQ’s advice to the editors there: stay out of the Clintons' way. [WWD]
"High-level merger talks are underway between American Media and Ron Burkle's Source Interlink Companies," reports the NYP. "The merger would combine American Media's titles, including the National Enquirer, with Source Interlink's, which range from Motor Trend to Soap Opera Digest."
While negotiations are still in the early stages, both parties are confident the deal would do nothing to tarnish the sterling reputation of the titles in question, which have long been unofficially merged at the front of the supermarket checkout aisle, under the multi-purpose category of "Reading For Dummies."
"Kisses like a fourth grader." "Passive in bed." "Inspires Academy Award caliber fake orgasms." These are just three of the serious allegations levied against billionaire Ron Burkle by his opportunistic former mistress, Chevyn McClintock (who, incidentally, is shopping a memoir). And while Burkle is, undoubtedly, less than pleased by the questionable and totally irrelevant charges, McClintock will not be silenced.
She told [Page Six] that when she recently sent Burkle the chapter he appears in, she got angry calls from him. "He told me, 'Chevyn, if you're smart you won't go through with this. It's not in your best interest.' . . . But it'll be published even if I have to publish it myself . . . He will not intimidate me further."
And there you have it. The indubitable McClintock will stay her course, and continue her selfless, one-woman crusade to alert any/all potential Burkle bedders of the magnate's inability to master first base. And if that should happen to result in a profitable book deal, so be it!
Kate Hudson dumped recent beau Dax Shepard. According to OK!, Kate didn’t even cut Shepard loose herself; a friend told Dax the news over the phone.
Since the break up, Kate has been spotted around the city with Ron Burkle. Dax has been seen around his apartment eating Chinese food watching Swingers over and over again.
Whoops-a-doozie! Pseudo-homophobic Star
magazine missed its 1.5 million rate base for the first half the year — and has Ron Burkle target American Media Inc. wondering whether they should drop it to 1.2 million. Meanwhile, the tab that usually sells upwards of 800k on the newsstand has only been averaging about 600k under new EIC Candace Trunzo. Which begs the question: Can we get Bonnie back to do another one of those blog-a-zine issues? Or maybe they should just follow this one's model and go with the gay-baiting angle.
At ABC headquarters in D.C., mysterious "white, powdery" substance turns out to be aspirin; Related: In moment of inspired genius, Lindsay Lohan's legal team unveils new "Tylenol" defense.
• CBS to pay Imus an undisclosed settlement. In exchange, the ousted radio D.J. will agree to "shut the fuck up."
• Ron Burkle still exploring the idea of adding Star and The National Enquirer to his "crappy supermarket tabloids" repertoire.
• Yeah, we're going to out on a limb here and say that Business Week's Jon Fine thinks Arthur Sulzberger should go private.
• Baghdad Diarist unimpressed with Weekly Standard and New Republic for being unimpressed with him: "It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq."
Editorial Director
