This week's Village Voice is the annual Best of New York issue, and, to be honest, most of it we couldn't muster the energy to actually read. ("Best Borough Connector: Pulaski Bridge"; "Best Place to Catch a Fish You Won't Eat: Harlem Meer"; "Best Use of Lettuce: Porcupine.") But one entry particularly caught our eye, largely because we had a strong suspicion from the git-go of what the winner would be:
Why has no one before our underoccupied adman pal Copyranter brought this to our attention: The Envelope Manufacturers Association is meeting in New York?!
One column a week not enough to satiate your jones for Sexy Jon Fine, BusinessWeek's "Media Centric" writer? Today's your lucky day, then, as the mag launched this morning Fine's new blog, cleverly titled "Fine On Media."
• Now could someone please make Judy Miller stop testifying? [E&P]
• And maybe make her write something for her newspaper about what's going on? [NYO]
• Anderson Cooper book is officially sold; Harper will pay $1M for a memoir to "deal with the last year of [Cooper's] life as a journalist and human being in Sri Lanka, Africa, Iraq and Louisiana/Mississippi." Naturally, we can't wait to read about Coop's life as a human being. [Book Standard]
• Erstwhile New Yorker (and presumed ongoing porn aficionado) Joel Stein nabs op-ed column in L.A. Times. [L.A. Observed]
• At Harvard, Kennedys and friends, remember John-John and George. [NYDN]
• Breaking news from Public Eye! Local news gives viewers what they want; so does network news, to a much lesser degree. [Public Eye]
• Esquire food critic may have sent a Chicago restaurant a four-page list of demands before he'd deign to eat there. Or maybe he didn't. [CS-T]
• AOL survey says half of all bloggers consider it a form of therapy. Which we're thrilled to hear, as we gave up the shrink when we took this insurance-free gig. [WP]
We're really proud of Weblogs Inc. co-founder Jason Calacanis. He stopped videocasting from his flights just long enough to sit down and sell his company (a blog network of 80 sites with advertising) to AOL for a reported $25 million. Not too shabby! And God bless him for it — after he held on to his Silicon Alley Reporter publishing venture a bit too long and consequently got bit in the ass when the 90's bubble burst, we'd genuinely shed tears if Calacanis made the same mistake again. But our faith in the dorkier side of mankind is thus restored as, for now, no one is that stupid (knock on wood). Lesson learned; sell yourself while you can!
We know this is a bit out of sorts for us, but we simply must take a moment to fellate Gawker Media's new sports site, Deadspin. (We'd call him our jocky little brother, but that would make the fellating part more gross than it already is.) Deadspin is a pick of the day over at the venerable Yahoo, and editor Will Leitch won't stop pissing himself until we give him the props he deserves. A cure for that which ails sports journalism as we know it, Deadspin "provides more than just limp links, with an offering of reasoned reviews and informed opinions on the world of sports." Being a Gawker Media site, there's naturally a "healthy dash of rumor and innuendo" in the mix.
The response of the blogs to new Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has been unpredictable — unlike other recent major news stories, bloggers simply aren't falling into two simple left/right camps. Let's take a look at the reactions from our foremost political thinkers:
She's taken her look, and presumably her judicial philosophy, from one of America's most reliably conservative thinkers.
She's in tune with the popular culture, and represents a possible sequel opportunity for Steve Carell.
She may be a bush-packer.
This is the biggest day of her life!
• Nikki Finke profiles new LAT opinions editor Andres Martinez, who defected from our Times to theirs, and shockingly, doesn't tear him a new one. [LA Weekly]
• Fired ABC London correspondent says Peter Jennings wielded "hugely disproportionate" influence, without clarifying what exactly would be "proportionate" for the man with his name on the show. [Guardian]
• Slutty sis Wonkette comes to New York for a panel on — what else? — blogs and journalism, and she doesn't so much as say hello. [WWD]
• The Times wouldn't hire Slatester Tim Noah because they don't like white people. We thought it was because they don't like Jews. [Slate]
• FCC indecency complaints dropped by factor of 20 from first quarter to second. The copier must have broken at the Parents Television Council. [B&C]
An executive at a city real-estate company was fired from her job after bosses saw her blog, on which lambasted the company and her superiors, the Post reports today. And the newly unemployed Kelly Kreth just can't imagine why they'd do such a thing to her.
Today's Times quote of the day:
In the October issue of Vanity Fair, we found the following print ad:
• You can't even win in magazine publishing by appealing to the lowest common denominator, as tabloid king David Pecker is learning the hard way. [BusinessWeek]
• You can win, though, by appealing to the just-better-than-lowest denominator, as Jann Wenner — and his Us staff of the cool girls — has learned the fun way. [WP]
• OK! America has the Britney baby pix, allegedly. It's amazing what a little scratch can get you. [Access Hollywood via MSNBC]
• Oprah re-opens book club to works by contemporary authors. Jonathan Franzen is appalled. Then pleased. Then appalled again. [NYT]
• Economist gives free subscriptions to influential bloggers. We didn't get one, so take a guess who doesn't get a comments invitation. [Folio:]
• New weekend WSJ is a "spectacular bellyflop," says William Powers. Come on, tell us what you really think. [National Journal]
• "I'm a chiropodist," The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert tells his kids, according to the Times Mag. [E&P]
• Bill Keller only learned of impending staff cutbacks on Friday. [E&P]
• Staff cuts, TimesSelect hiccups, Alessandra Stanley, and now this: S&P downgrades Times Co.'s debt. [NYP]
• Time Warner, like a battered wife stuck in an abusive relationship, now insists it likes AOL again. [NYT]
• Conde brass swears that editor Ariel Foxman isn't about to be canned from Cargo. [WWD]
• Denton tells Adam Penenberg there isn't much profit potential in blogs. Then he lights a fresh cigar with a $100 bill. [Wired News]
Media business-y blog Paid Content writes:
"Plans are in the works for some Op-Ed columnists to produce weblogs."
-New York Times press release, September 19, 2005
It's nice to see you can lose two jobs in a week and still earn a living in this town. From last night's Publisher's Lunch deal roundup:
Among the many charms of Reference Tone proprietor John Cook — and they are legion — are his smug certitude and his obsessive devotion to a good bit. This, together with his previous job as a Chicago Tribune TV reporter, makes him the perfect investigator to examine, as he did today, just how wrong Times television critic Alessandra Stanley can be. While we prefer to ridicule Stanley's critical colleague Virginia Heffernan, we must give due credit to Reference Tone's exhaustive study, which unearths more than one correction a month since 2001 - and 11 percent inaccuracy rate in that period, Cook says, and a 14 percent inaccuracy rate this year — and lists them all.
