As the Daily Transom reported yesterday, disgraced former Page Sixer Jared Paul Stern has been exonerated. Wait, is exonerated the right word? We think we're actually looking for something more along the lines of "not not exonerated" — the federal case against the accused Burkle-blackmailer is being dropped due to lack of evidence. Anyway, today the Observer has more on how Stern is planning to turn the tables on Burkle and sue him for defamation, libel, and slander, which means that we're going to need some more photos of Stern in funny hats and pink polo shirts, stat. So what does his former employer have to say about all this?

The news that Alex Kuczynski's being sued by a doctor she allegedly libeled in her Beauty Junkies tome brought forth this missive from a former New York Observer intern, who had the good fortune to be employed there at the same time as the Kucz. We say good fortune, because honestly, you can't get this kind of fashion advice from just anyone:

• Remeber The Politico, that Allbritton politics website thing that hired away pretty much every decent political print reporter? It's live. [The Politico]
  

The Observer was not looking for respect from Gawker Jan. 11. That was what Tom Scocca and his bloggers said they had been after, when the brawl was done—professional courtesy, blogsmanship, proper treatment between competitors. What they'd wanted, they said, was for Gawker to honor the unwritten code of blogging.

What they meant was that they were looking for pity. And so, under the eyes of the blogosphere crowd and in front of the screens that would feed the scene into a half dozen aggregator sites, the Observer threw a tantrum.

• Rosie! The Musical. Brought to you by inveterate musical writer Ben Greenman. [The Feed]
  

• Nobody watched "I'm From Rolling Stone." [WWD]
  

The newly installed editor of Seventeen magazine, Ann Shoket, was [at Ben Widdicombe's birthday party], flanked by her publicist. "Ben is the most charming, most dashing .... "
Right, right, now what are you wearing?
"What? Oh no, I don't want to tell you that," she gasped. She wore a tube top and jeans. "Now I'm starting to get into trouble with my publicity department. They're like, 'Don't talk to anybody.'"
Her publicist, Scott Gorenstein, stepped in. "She's wearing an appropriate outfit for a humid evening in the East Village."

Well then! Based on the overwhelming response to our inquiries about publications that pretend you don't exist after you've poured your blood, sweat and tears into their piddling assignments, we've come up with a preliminary list of publications that should be avoided at all costs, even when their editors woo you with promises of fame, glory and on-time checks. We're still soliciting tales of woe for subsequent rounds, which you can send to the usual place. In the meantime, enjoy our list of offenders, including more Observer woes, post-jump.

It appears that the New York Observer has a long tradition of failing to pay not only Gawker editors who freelance for them, but pretty much everyone else, as a tipster reports:

"This is just amazing — so many people." "I'm from the South, and you have to do this if you're from the South." "I think this party is awesome." Blah blah blah. Would anyone at the 52nd Annual Debutante Ball say anything that wasn't bland and polite? Did no one see the ridiculous side of the anachronistic rich-people gathering?

• The top 9 celebrity sex tapes that never existed—much to our collective chagrin. [Derek Hail]
  

New York Observer owner Jared Kushner got the hometown puff piece treatment from the Newark Star-Ledger over the weekend. We can't figure out whether the writer of the piece is a total idiot, or whether Jared's just so charmant that he's able to make everyone be nicey-nicey:

• What do you want from A.M. New York, accuracy? It's free!
  

Terrence Koh (pictured) has a big white A.S.S. That's short, of course, for Asia Song Society, the space where Koh, an artiste whose work was featured in the Whitney Biennial, lives, "works," and parties with various members of the aging Kids diaspora (eg, Leo "I only get cast as retards, why's that?" Fitzpatrick). He also has big plans to expand the space:

After we got over our initial antipathy, we opened this week's Observer 'Family Issue' and breathed a sigh of relief. In the thick of this slow news month of top ten lists and shopping guides, we thanked god that someone was going out there and reporting on original, newsworthy topics. And even better, the Observer is finally giving attention to the underreported families of New York, like the the Mortimers, Schnabels, Jong-Fasts, Foers and Hearsts! And what of these Trump upstarts we keep hearing murmurs about? We've always wanted to read a feature that gently mocked them while lavishing them with backhanded compliments. And today, we did! We learned so much! For example, did you know:

• The Chandler family, former owners of the Los Angeles Times, are unhappy with the way Tribune is selling itself off. [NYT]
  

Not content to let the purchase of the city's preeminent salmon-colored rag define his legacy, boy wonder Jared Kushner has made a more, well, expensive purchase—a $1.8 billion office building in Midtown. But we couldn't help but notice the implication in the Times report on the sale that young Jared (with the help of his dad, white-collar criminal Charles Kushner, recently released from his cushy halfway house), might've gotten hosed by the building's former owners, Tishman Speyer (who recently bought Stuyvesant Town):

Not only did yesterday mark the Observer's annual holiday party guide article, it marked the third year running that Sara Vilkomerson took a shot at Allure managing editor Andrew Wilkes! It's getting to be one of our favorite holiday traditions. We'll take a trip down memory lane after the jump.

A glaring omission in our party map: The Observer holiday party. We have it on good authority that the event will be taking place on Thursday, December 14, at 49 Grove, a "dramatic showplace for private parties and special events." We haven't been ourselves, but the website assures us that "If Ralph Lauren had been a rock star, this is what his living room would look like." If the accompanying photo is any indication, we're sure young Kush and his charges are in for one hell of a ride. It may not be Hilly, but George Gurley's knocking someone up that night.

Remember Tina Marino, the Hawaiian Tropic Zone waitress who dished about the downsides of her plasticy job? Well, today the Observer brings us another dispatch from that den of sanitized sin, sending an intrepid reporter to ask the tough questions about what goes on in the HTZ subsidized housing, where the girls live together to find out what happens when boobs stop being real, and start getting fake. So, the reporter asked, is it sooo much fun in the dorms? "We have slumber parties and popcorn parties. We all get along really well," enthused one concierge. Uh huh! Seems like she's trotting out the HTZ pageant-y party line. Yawn.