Tragedy du jour: The Post's newly jaundiced homepage, which stems from a vicious advertising deal with GM's GoYellow.com campaign for corn-powered cars. Surely such expensive, prominent placement came at the cost of some soon-to-be-laid-off employee's entire salary — but reaching an audience where maybe 25% of readers own a car? Invaluable marketing, that.
So you know how there's a perpetual circulation battle going on between the Daily News and the Post? And you know how there's all sorts of circ scandals going on at papers across the country, the most notably local example being at Newsday? And you know how the Post keeps gaining on the News's circ margin, but we're supposed to think that because the Posties are incendiary and irresponsible and the Newsies are the good guys, if somewhat plodding?
You cannot begin to imagine the elation we felt when, upon shuffling through our daily stack of hatemail, we came across an unmarked package smelling of lilacs. And oh, delight of delights, look what it contained — the memoir of Post columnist Bridget Harrison, Tabloid Love: Looking for Mr. Right in All the Wrong Places. (If your memory can still recall this past summer, UK import Harrison had been writing her own Sex and the City-ish column.)
Did you see page three of today's Post?
We know we often don't react to news — especially news of human tragedies — the way we're supposed to. And so we reading Liz Smith today, we got worried:
From the Post's Starr Report television column today:
When we saw the front page of today's Post, we were a teensy bit horrified by the juxtaposition of Golden Globe non-winner Eva Longoria (ensemble wins are for individual losers) with a headline regarding poor little Nixzmary Brown, the 7-year-old girl who was tortured and beaten to death by her own parents. Watching the Globes wasn't that bad — that Steve Carell is such a doll. How can someone even place these two items on the same front page?
• The Post and the News, after years of fighting a circ war, will now be fighting a real ad-sales war, too. Fun! [Ad Age]
• OK! isn't so much, so price drop TK soon. [Independent (London)]
• It's a shitty time to be a journalist. Or, at least, to be a real journalist, the kind of who writes shit the government cares about. [NYer]
• 60 Minutes suddenly likes sports stories. Which we're sure nothing to do with ratings, at all. [NYT]
At least they had different headlines this time, and our refined eye appreciates the ever-so-slight adjustment to the visual angle. Baby steps, darlings, baby steps.
Most of the time we kind of hate the NYPost.com photo editors. But every now and then, we kind of love 'em:
On a morning when nearly all the media were wrong about the fate of the trapped miners, because they all received misinformation from the mining company, it's nice to see that the New York Post can live up to its reputation and be even wronger than everyone else.
Uncharacteristically, we were at the Garden for this marathon last night. And we're forced to say, in the Post's defense, that as the fucking thing went on and on and on, we probably also lost our ability to spell correctly, too.
• Time Inc. is likely to cut as many as 400 jobs next year, maybe as early as the end of January. There is no joke to be made here. [NYP]
• How much did Mort Zuckerman want to hang onto to the News's Les Goodstein? Enough to — perish the thought — interrupt a vacation to try to convince him to stay. [WWD]
• In the crystal ball: Yahoo and Google will build news divisions in 2006, and the Bancrofts will finally sell the Journal — to an alliance of WashPostCo and Warren Buffett. [Forbes]
• Mag circ shit continues hitting the fan. [BW]
• Jon Friedman spent the strike watching NY1, and he developed a crush on the stations — and on transit reporter Bobby Cuza. [MW]
You've got to hand it to the New York Post. Not only did Rupert Murdoch's scrappy tab pull off a major coup yesterday by hiring away the top business exec at the rival Daily News, but in so doing the Posties also pioneered an entirely new recruiting technique. Usually, companies seeking new talent make sure to lavish them in praise and compliments. The Post, however, managed to lure Les Goodstein with insults.
You've got to hand it to hottie Johnny Damon — yesterday's Post photoillustration be damned, the man is in fact pulling off the short-hair-and-no-beard look with a delicious level of sexy fuckability.
From today's column:
