new-york-observer

Observer Owner, In Defending Father-In-Law's Embarrassing Twitter Behavior, Embarrasses Self

Brendan O'Connor · 07/06/16 03:42PM

This weekend, Donald Trump signaled once again to neo-Nazis and other anti-Semites that his campaign is a safe space for misogynistic Jew-bashing disguised as political criticism: The presumptive Republican nominee deploys such rhetoric with such frequency that it has become a pillar of Trumpism. And while right-wing hate groups across the country have celebrated this development both online and off, it has also revealed certain fissures in the institutions surrounding the Trump campaign—such as the newspaper owned by the candidate’s Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has steadily risen in stature within the campaign over the past few months.

New York Observer Editor and Self-Proclaimed Anti-Semitism Expert Defends Trump from His Own Reporter’s Accusation of Anti-Semitism

J.K. Trotter · 07/05/16 06:23PM

Today the New York Observer published an “open letter” to the newspaper’s owner, Jared Kushner, in which a reporter named Dana Schwartz asks her boss to reconsider his close relationship with his father-in-law, the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who recently tweeted (and later deleted) an anti-Semitic meme about Hillary Clinton. Schwartz, who is Jewish, tells Kushner, who is also Jewish: “When you stand silent and smiling in the background, his Jewish son-in-law, you’re giving his most hateful supporters tacit approval.”

New York Observer Editor Ken Kurson Helped Trump With His AIPAC Speech

J.K. Trotter · 04/04/16 11:55AM

On top of reporting Donald Trump’s apparent knowledge of Fox News’ dirty secrets, Gabriel Sherman’s excellent piece on the Trump campaign contains another bit of media intrigue: The role of Trump’s son-in-law*, New York Observer owner Jared Kushner, in the candidate’s attempts to connect with the American Jewish community. According to Sherman, The Observer’s sitting editor-in-chief, a former Rudy Giuliani speechwriter named Ken Kurson, helped Kushner write the speech Trump delivered last month at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference:

Get Me Rewrite! At His Own Funeral, Kaplan Still Gets the Last Word

Tom Scocca · 12/04/13 06:42AM

It takes an extraordinarily brave and clear-eyed writer to compose his own epitaph. Four years ago—four years before his death at age 59—Peter W. Kaplan did. He was speaking to the media reporter for the New York Observer, his media reporter, after he had just told his staff there that he would not be their editor anymore. "I had a little newspaper in New York City!" Peter Kaplan said. "You can't beat that."

Observer Effect: Jared Kushner's Newspaper Has a Birthday

Adrian Chen and a Gawker correspondent · 03/15/13 02:35PM

"It's so good," the actress Christine Baranski told a film crew at the Four Seasons last night, "to have another paper in town." The paper in question was the New York Observer, celebrating 25 years of publishing. The camera crew was from the New York Observer, reporting on itself.

Elizabeth Spiers Out as New York Observer Editor

Hamilton Nolan · 08/02/12 11:55AM

Former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers took over as editor of the New York Obsever in February of 2011, bringing a measure of stability to what had been a decidedly up-and-(mostly) down enterprise under parsimonious wunderkind owner Jared Kushner. Now, Spiers is leaving.

Presence of 'Gatsbabies' Requires Mandatory Gatsbortions

Drew Magary · 06/27/12 04:05PM

Not to be outdone by the New York Times' Ubermenschtastic profile of the Brant Brothers, the New York Observer is doing the world one better and introducing us to the world of... the Gatsbabies, three "preening prepsters" whose flamboyance is taking New York by storm, except that it's not taking New York by storm and I already hate them with the power of a thousand 747 engines.

New York Post Kills Scoop on Kushner Connection to Manhattan Madam

John Cook · 04/26/12 06:12PM

in 2007, real estate mogul Charles Kushner—father to New York Observer owner Jared Kushner and father-in-law to Trumpspawn Ivanka Trump—attended a business meeting accompanied by executives from Kushner Properties. At the other end of the table was none other than Anna Gristina, known these days as the Manhattan Madam.

Girl, Microfamed

Hamilton Nolan · 12/21/11 11:10AM

Might as well get THIS one out of the way: the Sex/ Internet/ Microfame story of the week comes to us courtesy of Kat Stoeffel at the New York Observer, who introduces us to 21 year-old college student and occasional writer-about-sex on the internet "Marie Calloway" (a pseudonym). Sometimes Marie writes about sex, on Tumblr, or on Thought Catalog. Does this make her "the model for literary seductresses" in the "internet age?" No. It just makes her a girl, with a Tumblr.