In wake of Tuesday's speculation from WWD's Jeff "Big Man" Bercovici that Lowdown Lloyd Grove could be headed crosstown, to the archrival Post, once his Daily News contract expires in September, it seems worth calling some attention to the above photo, of Lloyd and theoretical nemesis Richard Johnson looking rather pally at Vanity Fair's Tribeca Film Festival party, held the night after the Women's Wear item appeared.
Maybe our boss is being paid off by Jared Paul Stern. Maybe he's trying to score with him. (Ah, those lips.) Either way, we've received orders to continue this ongoing and misguided campaign to suggest that everyone is as corrupt as Page Six is (they're not) and to obfuscate the reality that no matter what other skeeziness exists in the world JPS is still the one on tape asking Ron Burkle for hush money (he is). In today's installment, here are photos of the Daily News's Jo Piazza*, a reporter for the Rush & Molloy gossip column, on that junket to Turkey we previously mentioned. That's her in a headscarf above. And there's more after the jump.
The Daily News has a pretty run-of-the-mill feature story today on the perils of interoffice romance. (It's pegged to that burning issue keeping American up at night: How will Josh and Donna reveal their new romance to the rest of The West Wing?) But we admit the story's lede piqued our interest:
Women's Wear Daily's resident goliath Jeff Bercovici reports that with Grove's contract up in September, many are speculating that Grove may jump to the Post's Page Six. Considering Martin Dunn called Grove a "fucking idiot" in a letter to People managing editor Larry Hackett back in October, one could see how Grove might want to cross over to enemy lines.
Word this afternoon is that Michele Ingrassia, a features writer at the Daily News is the latest of Orla Healy's minions to hit the road. She's been at the News since 2000, where she wrote on fashion, lifestyle, and social trends; she arrived from Newsday, where she'd most recently covered politics, and before that was at Newsweek. We're told this makes the eighth resignation since Healy arrived. (Lance Gould's departure, we're now hearing, was also a resignation, rather than, as we heard Friday, a firing.) Of course, this might not be a problem for Healy: We're also told she wants her sections to be largely freelance-driven. Which no doubt makes the remaining staffers feel great, too.
Lest you think the Post is the only New York tabloid facing personnel problems, keep in mind that the News has lately been shedding features-side writers and editors the way Mort Zuckerman usually sheds editors-in-chief (and glossy celebrity magazines). Among the moves of which we're aware:
Yesterday we pointed out a Daily News article about Page Six grizzly bear Chris Wilson, who last June went on a lavish junket in Napa, courtesy of Jaguar. While those still unfamiliar with the inner-workings of a gossip column may shake their heads and cluck their tongues, working gossips know that this sort of shit happens more frequently than anyone would care to admit. If we're going to note that Chris Wilson had a cost-free luxury weekend, it's only fair to mention that the gossips at the Daily News do the same thing. A quick search on Patrick McMullen's website reveals George Rush at a junket on Canouan Island, just south of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; his reporter Jo Piazza took a junket to Turkey (of course, Page Six's Fernando Gil was also there). Naturally, the Daily News didn't have to shell out much of anything for either trip.
Today is the first day that the Daily News hasn't had a glaring front page regarding the Page Six payola scandal and, to be honest, it makes us a little sad. But we're confident that this does not signal an end to the coverage, even if things are starting to look ever-so-slightly up for alleged extortionist Jared Paul Stern, who claims he was set up by billionaire Ron Burkle.
• Will Katie Couric make the evening news relevant again? Color us skeptical. [NYT]
• This week's new New Republic — now less wonky! — spends its cover and nearly 4,000 words analyzing Thursday Styles and its star columnist, Alex Kuczynski. (Turns out, the section and her column are both morally indefensible. Who knew?) The big question, however, is left unanswered: What does it mean for Israel? [TNR]
• Steve Dunleavy is taking all the Page Six stuff hard. "I bleed for the paper, I really do." Poor Steve. [NYer]
• And, shockingly, the News is reveling in the Post's misfortune. [NYT]
The latest: According to ABC news, the FBI was prepared to arrest Jared Paul Stern at the time of his infamous meeting with billionaire Ron Burkle, but they lacked sufficient evidence. Since then, the bureau is in the early stages of launching an investigation "to determine whether there ever will be enough to bring to a federal grand jury and win an indictment." And, of course, there might not be.
• George Clooney eats hot dogs! Let's sabotage hot dogs! [Gallery of the Absurd]
• And another one bites the dust: Hachette says it'll shut ELLEgirl after the June/July issue, leaving it as a web- and wireless-only brand. [WWD]
• Folio: announces its list of the 40 most influential/ successful / annoying / evil people in magazine publishing. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart makes the list — it's a long fall from the Oscars, ain't it? [Folio:]
• Meanwhile, Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry begins his long climb up the special events ladder by hosting the Webby awards. [PR Newswire]
• Why we prefer the foreign press: They know we want to read about a dude who took 40,000 hits of ecstasy. [Guardian]
• Death Row Records head Suge Knight may have declared bankruptcy, but he's never too poor to pop a cap in your ass. [TMZ]
• Rosie O'Donnell is back in our good graces. According to her profile in New York, she shares our love for the Schtick Intuition. And last night on Leno, she called herself a 200-lb. lesbian. Good, clean fun — Rosie's back! [Fish Drink Water]
• Someone has stolen Jerry Garcia's toilet. Authorities believe the priceless porcelain may have been traded in for Big Gulp, Doritos, and two packs of Twinkies. [CNN]
• Ben Smith launches his Daily News political blog — complete with a sexy picture. Too bad he hasn't left the Observer yet. [Daily Politics]
• Drudge reports on Couric's move to CBS by reprinting the Mary Tyler Moore song. The Gay never lets us down. [Drudge]
And now today there are reports of more free Wall Street Journals, this time sponsored by MaxJet, the biz-class-only service to London. Which, when we glanced at the calendar, finally made sense: It's March 31, the final day for one of the two annual Audit Bureau of Circulations reporting periods. As we've explained before, the Audit Bureau is the circ-counting police, and the bureau's rules allow free copies to count as paid circulation if someone, somewhere is paying for them. So when you MaxJet pays for a Journal to be handed to you, that's considered real, paid circ — and, as the reporting period draws to a close, newspapers all around town are driving up their daily-paid averages with this sketchy but fully legal gimmick.
An emailer directed our attention to this "Breaking News" article on the Daily News AP feed:
It's not exactly news that people leave the The New York Observer for a pasture that's greener — as in more greenbacks. But usually those leaving are the smart, glib young writers who arrived just a year or two earler as smart, glib young college grads. Ben Smith, on the other hand, who announced on the Observer's Politicker blog today that he's leaving the paper for the Daily News, is a comparative old fart, 29 years old and with a media career elsewhere before he arrived at the pink paper. But, then, at that ripe old age he's also got a wife and two kids to feed, and so we imagine that greenback issue was even more pressing than usual.
From left, Daily News gossips Chris Rovzar, Jo Piazza, and Ben Widdicombe, Page Six's Paula Froelich, and PNP-lurving blogger Perez Hilton.
On Saturday night, nearly 300 of Manhattan's most glorious names descended upon Cipriani 42nd Street to toast the nuptials of publicist Lizzie Grubman and Chris Stern. Unable to attend (Carolina refused to send us a pretty dress), we celebrated by locking ourselves in the bathroom and pouring champagne over our open wounds. It hurt, but still not as good as being there for the real thing.
• Nick Lemann has 5,000 words on Bill O'Reilly. Which we'll get around to reading soon. [NYer]
• David Carr thinks VF, underneath all its bullshit, is actually a pretty good mag. [NYT]
• And Jon Friedman thinks that all the other magazine editors are ganging up on poor David Remnick. [MW]
• We always thought Bill Beutel was kind of a little crazy, but that's probably because we only really watched him in his later years. He helped invent Eyewitness News, and he died Saturday. [NYT]
• Bloggers "are the new media darlings," and — shockingly — many hope to get paid gigs with traditional media. [Newsday]
• More breaking insights: An attractive grad student who is raped and murdered makes for great tabloid fodder. [Baltimore Sun]
• No Hachette mags were among the Ellie finalists. Again. [WWD]
Monday Washington Mutual bought you the Daily News. Yesterday Fresh Direct bought you the Post. Will the madness ever end? Oh, no; it won't. Here are today's reports:
