Fox News chief Roger Ailes and his wife Elizabeth must get spooked a lot in their weekend home in rural Putnam Valley, N.Y., because they call 911 a lot. During one 30-day period last summer, police cars were dispatched to their address six times.
In 1993, the New York Times Co. paid $1.1 billion for the Boston Globe. Hahaha. Ha. Whew. Sorry. The Globe's been a huge financial drag (as you'll recall from one of our least popular posts of 2009), They've been trying to unload the paper for a few years now. Now, they may have actually found a sucker buyer!
In February, CBS abruptly announced that its correspondent Lara Logan "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" in Cairo while covering the Egyptian revolution. It was odd to make a such a strong, vague statement; it got everyone's attention, but nobody knew what it really meant.
In your soggy Thursday media column: a rumored bid for Variety, Penthouse's owner has a cheap IPO, Erin Burnett's going to CNN, Slate's editor likes Slate, and a Reader's Digest recipe kerfuffle.
In your throwback Wednesday media column: alt-weeklies get glossy, and remain sexy, Malcolm Gladwell was one of those "I don't have a TV" kids, and Sarah Palin's zinger on Katie Couric.
If you're a member of the media—and aren't we all, thanks to [platitude about Twitter]?—chances are that you're going to be the subject of some "media criticism" sooner or later. Will you let it destroy you? Why? Handling it like a pro is surprisingly easy!
In a Today Show segment on vanity sizing, More editor Lesley Jane Seymour described the lengths fashion editors must go to protect the fragile egos of celebrities: "When we go to shoots it's all about the ego. If a celebrity says she's a size 8 and we know she's not we cut the sizes out because we know she won't put it on if it says it's a 10."
In your tense Tuesday media column: Keith Olbermann is returning, a new Katie Couric rumor, Jay Rosen ruminates, Michael Kinsely's new job, Anderson Cooper's hot new cable news feud, and a new Village Voice columnist.
Dan Snyder, wealthy scoundrel and owner of an awful football team whose name is a racial slur, is able to blow countless hundreds of millions dollars on high-profile free agents who immediately become bad at the sport of football upon cashing Dan Snyder's check. But oddly, he is not wealthy enough to buy one decent PR adviser who could tell him to keep his stupid mouth shut.
Last July, New York Daily News editor Martin Dunn abruptly left the paper due to his wife's illness. Kevin Convey, who'd been working as editor of the Boston Herald, was named his replacement. But now, we hear, unsatisfied NYDN owner Mort Zuckerman may already be poking around for Convey's successor.
Major fireworks and apocalyptic drama at today's White House stenographers' huddle, you guys.
In your magic Monday media column: HuffPo hires some more, Elvis Mitchell loses another job, DC ladies discuss The New Yorker, MSNBC sloganizes, Brian Williams jokes, Katie Couric states the obvious, Adweek rhapsodizes, and Reader's Digest's CEO is out.
Last year, the best-selling magazine in America was Sandra Bullock's "Meet My Baby" issue of People. Second-best? Woman's World's "Dr. Oz's Metabolism Makeover!" issue, which features an image of Dr. Oz on its cover—right next to a picture of a pie (top left).
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's reputation as a fighter for transparency and destroyer of secrets ought to be thoroughly demolished by today's spectacle of the New York Times literally forcing him to give up the Guantanamo Bay files he'd been hoarding for months.
USA Today—an adorable daily picture book distributed free to customers of mid-rate hotel chains—is making a strategic move to wrest control of the "believes in angels" demographic from said demographic's current newspaper of choice (the Washington Times).
In your breezy Friday media column: Conde Nast forsakes its hasty iPad pursuits, Fred Dicker's still alive, journalists meet Tumblr, TV networks approach pseudoevent overload week, and the AP and its union strike a deal.
Quizzical mustache John Stossel, the former ABC Newsman who took his stories about how poor people are faking it to Fox News two years ago, continues to humiliate his former employer in his absence. Today, four years after Stossel falsely accused a pastor of leading a lavish lifestyle in a 20/20 segment, the network was forced to issue an apology.
