The latest round of musical chairs at Conde Nast comes to an end today, with a ringer coming in to fill the final slot left open by last week's publisher shift: Lance Ford will replace Alan Katz as publisher of Cargo.
• New York mag launches major new ad campaign that involves replacing subway billboards every day. Because that's the big problem with waiting for the train: Not enough new reading material. [NYT]
• Is reality TV even worse for its writers than it is for the contestants? [CSM]
• Jon Friedman can't wait for the Conde business mag. [MW]
• Actually, Judy Miller is not having the time of her life in person, her husband now says. [WWD]
• What happens to NBC execs if this season bombs like last season? Bad thing happen, we imagine. [B&C]
A reader who spent the weekend on Shelter Island sends in this bit of eavesdropping:
• All those stories today on Si considering a TV deal with Comcast? They're about SI — i.e., Sports Illustrated — not about Conde Nast. It took us a while to figure that out. [NYP]
• Oh, except that there is a TV deal at Conde, in which MTV is shooting a reality show in Teen Vogue's West Coast office. [WWD]
• The Times loves it some red staters, says Eric Alterman. [Nation]
• Myrna Blyth comes to bury celebrity editors. Again. Virtually word for word. [FishbowlNY]
• Remembering magazines' sexy, sultry summer of Scientology. [Folio:]
• There's a new national editor at the Times, which, come to think of it, doesn't change anything for nearly any of us. [NYT]
Yesterday's surprise announcement that Conde Nast will be starting a business magazine, and that New Yorker publisher David Carey — the man who finally brought Eustace Tilley & Co. to profitability — will be overseeing it, left a hole in the CNP org chart. We thought we had a hot tip on who's moving where to fill it, but when we called communications veep Maurie Perl to get confirmation we learned she'd already issued a press release. (This is why we don't like talking to people; if we don't, no one can shatter our illusions.) Here are the new appointments:
• It's Jim Romenesko's media world now. We all just live and work in it. [Boston Phoenix]
• Things were bad enough for biz books already — now they'll have to compete with free-spending Conde, where Si says he'll put up to $100 million of his money into launch his new business mag. [NYP]
• Playboy to go digital. You know, so you can read the articles at home, in privacy, late at night. Like you do at all those other websites. [Folio:]
• The power of the press in action: News story leads to anti-bestiality law. And not a moment too soon. [E&P]
WWD carries news today that, with the Bravo Daily News reality show in the work on Jann Wenner talking to MTV about an Apprentice ripoff, 4 Times Square wants a piece of the TV action, too.
Exchange in the Conde Nast Cafeteria cashier's line, as overheard today by a Gawker mole in 4 Times Square:
You have to hand it to Details editor Dan Peres. By choosing to get married in August, perhaps the slowest news month of the year, he ensured that his wedding would not go unnoticed. Hell, it's not like we've got anything else to write about. So we'll indulge Peres and pay attention, if only for a moment and with the expected joke: Yes, the editor of Details got married. To a woman.
Well, yes, the new Vogue is big. And it really weighs 4 pounds. But, er, it doesn't actually put last year's to shame.
• New York mag reports that Paris Hilton, feeling that her teacup chihuahua Tinkerbell had gotten too big to fit in a Fendi clutch, has reportedly traded in the dog for a smaller one named Bambi. You may think this is cruel, but honestly this move probably saved Tinkerbell's life. [NYM & Gatecrasher]
• The latest hotspot is jailed Times' reporter Judith Miller's cell in Alexandria, VA. With only 30 minutes of visitor time a day, Miller's A-List guests have included Tom Brokaw, Arthur O. Sulzberger, and Bill Keller. Michael Wolff is still waiting for confirmationt that he can have his usual table before agreeing to visit. [Page Six]
• Former Condé Nast wrangler Steve Florio's book was reportedly nixed by the court of Si Newhouse, he claims the days of "people taking the Concorde to see their kids' Little League games" are over. Pity. [R&M (3rd item)]
• American Idol Kelly Clarkson is getting the Ashlee Simpson treatment: She's accused of heavily relying on background vocals for her live performances. America feigns shock. [Scoop]
• Scarlett Johansson strikes back at the producers of The Island after they blamed her lack of star power for the film's failure at the box office. Sadly, none of this bitching makes us any more inclined to see the flick. [Page Six]
Friday we passed along word that not only is Heidi Klum on the cover of the upcoming Vitals Woman in a very pregnant state, but she's also photographed inside that magazine both pregnant and naked. Turns out the rumor was true, and a devoted reader delivered the money shot, as it were. The big picture, after the jump.
We've known for a few weeks that a very pregnant Heidi Klum would be on the cover of September's Vitals Woman. What we didn't learn until today is that inside the magazine — copies of which are starting to float around the Newhouse empire — there's a very pregnant, very naked Heidi Klum. Our source on this is very sure, very reliable, and, it seems, very, very excited. We're not on the team that shares his enthusiasm about such things, but we're still curious to see.
Tired of twiddling your thumbs and desperately wondering, How can I get my foot in the door at Condé Nast when I'm only a slightly attractive individual with average body fat? Well, young grasshoppers, it's easier than you think. One need simply spend several thousands of dollars to pursue a degree in journalism, and then fine glossies like Condé Nast Traveler will come knocking at your door with exotic, unpaid internship offers. From there, it's just a mere 6 or 7 years of indentured servitude until you're breaking the glass ceiling from your corner cubicle. And you thought j-school was a waste!
We confess we typically go in for uptown theater. (We like our shows big, musical, and ideally with choreography that at least winks at Bob Fosse.) But we see now that there's a show in the upcoming Fringe Festival seemingly designed just for us: Elements of Style, a one-woman show about copy editing — which alone would be enough to get us there — at, even better, Conde Nast.
Yesterday was Teen Vogue sales assistant Lauren Blitzer's last day on the job, as she and her writing partner Lauren Levin have sold a book proposal to Simon Spotlight Entertainment for an "undisclosed sum." And they're not even bloggers!
We're assuming you've been outside today, so you'll know exactly what we mean when we helplessly ask what the fuck is going on out there? Seriously, it's getting biblical out on the streets, so make sure you use your energy wisely. For your sake — and in the name of that ever-elusive service journalism we keep hearing about — we've done you a favor and, using a nifty Google maps-based pedometer tool, taken the time to map out the fastest routes to three Tasti-D-Lites near the Condé Nast building at 4 Times Square. And, because we know Condés think of such things, we've even gone and calculated how many calories one might burn on each trip, assuming one weighs 115 pounds. (That is the official company weight limit, isn't it?)
