The poor, poor New York Press named associate publisher Nick Thomas as their new publisher today and also officially announced the appointment of former A&E editor Jerry Portwood as editor-in-chief. One staffer noted that morale was at its highest point of the last 16 months. Ah, "New York's premier alternative free newspaper": maybe brighter days are ahead.
We're hearing that "very young and green" arts editor Jerry Portwood will take over for Adario Strange at the New York Press, leaving him as the sole editor at the beleaguered alt-weekly. (Managing Editor Natalie Dolce was fired resigned last week.) Strange, we hear, resigned largely because the NYP couldn't continue to pay him a living wage, though he also had a reputation as a bit of a diva; Portwood will be making "much less," according to an insider, and is reportedly easier to get along with—though who knows how much longer we'll have the Press to kick around. Can't someone swoop in and buy this thing, already? Really, it's getting hard to watch.
"I've left the paper in better shape than I found it," wrote New York Press editor Adario Strange in his very nice farewell, apparently-my-one-year-contract-is-up email today. Okay! Sure! His name will join the ranks of Russ Smith, Jeff Koyen, Harry Siegel, and, um, probably other people who have edited the weekly. Honestly, the institutional memory on the New York Press is getting a little cloudy these days. It's sort of like blocking out having sex with your uncle. Not only do you want to forget the past because it was pretty gross, you want to forget the present because at least back then you were getting some.
We understand that we give the Village Voice a lot of shit for being totally fucking lame, but the other "alternative" weekly in this town pretty much sucks also. But then again, it's always sucked. Anyway, the New York Press is looking (on Craigslist) for a cover model, someone "clean cut, yet on the fringe of cool," who "might embrace veganism, but shops at expensive food shops," who has a Sidekick or Blackberry...oh, God, really?
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.
As a white, college-educated, American born male, I presumably could have gotten into any number of fields and should have done well. Not to belabor the point, but I was sort of expected to succeed at something.
You're telling us.
We're constantly being pressed by our corporate overlords to provide more identifying details about the people we cover, so, in the event that our previous item on new Press hire Ed Koch left you wanting to know more about the man, please enjoy the following additional information, courtesy of, er, the New York Press.
Remember all those rumors that Avalon Equity was going to merge its faltering New York Press with its other local holding, The New York Blade, to create the city's largest gay paper? Us either. Speaking of the NYP, we just got the following press release.
Like some kind of alternative paper Terri Schiavo, The New York Press continues to cling ever so tenuously to life. (Also, it's completely brain-dead.) While we're sure that most of you are shocked to hear that the paper still publishes at all, we're semi-shocked to hear a rumor that Jim Knipfel, one of the last Pressmen to have written for the paper when it was more than just Charmin for the indigent, has been let go. We're not sure about this (we've been wrong before), so if anyone out there has further information, please let us know. We'd pick up a paper ourselves, but we'd just as soon not have a hand full of tramp turds.
• Long Island City's seediest strip club reviewed. [#1HS]
• The only picture of Robocop with a pterodactyl you'll ever need. [Worker # 3116]
• The media may not have been able to solve that whole WMD thing, but, hey, they beat the shit out of Barry Bonds. [ESPN]
• DC Comics' Batwoman returns as a lesbian. Rival Marvel vows to introduce their new superhero, Rugmuncher, who plays acoustic guitar at an independently-owned coffee shop. [BBC]
• Slate's major demographic at risk of STDs, apparently. [Slate]
• Unsolicited advice for the New York Press from a blogger. That's pretty much how they make all of their decisions over there anyway. [TIWWDN]
• The 25 worst tech products of all time. This is where we do the self-referential joke. [PC World]
As are a great deal of our favorite items, this is completely unconfirmed — but we'd like to put it out there anyhow: We're hearing that wildly unpopular and infamously skeezy writer Doug Dechert has lost his column at the New York Press after just one installment. His debut was last week's issue, in which he wrote the cover story about Payola Six and, more specifically, Richard Johnson's wedding. We had found the item at the very least amusing, but it later came to light that Dechert had crashed the wedding (makes sense, as no one in their right mind would want him there), whereas the column read as if he were an invited guest. That might piss off an editor or two.
Or a New York Press deathwatch status report?
• The New York Press names Adario Strange as new EIC. Strange is best known as the second editor of The Source and his recent documentary The NYU Suicides, which is a lot like the Press because, uh... No matter. Welcome to media life support, Adario!
• A $250 power meal at the Waldorf means looking at a lot of fancy ladies — all of whom would crush you in a second if you came near their lofty perches. [Almost Literary]
• Any readers at the University of Oregon? Want to tell us what it was like to hear Times mag contributing writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis talk about sexy stuff? [UO]
• Bad news: Mariah Carey does not own any part of Mariah Winery. If their sauce sucks, they'll have to find someone else to blame. [WineFetch]
• Donny Deutsch corrupt? No. [AdAge]
• Meryl Streep thinks it's hard to be Lindsay Lohan, mostly because Streep just can't stay up that late. [BH]
• Katie Holmes puts on her fake belly all wrong. [Blogger]
• Head Stroke Julian Casablancas lost his diary. We doubt it's occurred to him to maybe look on LiveJournal. [The Strokes]
• Because God is inexplicably protecting Maer Roshan, Radar still looms over us. Well, kind of. Maybe not. Maybe so, with Jesse Jackson's son in the mix. And whether or not the mag that Maer built comes alive, it sure is fun to speculate and send Roshan into a secretive frenzy.
• Our sick and psychotic Gawker Stalker Maps continue to destroy the world, prompting George Clooneyto don his Batman suit and unite his flacky friends against our satanic practices. The New York Press agrees that we're bad people and, moreover, just snarkity snark snark snarky.
• Naomi Campbell assaults her staff again — and this time, it's over a pair of jeans.
• Hell of a week for masthead changes: Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal editor Amy Stevens saunters over to Conde; the Observer's Ben Smith relocates to the Daily News; more changes at Spin; and Newsweek executive editor Dorothy Kalins suspiciously heads upstairs.
• Breaking: Just like any student at any college, NYU kids like to party.
• Circulation desperation sets in, and free papers are everyfuckingwhere. And if they're free papers from the Post, you'll find them at the dump. Or China.
• It took way too long, but the Village Voice's doe-eyed young fabulist Nick Sylvester finally gets fired.
• We're honored to be included in this year's Most Loathsome list from the New York Press — it's like being told by a tranny hooker that you wear too much makeup. One point of contention, though: we are not more loathsome than Andrea Peyser. That's just crazy talk. [NYPress]
• After being arrested this morning for assaulting her assistant/maid/slave, Naomi Campbell emerges from the Midtown North Precinct wearing a poncho — hey, it worked for Martha! [TMZ]
• For their "Green Issue," Vanity Fair planned on using recycled paper — but it's just too hard, caring about the environment and shit. [Muckracked]
• Tim Zagat has no idea his little survey books are irrelevant. [NY Sun]
• Grups — New York magazine's new term for the dude in the Sleater-Kinney t-shirt pushing a stroller through DUMBO — are advertising demographic gold. Duh. That article was sponsored by Rogan. [AdFreak]
"Bush Shifts on Muslim Protests," by Jim VandeHei," The Washington Post, A1:
The entire editorial staff of the New York Press — that would be four people — resigned yesterday after management told them not to run the riot-inducing Danish Mohammed cartoons. The Observer's Politicker broke this news last night, reprinting the anguished (and not just a little self-righteous) email-cum-press release from the Press's boy editor, Harry Siegel.
As the lonely New York Press continues to ride the shame spiral towards irrelevancy, new editor Harry Siegel is doing everything he can to extricate himself and HIS New York Press from that of former editor Jeff Koyen. And what better way to drum up some publicity than to trash Koyen in print? In his most recent column, retardedly titled "Bloomberg Koyenizes Gotham," Siegel strings together an odd metaphor about the uselessness of Mayor Bloomberg and the banality of New York city by comparing them to, uh... Jeff Koyen s editorship? Or is it vice versa? We can t tell.
Honestly, we have spent the past 24 hours mulling over former New York Press owner Russ Smith's Mugger column in the alt-weekly's latest issue, in which he details the sale of Gawker Media to the New York Times Company for $32 million. As this is utterly ridiculous and unequivocally not true, we imagine Smith intended the piece as some sort of quasi-parody.
