· Does the New York Times heart developer Bruce Ratner way too much? [Counterpunch]
· Sixth Harry Potter book title revealed: literary world girds itself for another Rowling smackdown. [CNN]
· Carolyn Phillips, former assistant managing editor of the WSJ, to file racial discrimination lawsuit. [Africana]
· Newsday ditches 46 employees. They still have employees? [NYP]
We hear that Vegas-loving thick-necked porn-king and men's mag entrepreneur Richard Botto isn't wasting any time doing a search for a new editor for his deeply un-gay men's mag Razor. Botto fired reportedly trouble-making editor Craig Knight last week, and the word is that Botto will announce himself as both publisher and editor later this week. Our informant says the staff is thrilled — but for all I know my informant is Richard Botto himself with a Hotmail account, working a preemptive strike. [UPDATE: Or simultaneous strike. Press released issued earlier than we'd heard.] We get a vibe on that scenario quite strongly — the giant Lizard God of Planet Razor forcing ballgags on the mag's staff and stealing their identities. Or maybe that's just our fantasy.
· Us Weekly editor Janice Min: riding the good buzz and the J.Lo wedding pics into a shiny, rosy future. Also: it's easy when you're not tabloid queen Bonnie Fuller. [PR Week]
· Former CNN VP Bonnie Anderson, author of anti-infotainment screed "News Flash," claims that CNN is demanding she reveal sources and give access to her hard drive. [Lost Remote]
· Bad ads: men really shouldn't go down on that hot dog in front of the children. [Slate]
· Now Manhattan can get whores to order, right down to the shoe size, the cup size, or the language skill set.
· The media clusterfuck thickens: story on deposed Page Sixer Ian Spiegelman reportedly assigned to profile queen Vanessa Grigoriadis at New York mag.
· According to Done Deals, New York mag's pretty boy David Amsden has sold film rights on "The Siege of Fulton Avenue" to Dreamworks. It's about cops who bust a party in Westchester and the kids clean up the house and nothing happens. Sort of "Panic Room" meets "Go" meets "I'm not going to see it"?
· The Washington Post prints the "f-word" (that's "fuck" for the slow folks) for the second time ever. Every other paper chokes under the pressure.
Sure, one way to look at the recent movements of LAT writers (film critic Manohla Dargis, music business beat reporter Jeffrey Leeds, and architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff) to the NY Times is that the New Yorkers stormed the LA newsroom and took exactly what they wanted, igniting a "full-on war." Another way is that the LAT, crazed with bloodlust from its Pulitzer victories and looking to finally finish off its East Coast rival, is sending its operatives deep inside the Gray Lady to take the old bitch down from the inside.
According to Michael Wolfe, associate publisher of GQ, the other Michael Wolff, over at Vanity Fair, gets a lot of interesting (and misplaced) phone calls:
California's insecurity complex continues to show its ugly self-hating face. Amid Pulitzers (and a complex structure of layoffs to be followed by hirings), a stream of key LA Times staff have hopped Jet Blue to JFK, simply for the joy of nuzzling at the much-gnawed teat of the NY Times.
All these years, we thought they were the dullard cousins of real music magazines — but Billboard may actually be a veritable Plato's Retreat of whoring, harassment, and philandery, according to a $29-million lawsuit filed today by two former top editors:
· Kevin Kline gives advice to cub gossip reporters at De-Lovely premiere: ""Don t be cunts. Be nice." Wife Phoebe Cates backs him up: "'I m sorry,' she mouthed over the flash of cameras, 'but it s true.'" [NYO (3rd item)]
· Former 'Access Hollywood' anchor Pat O'Brien disses former co-worker Shaun Robinson in massive email: "it must be sad for you to realize that you are literally hated by most." [NYP]
· Bleecker street club Nocturne closes down, blaming zealous Bloombergian ticketing. [NYP]
· Why did J.Lo back out of carrying the Olympic Torch? No one would pony up the 60K her fifteen minutes of work would cost. [NYDN]
· Tommy Lee: off the wagon, and face-down on the town. [NYP]
· Michael Musto's theory on Britney's knee injury: TV's "Moesha" got all Tonya Harding on Britney over their current common boyfriend. [V.V.]
· CableNewser leaks MSNBC's daytime revamp plans, offers hollow apology, and refers to "the buzz in Secaucus." For the record, there is not now nor has there ever been "buzz" in or near Secaucus. Still, we love a good leak, as it were.
· Slate's Jack Shafer mocks Michael Moore's readiness to sue Fahrenheit 9/11 detractors; Christopher Hitchens detracts away, calling it "A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation." Yay! Lawsuit!
· The LA Times begins massive layoffs. Guess those five Pulitzers don't pay the bills.
Since we refuse to pay for it and they refuse to send it for free, we didn't get a copy of the subscriber-only nudie-model cover of New York mag. (Two covers were done for this week's issue: on the stands is a photo of Ethan Hawke. We imagine this evolved into two covers after Ethan Hawke backed out of plans to do the cover nude himself. So we'd like to think.) Anyway: we'll never know if we would have been shocked or thrilled about being subjected to a disturbingly pube-less supermodel in our mailbox. We probably would have figured it was just a reminder to get our asses waxed for thong season and gotten on with throwing away the bills.
New York Splits Over Sexy Cover [NYP]
Ethan Hawke's Next Act [NY Mag]
The Daily's Daily Spy reports that Vanity Fair contributing editor Steve Garbarino is heading to LA to work on a pilot for HBO, Freak Beat, which the Spy says is poised to fill the Sex and the City void. As far as we know, this has nothing to do with VF editor Graydon Carter, unless he somehow finds a way to "profit" from Garbarino's "relationship with Hollywood." Maybe Garbarino will FedEx Carter a bag of oranges, and the LAT can do a breathless, three-part series on Carter's "Bicoastal Citrus Consultant" fee.
We missed something the other day: LA Weekly's Nikki Finke ranked on Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter pretty seriously this week, particularly about how Graydon is using six VF researchers to help write his book. (What do I care? I've got three Gawker interns organizing my shoe closet as we speak.) An eagle-eyed Conde Nastie, who says...
We'll have our own analysis of editor-hotosity later today, but meanwhile, Mediabistro's terrifyingly shallow poll results have been revealed. Evidently Harper's in-house email from the PR office for local crazy-man Lewis Lapham was unsuccessful (don't lie, kids, we saw the email), as Men's Health's David Zinczenko pounded Lewis and the other straight men. A shocking upset in the gay men's department: big daddy Jann Wenner smacks up Cargo-boytoy Ariel Foxman like they were in a 70s bondage video. And, unshockingly, Spin's blonde bombshell Sia Michel strafes the competition.
Hot-or-Not: The Results [Mediabistro]
Sometimes over-the-top, ham-handed spin can call into question everything we hold dear about tabloid newspapers. In an outrageous example, yesterday's New York Post item on the upcoming International Federation of Competitive Eating hot-dog-eating contest, with reporting by the NYP's Gersh Kuntzman, somehow neglects to mention that Kuntzman is the "recording secretary" of the Federation. The horror! The betrayal! (Oh, by the way, there were supposed to be 10 planes hijacked on 9/11, and Iraq and Al Qaeda have no credible connection, but do consult your local tabloids if you'd like to learn that Bill Clinton got a blowjob from an intern in 1997.)
We hear that the competition for Mediabistro's Hot or Not votes is getting out of control. We hear that a New York mag employee got busted for double-voting. Furthermore, we even hear that the otherwise staid offices of Jann Wenner are working some serious vote-getting action, and, at other magazines, PR spokespeople are sending around voting instructions. We also hear that Heather and Heather are going to a kegger later tonight!!!
Howard Stern said on this morning's show that he ran into Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove at a party the other night — and evidently things didn't go so well. According to Stern Show News, Grove was lurking behind Howard, eavesdropping:
