· Martha-Stewart-hating New York Post columnist and full-time harridan Andrea Peyser was reportedly quite unhappy with today's profile in New York magazine — even before its publication. The remarkably unflattering picture really must have pushed her over the edge. [Phoebe Eaton]
· Unlikely unionists: the nerd patrol at the WSJ out on strike. [Carl Swanson]
· Metro's free tabloid launch date set: May 5th. Prepare your birdcages. [Jon Fine]
· Greg Gutfeld, editor of American Stuff, swims against the tide to take over British Maxim. [David Carr]
· David Pecker, hungry hungry hippo and tabloid king, wants to buy a media company — seemingly, any will do. [David Carr]

It's nice that we've all given up on the false idea of objectivity, but the new trend in news media is overt bias. First came the unlistenable Air America, the chat-chat radio show for liberals and the people who love them. Now the Raw Story has launched, supposedly as a "liberal Drudge alternative." Best of all, the NRA is starting their own news company. At least that'll be hilarious. Soon enough there'll be a media outlet devoted to news solely from the left-wing microbial residents of my colon.
Air America
The Raw Story
Nation's gun lobby creating news company [Salon]

· Update on the 3 forthcoming shopping mags: they will sell things and be popular, claim "critics." Whoo, doggie, slow news day. [Dillon/Colford]
· The Face, the 24-year-old fashion/culture mag that shut down last month, may get recapitalized and relaunched. [Samantha Conti]
· Today is the two year anniversary of the New York Sun. We keep hearing about this newspaper — evidently it has articles and pictures. It also has a series of infuriating but kind of addictive columns by Karen Schwartz about life in Brooklyn — sort of like Sex and the City! Except minus the sex. And the city. [Karen Schwartz]

Fairchild Publications is battening down the hatches for tomorrow at noon: tens of thousands — no wait, hundreds of thousands — of torch-wielding enraged Asians (but not the gays, they're preoccupied with other things) are turning out to protest the recent Details Gay or Asian feature. As always, we can only hope for bloodshed in the streets.

After endless weeks of hemming and hawing and interviewing (and reportedly more than a few offers), Mediabistro says that Women's Wear Daily has finally filled the media reporter position that, evidently, no one wanted. (WWD lost their ambiguously metrosexual duo of Greg Lindsay (now "freelance") and Jacob Bernstein (now "New York mag") almost simultaneously.) Their new hire, Folio's tender young Jeff Bercovici, certainly doesn't look like a sleazy bastard media reporter; perhaps we've entered a new age, where sweet-seeming fresh-faced Boy Scouts like Bercovici and the NYO's Tom Scocca ply their trade gossip without fundamental destruction to their visage. Or, perhaps they'll both be wrinkled cigar-chomping old men come Labor Day. To them, we recommend an expensive moisturizer and perhaps an ankle-holstered stun gun.

Judith Newman, author of recent hit pieces on Bonnie Fuller and Rosie O'Donnell, gives some wisdom and experience on conducting a good interview. (Hint: don't insult them on the first question. Wow, we never thought of that!)

We've heard many rumors of an upcoming war, and now it begins: Daily News gossip-fumbler Lloyd Grove attempts today to give a thrashing to the fun-loving terror cult that is Page Six. Violence! Violence!

· Jerry Oppenheimer's super-invasive tell-all (or tell-some) on Vogue editor Anna Wintour is starting to make the rounds, and it's reputed to be nasty. So far, not much is leaked, just stories about Anna (metaphorically) pushing Grace Mirabella down the stairs and dating young hoodlums. (Like that makes her any different from the rest of us.) [Page Six]
· Canadian reporter plagiarizes from the Village Voice. You know, if you're going to steal, there are better papers out there. [Don Sellar]
· That liberal radio network bounces its first check and immediately goes off the air in LA and Chicago. They probably spent those hundreds of thousands of dollars helping the poor and needy instead of paying their bills. Awww. [Jacques Steinberg]

· Bonnie Fuller is ruining the Star... by making it too classy! Uh, yeah, that's what we thought about those mega-chunky Kirstie Alley photos too. [Katie Haegele]
· Two hirings at New York mag: Adam Moss's army of darkness marches across the land, stealing designers and necromancers. [Lisa Lockwood]
· Hot news: public cynical about the media. See also: public cynical about politcs, public cynical about public. [Mark Jurkowitz]

William Wackermann, the VP and publisher of Details is reportedly ditching that oh-so-manly ship for a return to the Conde Nast empire. Supposedly he's going to Glamour, a far more macho magazine.
Backgrounder: Rounding Up the Metrosexuals [Ad Age, 9/29/03]
[UPDATE: Confirmation via Press Release after the jump]

Yesterday, we quoted LA.com, which claimed that Hollywood correspondent Anne Thompson had gotten canned from New York magazine a few months back. Not so, says Ms. Thompson: "I'm still on the masthead; call my editor Jeremy Gerard to find out my current status at the magazine," she writes from her Beverly Hills-adjacent home. Our apologies to Ms. Thompson — that's the first and last time we believe gossip coming out of Hell-A. (Of course, it's a popular claim: "I'm still on the masthead at New York magazine" is one the top three statements heard over Cobb salads these days. The other two: "I'm still confused regarding exactly who Stefano Tonchi fucked to get the style editor job at the NYT magazine" and "God, how did Gawker get so shitty so fast? What happened to that funny smart girl who used to run it?")

News of New York, filtered through the LA lens from our friends at LA.com:

· Stupid Clear Channel, those champions of the First Amendment, dumped Howard Stern from their stations yesterday, claiming he's a liability. [John Mainelli and more background at Jeff Jarvis]
· Everyone hearts NYT ombudsman Dan Okrent. [William Powers]
· NYT photo freelancers continue to fight the power over shitty work-for-hire contracts — so far, the NYT has conceded to give the first raise to metro photo assignments since the 80s. Ooh, big bucks. [Jay DeFoore]

The great job-shuffle continues: Jared Paul Stern, former Page Sixer, is said to be giving up his big-money gossip job at the Star. (Squabbles with Joe Dolce?) Meanwhile, Deborah Needleman has been named editor-in-chief for the forthcoming Conde Nast interiors/shopping magazine. We hope that brings Ms. Needleman much spiritual satisfaction.
Which Major Staffer Is Bonnie Losing Now? [Fashion Week Daily]

Rumors are circulating that the NYT has finally settled on a permanent restaurant critic. We're betting dollars to donuts that it's not Amanda Hesser.

· After nearly a dozen years of party-crashing for the NYO, Frank DiGiacomo falls for the allure of Graydon Carter's hypomania and big expense accounts. (As The Kicker put it, "Observer Staffers Dissatisfied: Little Gold Foil Stars No Longer Considered Adequate Compensation Package.") [Keith Kelly (last item)]
· No Pulitzer for feature-writing was awarded because none of the entries received a majority of votes. (None of the 17 voting board members would go so far as to say that the three nominated pieces sucked.) [Liz Halloran]
· The Pulitzers are over-rated and over-played, everyone should be wracked with shame for this grotesque display of self-congratulation and navel-gazing, blah blah blah. [Jack Shafer]

Two years ago, Jill Sieracki sent out an anonymous email bitching about office conditions and the general nastiness of editors at Hearst. It got around, and it also got her so fired — she sent the complaint from her official monitored Hearst email.

· Radar "publisher" (and un-titled lady) Maer Roshan withdrew his name from a super-cheesy Harper's Bazaar profile of actual titled lady Tina Brown. Roshan wisely chose a byline of an uber-WASPy alter ego, "Abigail Hughes." [Deborah Schoeneman (5th item)] [See also: Lloyd Grove]
· In other, non-heroin-suicide anniversaries, this week marks the thirtieth birthday of People magazine. [Rory O'Connor]
· Will Air America be nasty enough to keep listeners? Someone better slip Garofalo some meth if the iPod nation is expected to hoof it to Radio Shack to tune in. [ Robert Kolker]

· In the rush to sell hair products and tampons, chick magazines neglect financial and investing topics in both editorial and advertising. Are women stupid and afraid of finance? No, but their magazines are. [Lauren Barack]
· Victoria Gotti still causing drama over her "exclusive interview" (it was neither) with J.Lo for Star. [Keith Kelly]
· As reported here yesterday, Michael Goodwin got booted from his cushy spot near the top of the Daily News. Watch the New York Post gleefully twist the knife in The Other Tabloid. [Keith Kelly]

Sharon Stone famously said that you can only fuck your way to the middle. Fortunately, Peggy Northrop doesn't have that problem.