The Day of the Media Microfeud
In your tendentious Wednesday media column: The Awl vs. the NYO, the Village Voice vs. the Austin Chronicle, Sam Sifton vs. Dan Abrams, dumb people vs. David Remnick, and the NYT vs. the WSJ, magazine-style.
- In a huge Ad Age article today about Capital New York, the new online startup from a host of former NYO people, current NYO editor Kyle Pope says he thinks Capital competes with The Awl more than it competes with the NYO. Cue The Awl's (and former Gawker editor) Choire Sicha: ""Kyle Pope just doesn't have enough experience or wisdom to understand that the web is a real big place and that a rising tide lifts all boats." NYC media's hottest microfeud!
- Also today in media microfeuds: Village Voice editor Tony Ortega vs. Austin Chronicle editor Louis Black. Clearly what's needed to settle all these disputes is a big charity boxing match, so gentlemen, please email me your heights, weights, and availability at once and I'll schedule it, for charity.
- Sam Sifton rates PR man Dan Abrams' and abdominal man Dave Zinczenko's new restaurant, The Lion, today: one star. Damn you, Sifton! If they catch you you'll wish you'd never seen painstaking coiffed facial hair or an ab rocker. We guarantee it.
- Fancy Upper West Side liberal elitist David Remnick thinks you're just some country rube, for calling his fancy magazine "elitist." "I just don't see it," he tells Jonnie Friedman. "I don't see it as a useful way of looking at the magazine. I mean, are we for everybody? No." That's right, Remnick: your magazine's not for the dumb. Which makes it elitist. Want to argue that that's not what "elitist" means? Tell it to the dumb. You don't want to? Elitist.
- With the NYT Magazine and the WSJ, period magazine both hiring new editors recently, could one say that the newspaper war has now extended to the realm of magazines, as well? Yes one could, and John Koblin does.