The week of Labor Day is as good a time as any for a change: we're inviting applications for the post of Managing Editor of Gawker.com. The last eight months have been both exhausting and invigorating. I couldn't have asked for better stories—or a stronger team of up-and-coming writers. But I need to get back to my other job.
Yesterday we told you the nightmarish story of NBC's pooping intern. It was perhaps the perfect embodiment of a mortifying day at work. But we asked you, our employed readers, for your own stories of humiliation on the job, and you obliged. We've picked the five best (worst), which are printed in order of increasing terror. After the jump, read why you should never touch scissors at a library, make fun of hobos, joke about speed, pass out on a plane, or try to catch your boss' towel: 1. The Case Of The Clean Scissors [The following is an email sent out to employees at a library]:
The supposedly liberal news media hired talking heads like George Stephanopoulos and James Carville from Bill Clinton's presidential administration, but they were even more eager to Hoover up "talent" from the conservative Bush White House two elections later. In the image at left, our Photoshop wizard Steve Dressler shows which top Bush staffers have landed job as commentators, and with whom. Hint: It's not just Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page hiring these Republican operatives. Click through to see the full-sized image.
Right in sync with the meltdown of America's subsidized mortgage giants comes still more evidence the nation's vaunted free market is broken: Fox News Channel chief Roger Ailes just took home a $4.5 million performance bonus, bringing his total annual compensation to $20 million. It's true, as Silicon Alley Insider points out, that Fox News retains a wide overall lead over CNN, with 1.5 million viewers per day. But annual bonuses are supposed to reflect performance over the past year, and by that measure this one is a bizarre waste of money.
After frequent guest and guest-host appearances on Keith Olbermann's left-leaning Countdown, political commentator Rachel Maddow will get her own MSNBC show as everyone predicted, replacing Dan Abrams' Verdict 9 pm weeknights. The Times' Brian Stelter writes that "Ms. Maddow will almost certainly be a closer ideological fit with Mr. Olbermann's," reinforcing our earlier point that, despite its protestations, MSNBC will inevitably become basically the Fox News of the left as it moves to hold on to the young viewers Olbermann has attracted. Judging by the comments attached to Stelter's blog post, this should be a popular decision. Maddow, at least, is un-Fox-like in one way: She hasn't been afraid to smack down her MSNBC colleagues. After the jump, no fewer than three videos of Maddow doing so, with Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan.
There seems to be no role left in book publishing that an author can't outsource. Ghost writers are commonplace. Laura "JT LeRoy" Albert pioneered the use of a surrogate in book-tour appearances. And judging by the Craigslist ad after the jump, writers are even hiring forgers to affix their autographs to new releases, because signing books is just way too much work. With all the celebrity titles in circulation, this surely can't be a brand-new phenomenon, but has anyone ever been quite so cheap and brazen about it?
Dan Rather's contract with Mark Cuban's TV network HDNet should not be up until nearly a year from now, assuming the terms Rather disclosed just before he inked the deal still hold. But would the contract prevent the former CBS Evening News anchor from contributing in some way to Tina Brown's forthcoming news website The Beast? Perhaps that's what Brown and Rather were discussing during a "very long lunch" at The Park on Tenth Avenue, as reported by a Post spy. Though Rather's work at HDNet has garnered some positive recognition, it's not nearly as visible as his work for CBS was. A Web gig or partnership would give Rather a shot at regaining more of the attention he once had — and that any veteran TV newsman would crave. Perhaps the skilled lawyers working for Brown's business partner Barry Diller can work something out on the proud old newshound's behalf. [Post]
Pussy-smashing brew-guzzler and occasional blogger Tucker Max is hard at work on the Shreveport, Louisiana set of his comedic masterpiece film debut I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. The ideal situation would obviously be for Tucker to produce, direct, star in, and cater the movie himself, but due to demands on his valuable time he's forced to take on lesser mortals as his assistants. One of whom, surprisingly, has now quit in disgust and forwarded along his story to us! After the jump, the sad tale of woe, abuse, and poop. But Tucker has a warning for you haters: "I didn't get where I am today by being a moron.": The young man was a Tucker fan, and quit a real job to go be a paid assistant on the set of Tucker's film, where we pick up his experiences:
Blogger mentor Tucker Max runs a blog network called Rudius Media that is badass, bro. Earlier today we mentioned that one former Rudius blogger once worked for six months only to receive a check for less than a hundred bucks ($82, to be exact). Now that blogger, Brandon Woods, has helpfully forwarded us the email chain that ensued after he emailed Tucker-very politely, we might add-to ask how the hell he came to be paid such a paltry sum for half a year's work. Tucker Max's reply to him (which he also forwarded to six other people) is below. And, well, yea:
So this is where the career trajectory of Ashley Dupre has led: A $2 million offer from "an entertainment network and a major studio" for virtually all media rights to her high-priced hooker story, including an interview, reality show and possible book. The story was broken in the Post, so Fox's TV and movie divisions are decent bets. As the scandal over her onetime john Eliot Spitzer cools toward tepid, it's hard to imagine Dupre getting a better deal, no matter how many more times paparazzi "catch" her in a hotel with a married construction heir or on the beach in a bikini. Oh, also, here are the three insane careers Dupre is interested in once she gets her payday and this scandal blows over:
Following the death of NBC's Tim Russert, White House correspondent David Gregory was considered to be on the shortlist to succeed him on Meet The Press. Gregory is known for aggressively questioning White House officials and at one point so upset Bush press secretary Tony Snow that Snow accused him of partisanship, a remark for which Snow later apologized. While such assertiveness no doubt provided some cathartic release to critics of the administration, particularly those outraged at the feeble White House press corps, it may not be enough to get Gregory that Meet The Press gig or any other anchor job. In fact, the Observer today paints a rather grim picture of Gregory's immediate future, asking if he's a "lame duck" at the network, destined end up like — gasp — fellow White House troublemaker Sam Donaldson:
After fourteen months as a founding editor of Gawker Media's Jezebel, Moe Tkacik is jumping to Radar as a senior writer for RadarOnline.com. She joins, on the online side, Gawker alumni Alex Balk, Neel Shah and Choire Sicha (sorta — Sicha freelances). Ana Marie Cox, founding editor of Gawker Media's Wonkette, is a contributing editor at the print magazine. Jezebel's Jessica Grose went the other way, from Radar to Jezebel, in October. If Tkacik is anything like Balk, you'll want to keep up with her not only online on Radar but also on her new Tumblr (one of them, anyway). [Radar] (Photo via Moe's Myspace)
Did you know Frances Bean Cobain, Kurt's surprisingly well-adjusted daughter, is a "summer aide" at Rolling Stone? She is! Also, she's wayyy too rock and roll for the anal-retentive offices of the Wenner title. Insiders bitched to Page Six, "she doesn't get coffee for anyone . . . calls in sick all the time and wears funny outfits." First of all? She's 15. And second? Something tells me Evan Springsteen, Max Spielberg and Gus Wenner weren't fetching too many lattes last summer, either. Anyway, here are some conversation tips, courtesy a February article in People, in case she comes to collect your drink order:
You might remember Jesse Washington: He's the Associated Press editor who last year issued an ill-conceived ban on Paris Hilton news that, after much to-do, was lifted in less than two weeks. Within a year, the AP went entirely in the other direction, telling staffers "everything involving [celebrity] Britney [Spears] is a big deal," a reversal Washington awkwardly, and overenthusiastically, joined, again making waves with the announcement that the wire had already written Spears' obituary amid the singer's psychiatric breakdowns. He also rather rashly said in a video interview that "if you want to know that it really happened [in celebrity news], then you're going to have to go to AP... If we put it out, you can bet the house on it that it really happened." That hyperbolic claim was undermined a few months later, when a source claimed "the AP misquoted me" as saying actor Paul Newman had cancer. Having displayed such a nuanced touch, what might Washington's future be at the wire service? Why, covering the sensitive topic of race and ethnicity! In fact, Washington beat out 448 other applicants for the position of national writer on such matters, according to an AP staff memo from U.S. News Managing Editor Mike Oreskes:
We're looking to fill a couple of positions here at Cityfile and would love to hear from you if you fit the bill. Click through for job descriptions and submission requirements.
Pointing out that in the last quarter Google walked away from a multibillion-dollar hotel project, closed two offices, and laid off 300 DoubleClick employees, Wired's Betsy Schiffman wonders if Google isn't cutting costs as result of a downturn in advertising revenue. Of course, the downturn has so far been limited to online brand advertising, not Google's lucrative paid search business. Schiffman also linked to our post on a tipster who tried to convince us Google is in a hiring freeze, though we thought he was possibly just a bitter non-hire. One Google employee does tell us, however, that there's been a "noticeable" slowdown in new hires setting up cubicles in Mountain View. Then there's the usual doomsayers, such as commenter Isawthat who reports the "Bay Area is jacked!"
