Two years ago, 26-year-old publishing heir Ben Goldhirsh withdrew $2.5 million from his trust fund and exuberantly started Good, which was going to change the world by donating subscription revenues to charity, employing Al Gore's kid and writing all sorts of obnoxiously altruistic stories. Goldhirsh, who threatened to sink another $10 million into the venture over the following five years, was all too easy to mock as a spoiled vanity publisher. And, lo, he still is! Because Goldhirsh is so "stressed out" about actually making any money that he's brought in a grownup to, you know, run his business:

In America (the Land of the Free) you can't win a libel suit unless you can prove not only that what was published was false, but also that it was published with actual malice—i.e., you must show that someone meant to hurt you on purpose with false information. But in the UK, the situation is the opposite; it's up to the publisher to prove what they wrote is true. So offended parties from across the world practice "libel tourism," filing suits in the UK against writers and media outlets who have only sold a few copies there, in order to take advantage of the crazy English laws. Luckily our (USA) legislators have now done something useful by protecting gossip sites like us from libel suits across the pond. Here's how one evil Saudi billionaire is helping Gawker write more freely: Commentary has a think piece out this month on new legislation signed by New York's heroic blind governor last spring, which allows judges here to invalidate libel judgments obtained in countries with lesser free speech protections (hello, UK). The prime motivation was reportedly the nonstop libel tourism of Khalid bin Mahfouz (see below), which threatened to bankrupt some journalists. Huzzah for our right to write things, and yours to read them! Here are some of recent history's most notable libel tourists:

We have some natural sympathy for anybody locked in a battle against Page Six. Although that sympathy recedes when the P6 opponent is Chaunce Hayden, the rad tat-sporting editor of Jersey gossip rag Steppin Out who was denounced by P6 boss Richard Johnson for feeding him bad tips. Because Chaunce's rage is now leading him to send out mass email blasts about "news" that he, uh, just kinda made up! Or maybe he's always done that? Either way, now he's pissed off the Post even more. Here's the full story of one errant shot in the gossip war: Today Chaunce sent out a big email blast that "New York Post, Page Six scribe, Marianne Garvey, has been fired!" Chaunce wrote that Garvey used to write for him at Steppin Out (which she describes as two pieces when she was in college for $40 each), and that she had recently turned down a cover at the mag that instead went to Shallon Lester at the Daily News, so maybe Richard Johnson was so mad about it that he fired her? But definitely, she was fired. According to Chaunce. Actually Garvey left to take a job at In Touch—which she announced more than two weeks ago. By all accounts she left on her own terms, and wasn't fired. When this was pointed out to Chaunce, he sent out a "statement":

The magazine industry is facing one of "its worst beatings in years" amid the economic downturn, circulation declines and general print media weakness. The smart, aspiring media mogul heads straight for the internet rather than try to recreate Spy or some other once-esteemed dead-trees publication, as he might have 20 years ago. But that's not to say running a magazine is without its privileges, particularly for an aggressive owner like BlackBook's Ari Horowitz. Horowitz recently made the tabloids for hosting "shoots" and "casting calls" (ahem) for hot young models at his apartment. And now, says an insider, BlackBook staff snickering at Horowitz's Facebook profile were surprised to discover his shameless conquest of a 22-year-old NYU coed. Horowitz, pictured at left with his young flame, is just about 40. Does she do any work for BlackBook? And are there more pictures of her? Find out after the jump!

You know what's boring? Feminist outrage. But it's so easy to be strident, especially in the blogosphere. Especially when a gal writes an article like Jessica Pilot's now-infamous profile on Manhattan's so-called "Hipster Hookers" in Radar. In the piece, she profiled high-end working girls, and even met with a madam herself—although she chickened out on actually going through with a call. Fine, whatever! The members of the blogosphere—you know, when they were not busy watching porn and having casual sex—had a field day with Pilot. She's been reduced to defending herself on her Facebook page: "I AM NOT A HIPSTER WHORE."In short: Pilot wrote an article about a topic that interested her, which was obviously just a huge mistake, due to the nature of the blogosphere. She was attacked in various on-line arenas—I mean, we're all desperate for content these days. We all need to chime in with an opinion, and then commenters can have their opinion, and thus—the status quo is upheld. (The status quo—"whore!"; "Feminism: Is It Being Set Back 30 Years?"—is just so incredibly boring.) Plus, there's a bit of bitchy media-jealousy thrown in—"she only did this article to make a name for herself, etc." Yeah, so? From Pilot's Facebook page:

Vogue editor Anna Wintour's fashion tyranny was satirized in the book and film The Devil Wears Prada—she's famously dictatorial about how her staff looks and dresses. Her stance, like her own helmet of hair, hasn't softened since: we hear from a salon gossip that the razorlike Wintour recently made a new 22-year-old assistant cut her Rapunzel-like long hair.It flowed all the way down her back, and Wintour requested directly that the girl chop it to below her shoulders. The assistant, who is probably making her age in yearly salary, ran immediatey to Bumble & Bumble. Despite the bitchiness of the request, the word is that Anna was right—the assistant looks much better this way. From Wintour's 2006 biography, Anna Wintour: the Hot Life and Cool Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief:

Several months ago, Brad Pitt fired his flack. His other half, Angelina Jolie, doesn't have a dedicated, full time PR rep herself either. The fact that the couple generally gets great press anyhow raises the obvious question: if Brangelina doesn't need a publicist, who does? The nuanced answer has to do with the changing nature of the celebrity media and the shifting balance of power among various types of Hollywood insiders. The blunt answer is, "Very few Hollywood people need flacks any more." Disintermediation is the new black! When you think of celebrity media today, think of two words: OK! magazine. Its entire business model is based on working *with* celebrities to come up with the nicest, most agreeable presentation possible. OK! is so celebrity-friendly it is edited by a former celebrity flack.

The Wall Street Journal's glossy "Modern Wealth"-themed magazine WSJ is debuting September 6. Just in time for your curiosity to have been thoroughly piqued by the smartified explorations into fashion and luxury commissioned to fill up the heaving style issues of the New Yorker and New York, T Magazine and Vanity Fair! Here's what we know: there are 51 advertisers, 19 of which are new to Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. And here's what we hear: Buzz in the newsroom is that the content, penned by a mix of staff reporters and freelancers, is "very disappointing"* — save for an apparently hilarious piece by veteran retail reporter Ellen Byron. Hey, suggestion!I don't know what Byron's piece is about, but: the cool thing about covering the luxury and consumer goods industry for the Journal is that the whole nature of the relationship between reporters and the companies that they cover is predicated upon the notion that said companies want to look good to their investors. Which is generally the exact opposite of trying to look good to customers! Essentially that means that the Journal is the one venue in which you will regularly find executives being forced to roll the "curtain" and say, "Here is our ingenious strategy for scamming people this quarter!" Or: "Isn't it amazing how when you put a giant logo over everything suddenly it's like, a Veblen Good?" Etc. etc. etc.

There was a time in New York City's history, back in the heady days of "a few years ago," when nightlife queen Amy Sacco's life was a worthy item of gossip. She was at the center of an entire universe of celebrities at their most glittering. Today, she's worth chronicling mostly as the living embodiment of the transience of nightlife fame. And a new profile of her in Page Six Magazine (by former Gawker-er Joshua David Stein) can be seen as a grand requiem for Sacco and her Bungalow 8-driven empire. Nothing lasts forever... Sacco's rise to fame is familiar by now. She's just a Jersey girl who came to New York City, worked in the restaurant business, and made some important friends who eventually bankrolled her first club, Lot 61. She hit her peak with the opening of Bungalow 8 in 2001, which succeeded in turning the once-barren area of West Chelsea into the club capital of New York-to the point of destroying the exclusivity and isolation of the neighborhood that helped attract the top models and A-list celebrities to Sacco's clubs in the first place. But Sacco's more recent history is one of unmistakable decline. She opened a Bungalow 8 in London, which received (and still receives) a tepid reception from the locals. Bette, the restaurant Sacco opened as a "neighborhood joint" near her own Chelsea apartment, closed without warning earlier this summer. She got a slew of nightlife and image consulting jobs that, while lucrative, aren't nearly as glamorous as her former life as an NYC tastemaker. And she says she's simply getting tired of it all:

Even assuming Marc Jacobs remains clean and sober per his recent stints in rehab, there is no doubting the designer retains quite the pet collection of addictions. Add to unabashed bed hopping and obsessive workouts a new fascination with bathing and a mushrooming collection of tats. The fashion designer says in a New Yorker profile this week that "I spend hours in the bathroom now. I like shampooing my hair. I like putting on moisturizer." The 28 tattoos, meanwhile, include "Bros before hos." The 29th will read "Shameless," an apt label for a narcissist who uses gossip columns as mirrors through which he might further admire his own reflection. Jacobs should be especially thrilled to gaze upon his words in the New Yorker, especially this defining quote: "I am a perfect being in a perfect world." [Daily News] (Picture from Marc Jacobs via Daily News)

Dexter Filkins spent four years covering the Iraq War for the New York Times. Today, the paper's magazine has an excerpt of his upcoming book, The Forever War. Filkins is a beautiful writer, which only serves to enhance the enormous sadness of his story. The piece pulses not with political outrage, but with weariness over a steady diet of death. After the jump, one small excerpt: Filkins tells how his desire for a photo of a dead insurgent ended with a Marine shot and killed:

New York magazine should know that it's setting itself up by sponsoring an event called a "Highbrow BBQ." I mean, really. The cookout yesterday offered the public food from Top Chef contestant CJ Jacobson, along with a concert, for $25. And for that price, one could at least expect a big piece of chicken. But a disgruntled tipster tells us that all she got out of the experience was a bit of watermelon, some nasty taco sauce soup, and an apology from a bourbon-swilling CJ. Overblown ripoff, or just a griping, overly entitled guest? You be the judge! The full report:

Reading this very website led a fashionable young lady named Julia to enter the contest to with a date with redheaded, beleaguered Vanity Fair editorial assistant Bill Bradley—at the Waverly Inn! It ain't the first awkward date we've contributed to. [VF Online]

What you need to know about the upcoming tell-all book by Kim Osorio, the former editor of royally fucked-up hip hop magazine The Source: She slept with Nas and 50 Cent, allegedly. That's pretty much all the press so far. We (highly professional journalists) would actually like to know the media stuff in there, so let us know if you have an early copy. [XXL]

So the "really angry" e-mail sent out to New York magazine's freelancers and others—warning them to stop using their New York associations to get into events—wasn't so mean after all. It's just that "at least one party crasher and one overly ambitious editor" have been getting, well, a bit overly ambitious! Click for the memo. Update: we think we know who the party crasher is!

From a tipster: "Jada Yuan sent out a really angry email to New York magazine freelancers yesterday saying from now on, she wouldn't be sending out party info over email because too many people on her list were crashing events and saying they were NY mag reporters when really they're just freelancers who want free(lance) drinks." Hey, does anybody have a copy of this e-mail? We'll keep you anonymous.

Vice magazine is suspending its letters page for a month, in protest of the fact that they now just get stupid emails, whereas they used to get real letters with "gifts inside." The hipster mag's editors instruct readers to send in "actual, tangible letters" printed on real paper if they ever want to see their precious letters page again. To increase your chances of publication, be sure to include a bag of coke, a photo of a wasted Williamsburg girl who looks totally ready to screw a Vice editor , and a BMW marketing proposal. [NYO]

Such a pain! "It takes a lot of time and energy and she's sick of it. She's given them six months to figure out what to do without her." [Post]

We hear that home decorating magazine Elle Decor is in trouble, and it may not survive into next year. Hear anything? Email us. Could this be related to "the steep decline in the middle market for the shelter category" that's forcing Hachette to close HOME magazine after its October issue? Click through for the internal memo on this latest magazine death. UPDATE: Hachette's PR rep tells us that Elle Decor is "strong and profitable" and will not be shut down—just HOME.

Oh joy: another 'homage' cover from a magazine industry that appears to be running as thin on new ideas as it is ad pages! We will be sure to save this one in the hyperbaric chamber in which Gawker Media stores valuable artifacts of the dying days of print media alongside last month's Esquire's Stephen Colbert cover homage to Esquire's 1968 Mohammad Ali cover and that New York Marilyn Monroe homage cover featuring Lindsay Lohan and Esquire's homage to that disturbing (if your mom ever told you shaving your face would make you grow hair there anyway) 1965 Virna Lisi cover featuring Jessica Simpson and also Esquire's February homage cover ripping off that 1967 Angie (yes that one!) Dickinson photo to which they already paid homage to back in 2003 when Britney Spears could sell magazines not named OK!…are we missing any? Most certainly!It's not as if mid-century was such a golden age for magazine circulations. Esquire got up around a million during its heyday, sure, and now it's probably about 25% off that, but Sports Illustrated is actually significantly more widely read than it was in the seventies. But editors back them were at least a little less the prisoners of cover-testing and circulation departments. So it's no wonder that their more conservative descendents hark back to an earlier era when every tired cover gimmick was still new—and when Mark Spitz somehow convinced the International Olympic Committee to give him his medals on gold chains (check the photo) and the world was cooler then.