media-bubble

Media Bubble: Conde Biz Mag Is Staffing Up

Jesse · 04/04/06 01:31PM

• Ad-sales side of Conde's forthcoming business mag is filling up; prez/pub David Carey expects mag to be fully staffed — biz and editorial — by Thanksgiving. [MIN]
• Breaking: More and more people people are reading newspapers on the web. [WP]
• Candace Bushnell, Cindi Leive, Jill Abramson, and Geena Davis win New York Women in Communications' Matrix Awards. [WWD]
• Bill Keller is overly absorbed with questions of self-absorption, says Jay Rosen. [Guardian]

Media Bubble: Is the Couric Move a Done Deal?

Jesse · 04/03/06 01:40PM

• "Katie Couric's deal to move to CBS News is completed in principle, and an announcement that she is leaving NBC might come as early as this week." Which would be a relief, so we could finally stop hearing speculation about it. [TV Week]
Budget Living's failure shows that indie mags just don't work anymore. But shhhhh... Ron Burkle might hear. [NYT]
• Jim Cramer says the Times should ditch paper and move entirely online. He's crazy, of course, but in that case also probably right. [NYM]
• The NYT's new web redesign — and the Journal's of a few weeks ago — are about creating more ad inventory and adding news aggregators. [Ad Age]
• Is Hearst looking to replace Glenda Bailey at Bazaar when her contract is up later this year? Well, no, says the company, and her numbers look good, too. [WWD]
• ESPN to start broadcasting dominoes games (matches?). Remarkably, this does not seem to be an April Fools joke. [NYT]
NYO TV columnist Rebecca Dana has a signed picture of Richard Dawson on her mantelpiece. We're a little jealous, to be honest. [Jossip]

Media Bubble: Objectivity, Shmobjectivity

Jesse · 03/31/06 02:30PM

• Michael Kinsley thinks newspapers should give up on objectivity. We, of course, despise that idea of subjective coverage. We really despise it. [Slate]
• The latest Times/TimesSelect op-ed/website combo: Columns from Judith Warner. [NYTCo.]
• Sales are finally picking up at OK! America, and so Sarah Ivens gets a new contract. [NYP (second item)]
• Is CBS using Public Eye to take potshots at NBC? One can hope. [LAT]
• John Huey has good taste in lip balm. [WWD]

Media Bubble: 'New York' to Pick Hot Young Editors, Who May or May Not Be Hot and Young

Jesse · 03/30/06 04:40PM

New York to anoint hot young editors; those photographed rumored to include TNR's Franklin Foer, The Atlantic's James Bennet, Roger Hodge of Harper's, and the Paris Review's Philip Gourevitch, who, at 44, calls the whole conceit into question. [Media Mob/NYO]
• The Times nominated Dargis for a Pulitzer, and no one there understands why; New York is pitching a Look Book book. [WWD]
The Washington Post gets 88 New York Timeses every day, costing $18K annually. At least it's nice to know someone other than us isn't getting free papers. [WCP]
Cargo was confused, and nobody will miss it. Um, yeah. [Slate]
• Bob Woodruff, the ABC anchor badly wounded in Iraq, last night received the Radio and Television Correspondents Association's David Bloom award, named for the NBC correspondent who died while covering the early days of the Iraq war. [B&C]

Media Bubble: In Which Jann Wenner Is Discovered to Be a Control Freak

Jesse · 03/29/06 01:08PM

• "Wenner is driving everyone crazy," a staffer tells Keith Kelly. "He keeps changing his mind." This time that refers to plans for the Rolling Stone 1,000th issue party. [NYP]
• Charlie Rose to undergo heart surgery in Paris. It'll be under general anesthetic, which will give the surgeons a chance to get a few words in. [Reuters via Yahoo]
• The biggest Katie question: What exactly is gravitas? [NYO]
• Business books are back. And — have you heard? — Elizabeth Spiers has a new Wall Street blog. [WWD]
• The Newspaper Guild's bid for a dozen erstwhile Knight Ridder papers is backed by Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Cos. (Hmm, where have we heard of them before?) Bill Clinton in on the board of Yucapia. So Bill Clinton could end up as a newspaper owner, sort of. [NYSun]
• Lou Dobbs has discovered that "what works in cable television news is not an objective analysis of the day's events but hard-nosed, unstinting advocacy of a specific point of view." Who knew? [NYT]
• Time Inc. wants to be a web player now. If only the company could find a path. [WSJ]

Media Bubble: More Morning-News Fun

Jesse · 03/28/06 04:16PM

• Steve Friedman, former NBC and CBS morning guru, returns to CBS News. Just in case there weren't enough variables in the Katie-Diane-Charlie-Evening News-Wall News Tonight morning-show calculus. [NYT]
• Remember the big launch of the Discovery Times Channel? Yeah, us barely, too. Turns out the Times Co. has a chance to cash out its stake next month. Can't imagine why Pinch & Co. would want to back out of a venture no one watches. [RMN via Romenesko]
• It may not seem fair that Arthur and Janet got big bonuses while Times Co. stock was stagnant, jobs were being cut, and employee stock-purchase plans were cancelled, but it's in line with what bigtime execs should get, right? Well, maybe not, says a proxy watchdog service, which pays attention to things like what bigtime execs should get. [NYP]

Media Bubble: There Is No News About Katie, and Yet Still She Is News

Jesse · 03/27/06 02:06PM

• Will Katie go to CBS? We continue to not really have any idea. [USAT]
• What did Bonnie Fuller learn from getting fired from Conde Nast? "Blatant disloyalty is never the smart course of action." Who knew? [NYT]
• Kurt Andersen thinks — hopes! — that the celebrity moment might finally be over. [NYM]
• Elizabeth Spiers is starting a blog about Wall Street. Also, she used to work here. [IWantMedia]
Esquire has a funny spoof in its new issue written by — who else? — a Foer brother, in this case champion memorizer Joshua. [WP]
• Simon Dumenco isn't sure newspapers will survive, and he can't believe it took the Times until now to get rid of the printed stock tables. [Ad Age]
• Jim Surowiecki thinks newspapers will survive, and he can't believe it took them until now to get rid of printed stock tables. [NYer]
WWD media reporter Jeff Bercovici breakfasts on spelt toast with almond butter and a home-brewed cappuccino. [Jossip]
• Syd Schanberg quit his job as the Village Voice's Press Clips columnist just after the New Times deal closed, feeling that the company was no longer interested in media criticism. Friday he won an award for his Voice media criticism. [VV]

Media Bubble: Kids Dig the Web

Jesse · 03/23/06 03:45PM

• Pew study says young people get their news mostly online. You don't say. [USAT]
• Finally, your chance to be a Times White House reporter. [Media Mob/NYO]
• That British fashion writer who sold How to Wear Black to S&S if apparently even more full of shit than we already knew; also, Joanne Lipman continues staffing up the TK-eventually Conde business mag. [WWD]
Boston Globe ad sales stink, and it's bringing down the whole Times Co. [NYP]

Media Bubble: Lights, Camera, Ellies!

Jesse · 03/22/06 01:12PM

• Plan to sex up National Magazine Awards event includes performance by Wynton Marsalis, an award presentation by Anderson Cooper, and maybe — if we're really lucky — an award presentation by Heidi Klum. And for the big finish, ASME president Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor, will join Time's Jim Kelly for a choreographed performance of Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better. [NYP]
Rolling Stone reality show moving along nicely and set to start taping in July. But there's bad news, too: "[C]ast members will be selected based largely on merit as opposed to, say, sex appeal and a penchant for sociopathic behavior," which sounds no fun at all. [WWD]
Times reporters continue to write books, continue to be confused — to the union's chagrin — about the rules under which they are or are not allowed to write them. [NYO]
• Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, and Tom Cruise moved the most mags in 2005. [MIN]
• Time Inc. reaches $4.5M settlement in subscription-renewal investigation. Now if they'd just do something about those fucking subscription-renewal cards. [Reuters]

Media Bubble: Sudan, Fun for the Whole Family!

Jesse · 03/21/06 01:30PM

Times happily runs advertising section from Sudan, whose leaders — as Times columnist Nick Kristof likes to point out — are encouraging genocide. [NYDN]
• Lewis Lapham, as he steps down from Harper's editorship, will keep working. And keep smoking. [WP]
One Park, a reality show about life at AMI, moves closer to happening. Except that the lawyers are against it, chief David Pecker is against it, and the company doesn't have the rights to the name "One Park." But, you know, otherwise things are good. [WWD]
CJR disses Marketwatch media writer Jon Friedman. Hard. [CJR Daily]

Media Bubble: Watching O'Reilly

Jesse · 03/20/06 12:39PM

• Nick Lemann has 5,000 words on Bill O'Reilly. Which we'll get around to reading soon. [NYer]
• David Carr thinks VF, underneath all its bullshit, is actually a pretty good mag. [NYT]
• And Jon Friedman thinks that all the other magazine editors are ganging up on poor David Remnick. [MW]
• We always thought Bill Beutel was kind of a little crazy, but that's probably because we only really watched him in his later years. He helped invent Eyewitness News, and he died Saturday. [NYT]
• Bloggers "are the new media darlings," and — shockingly — many hope to get paid gigs with traditional media. [Newsday]
• More breaking insights: An attractive grad student who is raped and murdered makes for great tabloid fodder. [Baltimore Sun]
• No Hachette mags were among the Ellie finalists. Again. [WWD]

Media Bubble: Oh, We're So Sorry, Judy

Jesse · 03/17/06 12:17PM

• Judy Miller finally figured out why her Times career went to hell: It was the bloggers' fault. Of course it was. [Slate]
• Six weeks later, ABC anchor Bob Woodruff is released from the hospital to continue his rehabilitation elsewhere. [ABCNews]
• And 18 months later, NYT researcher Zhao Yan is released from prison after the Chinese government withdraws state-secrets charges. [NYT]
• Jon Friedman's doesn't love Mike Wallace. [MW]
• Coming soon: Isaac Mizrahi: The Magazine? [WWD (second item)]

Media Bubble: It's Judy Miller Time Again

Jesse · 03/16/06 01:39PM

• More subpoenas for the Times and Judy Miller, this time from Scooter Libby. Fun! [NYT]
Times reporters win $25k Harvard prize for domestic-spying story. But, of course, the Bushies already knew that. [E&P]
• Newspapers are not, in fact, dying. Apparently it only seems that way. [WSJ]
• Advertisers hate men. [Medialife]

Media Bubble: Charlie Gibson for 'WNT' Anchor

Jesse · 03/15/06 01:01PM

• Today's speculation on the next World News Tonight anchor: Charlie Gibson. Because Diane wants him to. [NYO]
• That Times Mag Mark-Warner-Looks-Nothing-Like-His-Photo correction? It's all thanks to the Observer. [NYO]
• Howell Raines' latest memoir TK on May 9. In case 20,000 words in The Atlantic wasn't enough for you. [E&P]
• Kent Brownridge is gone from Wenner Media. Again. For real. We think. [NYP]
• And Jann startes hunting for a new Kent. Mary Berner, maybe? [WWD]
• The Times thinks Hillary's running for president, too: She'll now be covered through the Washburo instead of the Metro desk. [NYO]

Media Bubble: Everyone Wants to Be a Torture Victim!

Jesse · 03/14/06 12:45PM

• That Times front-pager on Saturday about the Iraqi prisoner who was photographed robed, hooded, wired up, and quasi-crucified at Abu Ghraib? Yeah, well, they maybe didn't get the right guy. [Salon]
• One bit of good news on Cooper Square? Voice art critic is said to be a Pulitzer finalist. [Arts Journal]
Times announces it will stop publishing daily stock listings; a five senior-citizen amateur investors give a shit. [NYT]
• Al-Jazeera can't get U.S. distribution for its new English-language channel. Imagine that. [NYS]

Media Bubble: Potential Pulitzers?

Jesse · 03/10/06 02:00PM

• Can't wait for the Pulitzers announcement to find out the finalists? (See, officially they don't announce the finalists till they announce the winners.) Good thing E&P has its annual samizdat list. [E&P]
• Recently unemployed Absolute editor Andrew Essex is even more recently un-unemployed, sliding into a consulting gig at Rodale for Men's Health and Best Life. Prominent chins, we understand, are the new rich. [WWD]
• Are the good guys winning in the Knight Ridder auction? Wow. [NYT]
• Things at Newsday aren't even worse than you thought, if you bother to pay attention to such things. [NYP]
• Bill Powers wants anchor elections: America's Next Top Anchor? [National Journal]

Media Bubble: Si Newhouse Loves All His Children Equally

Jesse · 03/08/06 12:42PM

• As Fairchild is integrated into Conde Nast, portraits of the Fairchilds go, a fancy cafeteria arrives, and garlic is banned. [NYO]
Absolute mag might live again, that to Realtor William B. May. At the very least, the already-completed next issue will be distributed. Oh, and that trademark thing the Post was all worried about last week? Not a big deal, May says. [NYP (second item)]
• ABC's Bob Woodruff still has a face for TV, his brother reports. The talking for TV? Less so. [NYDN]
• Judy Miller admits she was wrong! OK, the other Judy Miller, and about moving to New York. [Romenesko]
• Maer Roshan delays your plane. [Media Mob/NYO]

Media Bubble: And If You Think You Understand His Book, He Miswrote

Jesse · 03/07/06 02:42PM

• Penguin wins auction for Alan Greenspan memoir with an offer believed to be nearly $9 million. Obligatory question: Irrationally exuberant? [NYP]
• The dude behind the allegedly forthcoming mags Everything for Men and Everything for Women is a con artist and a felon. Unlike most mag people, who are merely con artists. [WWD]
• Arthur S. holds his State of the Times meeting; reporters question why he gets paid so much and they so little. [Media Mob/NYO]
• ABC's Bob Woodruff reportedly now conscious and talking, though heavily medicated. [ABCNews.com]
• Air America could lose its New York affiliate on April 1. We'd be bummed, if we ever listened to it. [NYP]
• The Jew and the gays brought Oscar his second-worst ratings since 1987. [WP]
• Does Diane Sawyer want to anchor World News Tonight? One gossip site says so. [TMZ]
• Candace Bushnell to launch weekly Sirius Satellite Radio show giving advice to women. First piece of advice we'd like her fans to hear: "They're just cupcakes. Stop waiting on a line around the corner for them." [NYDN]
• Will Nick Sylvester be a Stephen Glass, a Mike Barnicle, or a Janet Cooke? [Media Mob/NYO]

Media Bubble: Up With 'People'

Leitch · 03/06/06 02:00PM

People magazine shoots to number one on AdWeek's hot list, proving that the fat-beach-mommy demographic is lucrative as ever. [NYP]
Slate tries to figure out why American Media titles are doing so poorly and discovers, surprisingly, it's not all Bonnie Fuller's fault. Kind of. [Slate]
• After a record-breaking follow-up issue, Men's Vogue may prove that metroxsexual magazines do work in the Midwest. [WWD]
• New York City ad industry probe shows that executives are doing a horrible job at hiring minorities. The Wassupp!!! guys set the bar way too high, apparently. [AdAge]

Media Bubble: Blogs Either Are or Are Not Dying

Jesse · 03/03/06 01:45PM

• Bill Powers says blogs are not, recent hype notwithstanding, dying. But you knew that. [National Journal]
• Old men make good anchors, says Mark Jurkowitz. [Public Eye]
• Because there aren't enough glossy style mags for rich people, the Wall Street Journal Europe is set to launch one targeted at rich men between 30 and 55. Style Journal launches in Europe next month, in the Asian edition in the fall, and could be coming to the United States, too. Thank God. [WWD (last item)}
• Speaking of mags for rich people, Keith Kelly thinks a trademark threat from Absolut vodka helped shutter Absolute mag, even though courts kept siding with the mag's publisher. [NYP]