media

Peggy Noonan, Teaching at Harvard: “You Have To Let Your Freak Flag Fly.”

Foster Kamer · 10/10/09 11:00AM

Three-steps-from-crazy-cat-lady WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan is teaching at Harvard. Our spies report: "Peggy's a ridiculous, hilarious person to speaking with any authority on anything at all." They've provided us with her awesome quotes. We're presenting them emoticon-contextualized them for you.

Comcast's Plans For NBC; Blagojevich's New Gig

cityfile · 10/09/09 03:24PM

• Comcast is "leaning toward" keeping Jeff Zucker as NBC Universal's CEO if it goes ahead with a deal to buy take control of the company. [Bloomberg]
• The Fine Living Network will be rebranded as the Cooking Channel—and positioned as a Food Network competitor—in the second half of 2010. [AdAge]
• Some laid-off staffers at Condé Nast are furious about the severance they've received; chances are ex-Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl isn't one of them. [NYP]
• Does NBC's decision to cancel Southland "signal an abandonment of a decades-long commitment to drama"? Some seem to think so. Meanwhile, the show's producers are looking for a new home for the cop drama. [NPR, LAT]
• Let the hair battle begin: Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich may be a contestant on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice next season. [CT]

Gourmet Had to Die So Your Love Life Could Improve

cityfile · 10/09/09 01:36PM

Condé Nast has been busy slashing staff all this week. (It's rumored the cuts continued today at Glamour, and some suspect that other publishing companies like Time Inc. are now gearing up to follow suit.) Clearly, though, it's all part of Condé's master plan to move out of unprofitable businesses like magazines and expand into markets that do make money. Like online dating. Yes, because meeting that special someone on the Internet is like "your winter Ugg boot obsession: totally understandable and great in the comfort of your own home, but not something you would brag about at a chic cocktail party," Condé Nast has introduced TrulyMadlyDating.com in order to "unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven." Yes, we did quickly check a calendar. And, no, today is not April 1st. [Vogue UK via Fashionista]

The Federal Trade Commission's Coming War on Bloggers

John Cook · 10/09/09 12:18PM

The FTC is planning public hearings aimed at figuring out how to prop up dying newspapers. On the agenda: tax breaks for news organizations, changing copyright law, and "greater public funding of public affairs news." This is very, very bad.

A Sulzberger Defends His Own

cityfile · 10/09/09 11:50AM

An relatively unnoticed supporting player at the trial of Anthony Marshall was A.G. Sulzberger, the great-grandson of Metropolitan Museum trustee and New York Times chairman Arthur Hays Sulzberger, grandson of Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, the longtime chairman of both the Times and the museum, and son of Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger, Jr., who now runs the paper.

More Condé Fallout; The Project Runway Videogame

cityfile · 10/08/09 04:01PM

• It's been two days since Condé Nast announced plans to shut down four of its magazines, but the bad news continues to trickle in. According to some number-crunching by Newsweek, the magazine giant could see ad revenue drop by $1 billion in 2009; rumor has it additional layoffs went down today; and the decision to shutter Gourmet is still generating controversy.
• CBS execs must be breathing a sigh of relief. Despite the insane media attention focused on David Letterman's sex scandal over the past week, Late Show advertisers appear to be sticking by him. [NYT]
• TV news: NBC has canceled the cop drama Southland. And ABC is picking up three show for the full season: Modern Family, Cougar Town, and The Middle.
• A Project Runway videogame is coming to the Wii next spring. [Variety]

Rumor: Conde Layoffs in Chicago Today

Hamilton Nolan · 10/08/09 01:22PM

In your thrashed Thursday media column: More Conde layoff rumors, Martha Stewart's evil company gets sued, media hair racism persists, and Choire Sicha declaims on the current technomedia foofaraw.