...the only way he knows how.

Last night at the Waldorf-Astoria, Dan Rather picked up "broadcast journalism's most prestigious honor," a Peabody. Jon Stewart also picked up "broadcast journalism's most prestigious honor," a Peabody. Dan won for Abu Ghraib reporting; Jon for "Indecision 2004." (Meanwhile, the entire cast of Sesame Street was honored for their in-depth expose of Oscar the Grouch's heroin habit.)

The New Yorker s always enterprising Ben McGrath made the harrowing, God-awful trek to Queens last week to visit Flux Factory, an alleged artist s collective. He appears to have survived the ordeal to the living installation called NOVEL without vomiting once.* (New Yorker writers have a higher tolerance for pretentiousness than us, naturally.) He even observed a little live blogging(!) from writer/resident blogger Laurie Stone:

Sing it with us: Some people wait a lifetime / For a headline like this...

Here
s a meta-mind trip for you: Bret Easton Ellis, author of the celebrity-obsessed tomes Glamorama and American Psycho, is now the subject of a novel himself. Pop your Xanax, people. The plot: a young writer crazily obsesses about celebrity novelist Bret Easton Ellis. Woah. The book
tentatively titled Vernon Downs
hasn
t been published, nor is there a book deal. However, a copy "accidentally" popped up in PDF form on Bret
s Yahoo fansite. And the author, Jamie Clarke, is apparently giving interviews:

Rolling Stone editor and publisher Jann Wenner announced yesterday that Will Dana, who's handled much of the magazine's national and political coverage, has been promoted to managing editor. Dana's been with the magazine since 1996 and, since then, he's ascended through the ranks, most recently as deputy managing editor, ensuring that Fuel and Incubus receive ample monthly coverage.

Click to enlarge.
So this is how the Times wants to compete with the Wall Street Journal? Jayson Blair would be proud.

Anderson Cooper is selling his $2.2 million West 38th St. apartment with a "view of the Empire State Building, stereophonic surround sound and designer lighting" that completes "a picture of perfection." (Not so perfect, apparently.) But now that the dapper Coop is homeless, where should he go next? That's actually not a rhetorical question. Suggestions? Send us your listings—keeping in mind, uh, lifestyle choices and, uh, budget—to tips@gawker.com. The winner gets a 12 percent fee. -KEW

· NBC's Jeff Zucker surprised that Joey had "disappointing" story telling. We are no longer surprised that NBC is slipping in the ratings. [NYT]
· Watch your wallets, hold onto your souls. Thousands of advertisers descend on NYC this week to find the next...Joey. [LA Times via I Want Media]
· Oh, those silly mainstream publications! Newsweek fucks up and 17 Muslims die; Bush Administration pretends to care about dead Muslims. [Reuters]

Everyone, gather 'round, because we're gonna break it down for a second. See, we ve had Radar in our hands for close to a week now — but honestly, we're just writing about the actual product now. The truth is (and prepare yourselves for a soft moment here), we didn t necessarily trust ourselves. After all, we ve only been writing about the damn thing for 73 years now, so how could Gawker possibly be objective? Obviously, this is our own stupid fault - we know most readers certainly didn t request the incessantly retarded, round-the-clock coverage of every twitch around the Radar office. We ve no one to blame but ourselves.

RADAR DANGER ALERT! We're sensing an impending disaster with Radar Online's "15 Minutes" feature. (The idea: Jill/Joe Whoeverthefuck signs up to get his/her picture on the Website for 15 minutes. Looks like a Nerve personal, but with less chance to get laid.) But will Maer&Co. be able to keep the spot filled? By our calculations, they'll need 96 faces a day. Or 480 participants a week. Which makes for 24,960 a year! Woah. That's likely more ambitious than their newstand sales number. Then again, if you're only around for two more months...* -KEW

*They need 3,840 more people.

Last week, we gave Intern Alexis a week's vacation from the Times Book Review; she spent last Sunday and Monday as a civilian, enjoying her days simply as Alexis and nothing more. Always a glutton for punishment, however, Alexis returned to us "ready to work." But, finding it far more difficult to get back into the swing of things than she had anticipated, our little Lexi could only write with the stream of her consciousness. We dare you to follow. After the jump, we insert the paragraph breaks while Intern Alexis does her best James Joyce.

The Times is boldy greeting the 20th/21st century with "a bold, thoughtful and innovative" scheme that involves charging readers $50 a year to get "exclusive access to Times Op-Ed columnists." This so-called TimeSelect project is set to be launched in September 2005. (Print subscribers—if there are any left by that time—will get the service for free.) We're thrilled, really.

Anyone who checks the Drudge Report on Sunday night knows Matt Drudge has a radio show. (And no, it s not the FM version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.) Being that we have a totally obvious crush on Drudge and seeing that Henry the Intern will soon have his Sunday nights free we had K. Eric check out last night's broadcast. What did he hear? Plenty of dance tracks and concern over a super gay solar storm. (Kidding, kind of.) After the jump, his report on all this magic plus Drudge's blog hatred.

Exhale. All better now.

If one of your major competitors were preparing to launch a new weekend section, how would you respond? By launching a pre-emptive redesign, of course! (Redesigns are so fucking hot right now.) To wit, the Times debuts a "new and expanded" Business Day. (OMG, does that mean more Kurt Eichenwald? Our breath is beyond bated.) The motherlode comes this Saturday, with "a column by prize-winning finacial journalist Joseph Nocera and new features on personal business, including a Q&A with an executive in the news; an investing column; alternating columns...blahblahblah." Who cares? If it's only half as gay as the new Thursday Style section, we're sold. -KEW

As public service to those of you desperate for some Monday morning comedy, we'd like to post a quick follow-up to our (heartbreaking) scoop regarding the existential trauma over at the New York Sun. As reported by the Post, an internal memo listing the names and salaries of expendable employees fell into Gawker's hands as follows:

Our friends over at Slate jumped on the Huffington Post parody bandwagon a little late. (Timothy Noah posted his mock-up Friday afternoon, while this site and that site got their mockery on earlier in the week.) No worries. Slate lives up to their advertisers' expectations by giving us a brand-name-value, added-edgy-ironic-meta-media big-think-joke on Blogging and the Cult of Celebrity in the 20th Century. The punchline: What if Arianna let Charles Manson blog? (Hell, Greg Gutfield is still around.) Get it? Charles Manson! What would be funnier than a celebrity/murderer/blogger blogging with celebrities? Nothing we can think of, really. We laughed so hard blood shot from our mouths and spelled HELTER SKELTER on the wall. Hah. So funny. -KEW

Yesterday's Times contained what is arguably the best correction we've seen since Judith Miller didn't find any WMDs under her bed. Regarding David Carr's profile of director Don Roos:

It's taken us a full 72-hours to grasp the true meaning of Rita Cosby's flight to MSNBC. Does it mean that Fox News is slipping? Probably not, so keep your Godless-liberal hopes in check. Does it mean Rick Kaplan actually has a plan to make the network not suck? Unlikely, since Joe Scarborough still has a show. Are the folks in Seacaucus just looking to find an office romance for Tucker Carlson? Nope, the dork is happily married. So what does it mean?