A lot of comparison has been made of the similarities between the blogger free-for-all, The Huffington Post, and newly minted "political salon" of The Daily Beast. And you can see why: both are run by similarly-aged, blonde (one strawberry) editrixes, who were friends back in London town, both appeal to that elite liberal media sensibilities that John McCain and the GOP rails against so frequently, and both (the women and the sites) market in the type of smug, self-selection of writers who enjoy adding the word "blogger" after their already myriad of other job titles. Oh, and they are indebted to Barry Diller: Brown, because he helped finance TDB, and Huffington because she and Barry partnered together under some weird arrangement to get the political humor site 23/6 off the ground and into semi-funny territory.
But given all their similarities, surely there is some line to draw in the sand. CONTINUED »
Conrad Black: Baron, Indicted criminal frauder…blogger? Sure, why not. The guy who was once the third biggest newspaper owner in the world, and who is now serving time in federal prison in Florida, thinks that John McCain fumbled with the potentially election-turning baillout bill.
And though most people don't care what incarcerated prisoners think of the political race, Tina Brown and her crew over The Daily Beast are going to give Black some extra fifteen minutes, maybe in the hopes that when he's sprung out of jail, he'll be a regular contributor to the site:
Sure, everyone Hearst might be cutting down left and right, and even the most renowned blogs are feeling the sting of a not-so-great period of American history. But Arianna-wannabe Tina Brown? Couldn't be more pleased with the way things are going:
There's such a depression in the mainstream-media world, whether it's publishing or network television or magazines, and everybody's kind of glum, and feeling they're kind of being outpaced. It's all about budget cuts. From my point of view and our point of view here, it's exciting to be in a situation where you feel the only way to go is up, that it's about finding an audience fast, and catering to that audience fast. I love being able to adapt.
Guess that's why the front page of her online aggregator/original content provider is looking so cheery today:
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Here we go again! Tucker Carlson has yet another wrong opinion about something! We thought this shit was over after Jon Stewart made a fool out of him and his bow tie and got his show canceled. And if not then, then definitely after he made a fool out of himself on a dancing show and viewers canceled him. But no. Tucker somehow finagled hisself a real-live column over at The Daily Beast, and he's using it just as poorly as he's used every other opportunity in his privileged life.
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When you are a high-profile writer working on a new book, one part of the publicity machine — besides a book tour and leaking juicy quotes to Page Six — is placing an excerpt of your manuscript in a magazine as high-profile as your name. Much of Vanity Fair's feature well is reserved for crap like this. Even Entertainment Weekly participates, this week running an excerpt from Eminem's new book (complete with childhood photos, awww!). Sad, then, for Sharon Waxman. She's the former NYT Hollywood reporter and current ignoramus who's been reduced to Nikki Finke also-ran on Waxword, her attempt to be a Hollywood industry insider reporter in a niche that just wants her out. Waxman is also gearing up to launch The Wrap News, a HuffPo-y sort of vehicle for, yep, Hollywood insider news. But Waxman is also an accomplished author. Her latest book is Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World. It even has an accompanying website! Except now that the book is about to hit stores (Oct. 28), Waxman should be out there promoting the hell out of the thing. Instead, she's only managed to copy/paste her work into this month's fleeting media obsession. CONTINUED »
The Daily Beast lived up to its name this week and shamed PBS's DC affiliate, WETA, into airing early a documentary about the ways the Bush administration condoned torturing the hell out of human beings, some of whom might very well have been guilty of nothing more than being Muslin. Why the hurry? What the Beast (and subsequently the New York Times) took issue with was WETA's assertion that Torturing Democracy, a film that supposedly "connects the dots in an investigation of interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody that became 'at a minimum, cruel and inhuman treatment and, at worst, torture,'" would, for scheduling reasons, have to be shelved until January 21, 2009, the day after President Bush leaves office. Hmmmmmm.
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Christopher Buckley was on Hardball last night, discussing his recent departure from the National Review, a magazine his father founded. While talking to Chris Matthews about his pro-Obama piece in The Daily Beast and how it lead to a falling out with his editors, it became harder and harder to pay attention to the younger Buck. What's with his eye?
In a spiked profile for a women's magazine, which was repurposed for content on Tina Brown's The Daily Best, Jennifer Lopez insisted she wasn't a Scientologist, but also: she hates psychologists and pills that help with anxiety. Which, you know, are absolutely not themes of Scientology! There was plenty of speculation, then, about which magazine spiked the story — almost certainly to please The Jennifer — and now, an answer. It was Robbie Myers' Elle who kicked reporter Kevin Sessums off the story after his first interview got too personal; that is, Lopez admitted to having a nervous breakdown in her trailer. Eek! And now that Brown published the material Sessums walked away with? "We're very unhappy about it, and think it was poor judgment on his part. As long as we have represented Jennifer, we have never heard her refer to having a breakdown of any sort."
From left to right: Former MS-omething Tucker Carlson, Bill Clinton, Think Secret's Nicholas Ciarelli, Infidel and Jewel of Medina author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Quadrangle Group's Steven Rattner.
Yes yes, Tina Brown's new website The Daily Beast is alive and kicking and slick and already promoting its creator. But while the site asks visitors to "Read This, Not That," we couldn't get past many of the words because … there are so many beautiful people writing for this site! Actually, that's not entirely true — some of them aren't generally inclined to be pretty people, but somehow, through the magic of skilled headshot photographers, a talented art director, and Photoshop, The Daily Beast cast a bevy of beauties who've never looked younger, more well rested, nor pumped full of Botox in their lives.
Okay, we did find one contributor not looking his best: CONTINUED »
Tina Brown and Barry Diller's blogger collaboration, The Daily Beast, launched this weekend. You guys remember Tina Brown right? She looks just like Jane Lynch and was the editor who helmed all the redesigns for the snazzier new Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. And Barry Diller is like the gay Rupert Murdoch who controls IAC (not AIG).
So far, the site works more as a news aggregator than an original content source, but some big names have already signed for the Huffpost-esque site. That explains why Diller, who financed the site, was so keen on snuggling up with Arianna and spending millions for their joint comedy site 23/6. Avoiding bad blood isn't cheap, esp. if you want a such a gracious soundbite from Queen Huffington:
Launching in the fall, Tina Brown's upcoming news website The Daily Beast may fail not because she runs over budget with Barry Diller's cash, but because her site doesn't lean to either the right or left, but up. As in upscale. [LAT]
Editorial Director
