Spy co-founder Kurt Andersen—whose jobs currently include 1. novelist, 2. New York mag monthly columnist, 3. "Studio 360" radio host, 4. IAC's "Very Short List" founder-consultant, 5. sometime blogger, 6. Random House editor at large—has "just inked a one-year deal to write two big articles for [fellow Spy cofounder] Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair estimated to be valued in the mid-five figures." [NY Post]

Every publisher who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, their tendencies to nepotism, their "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" deals and publishing them without remorse. Publishers justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about "high concepts" and "important recommendations"; the seemliest admit that, hey, the book's by one of my writer's kids; the most honest tell you that they'll pretty much publish anything if it shuts Bret Easton Ellis up.

[David] Carr (whom I employed six years ago at Inside.com) is a quirky, entertaining, singular writer. I was pleasantly surprised when the paper of record hired and then promoted him to media columnist. But I was flabbergasted when they gave him a movie-awards blog (the Carpetbagger) and—the Times!—let him invent a weekly Web-video spot as a goofy man-on-the-street and celebrity-on-the-red-carpet interviewer. He's produced three dozen so far. There's nothing else like them in mainstream media. He is preternaturally perfect for the Web—a friendly, wisecracking 50-year-old character with a Minnesota rasp, the very opposite of self-serious.