Something seemed a little off on the headline in this morning's News piece about Congressman John Sweeney, who last December "got into an early-morning fracas with his wife that...[resulted in] her being grabbed by the neck and pushed around the house," but did not result in charges being filed. We offer a slightly modified version that we feel more accurately conveys the story.
The rumble between the Post and the News to see who can give away more sponsor copies to boost their circulation shows no sign of abating: In today's Observer, News EIC Martin Dunn calls shenanigans: "If you'd lost $300 million over the past five years, spent $200 million on new presses, carpet-bombed neighborhoods with free copies and lost fortunes to sell a few thousand papers in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, you'd be desperate to celebrate creeping a few copies ahead of us." Post EIC Col Allan counters that "the Post is half the price, and twice the value." There's some particularly nice bitchery in the Times, where Dunn's party line about the News still outselling the Post in "the New York metro area," elicits the following response:
Well, you knew this was going to happen. The New York Daily News runs an indignant rebuttal to the New York Post's gloating over having caught the News in circulation. The main point is that the NYDN still claims the top circ spot in "the all-important New York metro area." Plus, they also have much higher readership for the Sunday edition. Most importantly, the Post is a cheap half-price one-quarter whore — a WHORE, that's right — and it still can't keep proper hold of what little money it earns. Just like any cheap slut giving itself away free on the streetcorner.
The Post's strategy of hemorrhaging millions of dollars annually has finally paid off, as they've passed the News in circulation, becoming the country's fifth largest paper. Expect Post editor Col Allan to cover the story in the tasteful, restrained manner we've come to expect from those folks.
• Federal judge orders the NYT to disclose its sources in the Hatfill defamation case. Times vows to appeal. [NYT]
• Katie Couric's taking all the good jobs away from the girls. [B&C]
• New Yorker Editor David Remnick attracts groupies. [FBNY]
• Tabloid Wars: News circulation up, ad revenue down; Post's circulation up, ad revenue up. Of course, the News is still ahead on that whole "not losing millions of dollars a year" thing. [Crain's]
• PBS brass doesn't give a shit who Charlie Rose honors. You can take your precious ethics and stuff 'em. [PBS]
• It's tough to be homeless in New York. [NYO]
Former New York Post and current New York Daily News staffer and sex-averse blogger Dawn Eden has her book coming out in early December, just in time for Christ-mas. The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfilmment while Keeping Your Clothes On indeed sounds like a barrel o' laughs, but of particular note are a couple excerpts from the acknowledgements:
This past Monday saw the final departure of Lloyd Grove from his "Lowdown" gossip column at the New York Daily news. But don't fret — the man's not dead, he's merely resting. And where better to rest than by way of a guest column on Gawker? One could certainly allow that we are "multimedia, with components of Internet and television and print media," which is how Grove described his next secret gig. We got all kinds of components. One of those components will be next week's very special episode, where Grove will answer questions regarding everything you ever wanted to know about the gossip business. How does one trudge through all this filth, day after day? When is it permissible to sleep with a source? What color is Mort Zuckerman's rainbow? Send your own queries to asklloyd@gawker.com. He'll pick his favorites and respond on Monday. So be nice, and try not to stare.
Well, after yesterday's confirmation of the Post's "scoop" that Joe Torre would remain Yankee manager, we expected a little bit of gloating. Still, we're kind of surprised at how reserved they are: That little bubble on the front reads "Best (and Most Accurate) Playoff Coverage in Town!" It's almost subtle, considering. Still, we suppose when you've got something like this in your rear-view mirror
If you're scoring at home, the Post has come out on top of the News in two tabs' contest over whether or not Yankees skipper Joe Torre will remain at the helm: Torre is currently holding a press conference where he says he's staying on. Still, we can't be too hard on the News, which just two days ago was telling us that Torre was toast: Photo placement like this is pretty goddamn genius.
Disposing of Barry Diller's dead hookers at three in the morning a non-starter for you? Maybe you'd prefer working for Mort Zuckerman! The Daily News and U.S. News & World Report owner is looking for a new head flack for those failing organs. Before you turn it down outright, consider this: It's a position that's had three occupants (Ken Frydman, Eileen Murphy, and Donna Dees) in the last three years - there's obviously ample opportunity to move on! Full listing after the jump.
In a delightful fit of nostalgia, the Daily News skips over to Rikers for an exclusive interview with former Voice/WWD scribe and fake firefighter/rapist Peter Braunstein. Yet in terms of quotables from the interview, the Daily News comes up incredibly short: Braunstein remembers the incident as a "blur" and he readily admits, "I'm the raving lunatic." And, in case you're wondering how Braunstein's doing otherwise (remarkably, we weren't), he's looking way too "pudgy" to pull off those heels and fur coat that he stole from his victim.
Perhaps Mark Foley should have been paying more attention to the advice doled out in local races; specifically the Assembly race in Queens. That's where Chris Migliaccio, the Conservative/ Republican hopeful for the seat, has taken the somewhat unusual position of advocating that masturbation "be part of the sex-education curriculum" because "you are less aggressive when you masturbate on some sort of regular basis ."
New York's two major tabs rarely agree on anything but, in a heart-warming moment of unanimity, they're in accordance on one issue this morning: Lisa Santangelo, the woman with whom Jeanine Pirro suspected her husband was having sleazy boat romp sex, is "stunning." Also "young" and "brunette," although the News finds her "elegant," while the Post, presumably from lack of familiarity with the word, eschews the extra color. Everyone involved is denying that the affair occurred, but if Al Pirro did in fact stick it to Lisa Santangelo, wife of the attorney who represented him in the tax-fraud case that resulted in an eleven month prison sentence, you've got to give him credit: It's rare that you can screw two lawyers simultaneously without fucking either of them.
Earlier today, a glance at the New York Post website might have yielded an unusual scenario. On the website's right margin, the usual raft of pointlessly animated mortgage ads was occasionally interrupted by a subscription-shilling tower ad for the rival New York Daily News. Clearly an indelicate transgression by the ad server; or perhaps Post owner Rupert Murdoch just wants to look magnanimous.
Special thanks to the Duggan family and Jeremy Beck for providing 80% of the content here.
This is random-ish and slightly more driveling than usual, but it's early, so: can anyone else get on the Daily News' website? We've cleared our cache and cookies, but our poor browser hasn't been able to find the News' server for the second day in a row. A survey of associates has found inconsistent access: maybe 1/3 of New York slaves can get online; outside of the region, it's inconsistent as to who can access the site. Do the Newsies even know that there's a problem? Did Mort forget to pay the bill? That we totally understand. (And oh, how we long for the days of Network Solution outtages — happy, halcyon snow days...)
More in sorrow than in joy (oh, who are we kidding) Keith Kelly reports this morning on the dismissal of the Daily News' Andrea Dove, vice president of classified ads. Kelly gives a roll call of recent News departures, both voluntary and less so: Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke, executive vice president Ira Ellenthal, investigative reporter Russ Buettner, feature writer Caitlin Kelly, food writer Isabel Forgang, and Michael Segell, Rebecca Louie, Breanne Heldman, Jami Bernard, Graham Fuller, Michele Ingrassia, Michelle Leifer and Celia McGee.
