The Sterns, as in Howard and Jared (no relation) both discuss blogging this week and come to the conclusion that most bloggers are losers. Says Jared: "most blogs seem to be written by self-absorbed, gibbering baboons who obviously never leave the confines of their Dumbo studios." Howard reportedly said something along the lines of "blogs are websites where people tell you what happens in their lives" and he "complained that the writing on most of them is not good because it's not professional." Then they both said they read Gawker, so I'm not too upset. (I'm a blogger, so by definition, it's all about me.) I would, however, like to point out that the media industry is no better than the blog world in terms of self-absorption and navel-gazing. In case no one noticed, Al-Qaeda's been blowing things up with increasing regularity as of late, and yet, the biggest story in the media world right now is a 27-year-old New Yorker with a coke problem. Is Gawker contributing to this phenomenon? Yes, we are! And why? Because we're assuming that at some point the ridiculousness will get so ridiculous that it'll have ridiculous growing out of its ridiculous and any attempts at satirizing the media will be entirely superfluous. One dayone day!there will be no need for Gawker anymore. We're getting closer every day.
Alas, the geeks shall inherit the earth [NY Post]
Attention Howard Stern fans [Buzzmachine]

Jayson Blair has started a blog. Actually, let me rephrase that: "Jayson Blair" (*cough*) has started a blog. A sample entry: "Hey, good news! If my book deal falls through, I've got other prospects. A few months back, I flew down to South Florida to do a story about these guys, and believe it or not, their executive offices overlook tobacco fields. I know I'm not supposed to reveal my sources, but this guy was one of the five anonymous officials cited in my DC sniper story. Okay, so he was all five of my sources. My notes got mixed up with all my travel receipts. Who knew that Latana, Fla., doesn't have a Dean & DeLuca?" [Ed.Someone sent me a picture of Jayson Blair in a trucker hat. Now, where did I put it?]
From the fertile mind of Jayson

Jonathan Van Gieson writes of this morning's mention in Tina Brown's Times column: "After reading her mention of me in the Times Online UK, I wonderedas I'm sure you didwho is this Tina Brown person? A minimal amount of research reveals her website, TinaBrown.net. Tina, it seems, is a 25-year-old cellist/web designer who lives in Burbank, CA. She notes: 'My main focus these days is getting a job. I have worked hard getting here and I am trying to find a good place to start and enter the entertainment industry.'"
Tina Brown revealed [JVG]

Tina Brown, in the middle of a diatribe about treachery (citing the usual suspects: Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Lauren Weisberger, et. al) mentions none other than "famous" blogger Jonathan Van Gieson: "Perhaps the amping up of the vogue for treachery is the internet's fault. It makes everyone the star of their own media soap opera. In a piece in last Sunday's New York Times about the rash of 'bloggers' who pour uncensored play-by-plays of their private lives on to the web, one of them, a Brooklyn theatrical producer named Jonathan Van Gieson, pleasantly comments that he now gives his friends pseudonyms in his weblogs to 'toe the line between simple harmless betrayal of trust and nasty actionable libel.' (As in, 'let's get together tonight for a simple harmless betrayal of trust'.)" Disappointingly, I can't tell if she understood that it was a joke. I guess irony is harder to spot in the pages of the NYT.
The problem with being nice [Times2]

A reader submits the following re: NY Press editor and (former expat in Prague), Jeff Koyen:
Titles of Unwritten Essays Jotted Down While Living In Prague in the 90s:
· Older American Dudes and Their Younger Czech Babes
· American Education: An Oxymoronic Phrase
· I Stop Drinking Twice, or, Why Does Seltzer Cost More Than Beer Here?
· I Am Almost Thirty!
Unwritten essays [McSweeneys]

The best part of the Observer's interview with Jayson Blair is that he suggests that maybe this whole thing will make NYT editor Howell Raines "more mature." (The "Howell Raines is just being a big baby" explanation.) No, wait. That's not the best part; the best part is where he says that the "journalist Jayson Blair" had to die so Jayson Blair could live. (The "I sacrificed myself to save...myself" explanation.) No, no, wait! The best part is where he says that he's not like disgraced TNR reporter Stephen Glass because he (Blair) is an extremely talented writer, and obviously very clever or he wouldn't have fooled the NYT for so long. (The "It was my evil genuis and not their complete failure to fact-check" explanation.)
So Jayson Blair could live, the journalist had to die.

My dear Elizabeth:

The Black Table Eric Gillen provides a useful summary of key disgraced journalists whose crimes have been resurrected in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal. As he points out, most have paid for their sins by being forced to write books for large sums of money, taking editorial positions at "lesser" publications, and serving as TV pundits on news programs.
The disgraced journalist's club [BlackTable]

The Observer's Joe Hagan interviews Jayson Blair's (overly enthusiastic) literary agent, David Vigliano: "We'll probably do something in Hollywood first and hone the book proposal over the next few days...I think we will be getting the proposal out in a week or 10 days and expect to make a deal within a week after that." Hagan polled publishers, all of whom say they're not interested in the book. Books to which Blair's agent is comparing his potential novel: James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, Nathan McCall's Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America, and Jill Nelson's Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience. And Mr. Vigliano has none of those inconvenient ethical reservations: "I don't have a problem repping a guy who made up a few stories and embarrassed The New York Times. He lost his job, and he's been the object of intense scrutiny. He did wrong, he obviously admitted it and paid the price, and I don t feel like it's any huge...he's not eating babies, you know?"
The Blair pitch project [Observer]

Lockhart Steele: "Thank God for New York, where people drink instead of read.
Then, perhaps realizing that media people don't read books, but they do read book reviews, he promises not to turn into Michiko Kakutani. "...We promise you thatwith the unfortunate exception of this sentenceyou will never read the word 'limn' on this website."
Our solemn vow [Lockhart Steele]

From NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!":
Peter Sagal: What did Jayson Blair do so wrong. Sure he had some details that couldn't be verified, is that worthy of the punishment he got?
Barry Dutter, Executive Editor, Weekly World News: Absolutely, here at WWN, our policy is we verify everything . And I'm kinda shocked the New York Times allowed quotes to get into print that were made up.
PS: What's in store for Mr. Blair?
BD: We might be interested in hiring him, actually.
PS: Really?
BD: If we could teach him to be real reporter. This whole nonsense of making up quotes, making up everything...he made up people. That's not the kind of journalism we teach here.
PS: Thanks for talking with us.
BD: Thank you very much.
PS: Mr. Dutter is the Executive Editor of the Weekly World News.
BD: ...and don't miss our next issue, Elvis is alive and we've got the photos to prove it.
Wait, wait, don't tell me [NPR]

The NY Post, apparently jealous of all the attention the NYT is receiving over the Jayson Blair scandal, reports that it, too, has a plagiarist. ("Our plagiarist is bigger than their plagiarist!" "Is not!" "Is too!" "Is not infinity!" "Is too infinity!") *Yawn.* [Ed.Can we change that headline to "Post deceived by freelancer we failed to fact-check"?]
Post deceived by freelancer [NY Post]

Poetry from Jayson Blair's student website:
A burnt-out heart, torched and charred by the journeys of life
Its been carved out of my chest by disappointments like a knife.
The experience was blinding, converse to a time when light was all I could see.
The bitter darkness of love lost long ago, took over nearly every ounce of me.

From the moment that the splinters of my heart flew and knocked out the lights.
That point until now, I had refused to give anyone a chance to be Miss Right.
I revel in the blackness, blinding boarding one meaningless ship to another.
In women who are as beautiful as kaleidoscopes, I see only the absence of colors.

While we're still on the Jayson Blair story: The Black Table has an interview with disgraced financial reporter-turned-ghostwriter Foster Winans, who was fired from the Wall Street Journal for securities fraud. On being a journalist: "I'm not sure I'd want to be a journalistthe pressure...I like ghostwriting. If something's wrong, it's not your fault." On Jayson Blair: "If I could talk with him, I would have to ask: 'What the fuck were you thinking? You know you're going to get caught!'"
The exiled Foster Winans has a message for Jayson Blair [BlackTable]

An NYT moose has been captured in the wild...

It's media-bashing day at Gawker. (Oh, who are we kidding? Every day is media-bashing day at Gawker.) From the tempest in the dysfunctional teapot department: the definitive story on Jayson Blair by Newsweek's Seth Mnookin. (Still to go: the 60 Minutes special, the Barbara Walters interview, the made-for-TV movie...) This week we learn that Jayson was a cokehead. Oh, wait. That was last week. Nevermind. This week, we learn that Jayson's been spending time at an inpatient hospital. No, actually, that was last week, too; I just couldn't confirm it. I'm not sure what's left. I seem to remember an editor at the NYT jumping out of a building last year and that got two, three paragraphs max, of coverage, which seems a little absurd to me. Now I suppose we're waiting for the inevitable analysis-of-the-coverage-of-the-coverage-of-the-coverage of the Jayson Blair crisis. I'm not sure I have enough outrage to last that long.
Times bomb [Newsweek]
[Disclosure: I just turned in an article for the NYT and they did a very flattering profile of Gawker yesterday, despite the neverending Jayson Blair jokes and moose analogies.]

Everyone wants to buy New York Magazine"everyone" being Jann Wenner, David Pecker, Mort Zuckerman, William Reilly, and Michael Wolff. (I have $20 my pocket. If Primedia has change, I'll put in a bid.) It's mostly the memory of the Felker-era mag that generated interest, but it's hard to make the argument that it's the same publication today. As the NYT's David Carr notes, "The magazine still publishes long articles on the cultural and political life of the city, but under Primedia, there has been increased emphasis on putting consumer-oriented topics on the cover, telling readers where to find the best doctor or hamburger." Editor in chief Caroline Miller says, "the DNA of New York, and our readers' expectations, dictate that this magazine should have attitude, be provocative, be highly opinionated, take risks." I agree. But it's hard to find the opinions, attitude, and provocation in hamburger recommendations, and if there's a ratio at NY Mag these days, it's 5% opinion/attitude/provocation and 95% hamburger recommendations.
Hot market for a magazine not yet for sale [NYT]

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the invocation of Comrade Hitchens in the previous post vaguely reminded me of a passage from one of his recent books: [On warding off atrophy and routine] "Every day the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. 'All the News That's Fit to Print,' it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine that most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there. Then I check to make sure that it still irritates me. If I can still exclaim, under my breath, why do they insult me, and what do they take me for and what the hell is it supposed to mean unless it's as obviously complacent and conceited and censorious as it seems to be, then at least I know that I still have a pulse. You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my life span."

[Letters to a Young Contrarian]

The beanbag moose began as a prop for NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger's off-the-shelf management philisophy. Since this week's staff meeting at the New York Times, when Sulzberger put a moose on the table to signal open discussion, it has become a comic icon of a lumbering newspaper. So Times-haters everywhere will be pleased to know that beanbag meese — mooses? — are available for purchase, online. Voodoo pins not included.
Moose and Elk [Becca's Workshop]
The Moose, explained [Gawker]

The Morning News' Sarah Hepola talks about her friendship with Jayson Blair, lies told, and the tendency toward hyperbole: "The night we met, Jayson and I talked about liars. We were discussing a guy we both knew, a reporter who had changed his name after a series of early-career mistakes. 'I just think he's a liar,' I said. Jayson defended him, enumerated his good qualities. The truth is, the guy s all right, and I hardly knew him to begin with, but I was too emboldened by alcohol to back down. 'Once a liar, always a liar.'"
To tell you the truth [TMN]