From the sound of their transcript, it appears they looped him in in real time:

NYM: What do you think about the controversy surrounding the name of Rick Perry’s hunting camp?

SLJ: How do I not know about it? What’s the name?

NYM: I’ll show it to you.

SLJ: Niggerhead?

NYM: Yes. Does that surprise you?

SLJ: No.

Echoing the sentiments of many of the sources in the original WaPo article, Jackson seemed to view the name as just a fact of life in some parts of the country. ” I grew up in the segregated South, nothing surprised me,” he said. “That’s not surprising at all.”

He also said he didn’t think the scandal would hurt Perry with Republicans. “He’ll actually gain respect from a lot of people that he didn’t have respect from before,” Jackson said.

NY Mag also asked Jackson about Morgan Freeman‘s recent comments about the Tea Party:

“The division of the country is not about the government having too much power. I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means,” he said, echoing Freeman. “It’s not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down to pretty much to race. It is a shame.”

His response is unlikely to earn the actor any new fans on the right, but his observation, that throngs of protesters in pre-Civil War garb didn’t take to the streets over massive government spending and sweeping health care legislation until a black guy was in charge, has at least superficial merit.

The buried lead in this story, though, is that Samuel L. Jackson was at an event reading books to children. I’m dying to hear that audio. “I want this motherf**kin’ cat in this motherf**kin’ hat out of my motherf**kin’ house!”

“Yes, the Grinch deserves to die, and I hope he burns in hell!“

The cover story‘s attention-grabbing, Toni Morrison-esque characterization of Obama as “The First Jewish President” comes from a quote by Abner Mikva, a White House counsel, who during the run-up to the last presidential election said, “When this all is over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.” While Heilemann thinks that prediction “has so far proved to be wildly over-optimistic,” he believes there is “more truth in it than meets the eye.”

In the piece, Heilemann chronicles Obama’s various struggles in his policy making over Israeli-centric issues. Despite Obama being “well attuned to the Jewish community and its views”, his wrangling with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his support of Israel’s 1967 borders “with mutually agreed [land] swaps” and Ed Koch‘s high profile criticism has left some Jewish voters under the impression that he wasn’t fully on their side.

Heilemann strongly disputes this by saying “Obamans have never wavered in going balls-out for Israel”. He points out that the president’s swift action in rescuing Israelis trapped in the Cairo embassy when it was under siege was a quintessential event in Obama’s support of Israel. “The president not only picked up the phone but leaned hard on the Egyptians to free those within.” Heilemann quotes Netanyahu saying the president’s help was “a decisive moment.”

(h/t NY Mag)

When the new weekend show hosted by Chris Hayes debuts on MSNBC September 17, expect a “cast of characters” but none of the usual suspects. Hayes tells New York his goal is to feature a regular panel of younger, more diverse group of contributors than other cable news shows. “I don’t want hacky partisans,” he says.

Hayes says the weekend show will be informal and allow him to “break out of genre conventions,” which sounds interesting in a broken genre convention kind of way. He promises a combination of deep analysis and breaking news:

It’s meant as a look at the week that was (Saturday) and the week that will be (Sunday), featuring panels of guests along with produced, explanatory segments that you might not find on the average weeknight cable news show. “What the Week in Review or Times Magazine or the Week is to Twitter and blogs, that’s what we want to be to primetime cable news,” Hayes said. “It’s very hard when news breaks to have something distinct and value-added to say about it,” he stated, and then hastened to add diplomatically that Maddow — for whom he frequently fills in — is “awe-inspiring” in her ability to do so daily. But the gridlock that’s recently characterized the political process might actually help Hayes’s ratings, or at least the breaking-news quotient of the show: “Increasingly, Congress and the president don’t do things until the last minute,” he said, a mixture of disillusioned and ever-so-slightly excited. “So stuff starts to happen on the weekends more and more.”

New York also informs us Hayes has just finished a move from Washington to Brooklyn, he’s working on a book, and he and his wife are expecting a baby in the fall. So he’s got a full plate.

Sherman highlighted from his piece that Ailes was aware of Beck’s growing notoriety and how the Beck brand was overtaking Fox. Therefore, “Roger decided he can’t have Glenn Beck being the public face of Fox News” since he didn’t want Fox News “to be associated with that type of incendiary rhetoric.” Scarborough agreed, saying Beck’s rantings “made a lot of people uncomfortable including Roger Ailes” and kept repeating the fact that Beck owes all of his success to Ailes. Scarborough was convinced that thanks to Ailes, Fox News, is bigger than any one person:

“Roger Ailes – other than [Bill] O’Reilly – can take everybody out of Fox News from six in the morning to midnight and it would still be Fox News and they would still get extraordinary ratings. This is the story of a guy who did not understand. [Beck] got plugged into the machine and he started believing the headlines.”

Although Scarborough’s world seemed to humorously shatter a bit after learning what Ailes has now helped Beck launch. When Sherman revealed just how much money Beck makes “on the side” from his company Mercury Radio Arts ($40 million last year alone), Scarborough responded:

“I’m in the wrong business. . . . So I could put like Vicks in my eyes, set my hair on fire, say the world is coming to an end every Tuesday and you’re saying $40 million?”

Mika Brzezinski had her own conclusion, saying “the things you can do if you don’t care about morals.”

Watch the clip from MSNBC below:

So one would think that in a landmine filled topic like this one, author Jason Zengerle would take great care to avoid broad generalizations and instead stay focused on facts and storytelling, in the way that Gabriel Sherman admirably did with his piece on Ailes. Nope. Penning a soft, glowing portrait of Brock is one thing, but vastly overstating Media Matters influence is far more biased. After all, media…matters, am I right?

First he points out that “What began in 2004 as a ten- person shop with a $3 million annual budget now has around 90 employees and plans to spend $15 million this year.” That is striking and demonstrates the enormous fundraising operation that they have created. But that is not translating into readers. With that budget and staff, they should be about the size of a site like Politico, but the numbers tell a far different story. According to web traffic evaluator, Quantcast, Politico averages 5.6 million monthly unique visitors, Media Matters a mere 646,200. Even if you give Media Matters the benefit of the doubt and double that number, they are still doing a fraction of the traffic of sites its size (at 1.3 million, it would still be far smaller than little Mediaite, with ten times the staff). That’s something that clearly should have been pointed out in the story.

But its not just the author’s unwillingness to dig into their true influence, but he gives them credit for events for which Media Matters cannot legitimately claim responsibility.

The article states:

Last month, Media Matters scored what it considers to be its biggest victory to date against Fox when the news channel and Glenn Beck decided to end his show. Beck had become the face of the Media Matters anti-Fox campaign. Not only did the group keep a running tally of Beck’s most offensive statements, but it was also part of an effort to persuade more than 300 advertisers to boycott Beck’s show—which, Brock believes, is what ultimately convinced Fox that it could no longer afford to have Beck on its air.

Its true that Media Matters helped engage in a campaign against Beck that had some impact. But to quote, without further context, Brock’s assertion that Media Matters “ultimately convinced Fox” to get rid of Beck shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Fox and its often quirky personalities.

Yes there was an advertising boycott primarily led by Color of Change, but there are a myriad of complicated relationships (and, yes politics) that went in to Beck’s announced split from Fox News. To assert that the decision was a direct reaction to Media Matters’ “convincing” of Fox News executives is almost a laughable conceit.

But maybe the most egregious journalistic faux pas was in Zengerie’s broad assertion that “over time, Brock and his group have come to be viewed as relatively responsible arbiters.”

Huh? As we have noted here at Mediaite, Media Matters has struggled to be taken seriously by anyone apart from their own loyal following. That is not to say that we do not trust their investigative pieces. We often do. But, as we have reported before, the vast majority of their stories fall on deaf ears because they are not viewed as responsible arbiters.

How does New York Magazine defend that assertion? By quoting well respected but also overtly liberal opinion journalist David Shuster who said: “They beat the shit out of me in 2008, but it was fair, and I made sure not to make that mistake again,” says Shuster, who was suspended from MSNBC that year for accusing Hillary Clinton of “pimp[ing] out” Chelsea. “Some people like to describe David (Brock) as a partisan, but I think of him as the consummate ombudsman.” While Shuster may believe that (and we happen to really like Shuster) that is hardly persuasive proof of Media Matters objectivity.

Finally the piece concludes with what may be the most absurd unchallenged statement of all where Brock is quoted near the end saying “A lot of what I think about is tolerance in the debate and trying to tamp down on the toxicity of it all,” and yet there may be no liberal media watchdog that is less tolerant and more toxic than Media Matters.

While Media Matters, and David Brock, certainly deserve some attention for becoming active participants in the opinion media landscape, the hagiography that is this week’s New York feature is not only off the target, but almost ridiculous. It is a shame that the essay dedicated to Media Matters wasn’t given the same careful thought and execution that was the complementary piece of Ailes. The decision to treat the two subjects differently is not only unfair, but it could be argued that it reveals a deeper bias by the editors at New York. Need more proof? Just consider the two images used for the subjects of the respective profiles.

Need I say more?

The most intriguing charge in the piece was that Ailes believed one of his star employees, Sarah Palin, is truly “an idiot.” Yet Bill Shine, executive vice president of programming for Fox News Channel adamantly denied the accusation and today told The New York Times:

“I know for a fact that Roger Ailes admires and respects Sarah Palin and thinks she is smart. He also believes many members of the left wing media are extremely terrified and threatened by her. Despite a massive effort to destroy Sarah Palin, she is still on her feet and making a difference in the political world. As for the ‘Republican close to Ailes’ for which the incorrect Palin quote is attributed, when Roger figures out who that is, I guarantee you he or she will no longer be ‘close to Ailes.’”

The profile of Ailes is certainly not a hatchet job, and in fact paints an impressive portrait of a visionary captain who is extremely perceptive about what’s happening in every corner of his ship at all times. Yet with an insulting image accompanying the profile and with the use of many anonymous sources forcing upon Ailes various unpleasant thoughts and feelings about his Fox News talent and potential GOP presidential candidates, it calls into question the fairness and potential motive of the entire piece.

Especially when the man who is trying to “take down Fox” (Brock) receives glowing treatment, the contrast in coverage highlights the particular glee with which New York magazine seems to get from turning conservative stars against one another. Sean Hannity hates Glenn Beck! Bill O’Reilly hates Sean Hannity! Roger Ailes is not fond of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck! The fact that the liberal-leaning magazine might not be as fair to Fox News isn’t shocking, but what may have surprised some is that instead of trying to hide their preference, the editors prominently and proudly illustrated it with the type of photo used to accompany each profile.

Check out the full articles on Roger Ailes and David Brock in New York.

As celebrity profiles go, the NY Mag essay, written by John Swansburg, is a well-constructed specimen, pegged to the somewhat tired narrative of Williams’ innate sense of humor. The second graf of the essay exemplifies the everyman-as-comedian network news host theme:

Williams has been honing his act for some time—the first of many entertaining appearances on Conan’s Late Night occurred back during the Clinton administration—but it’s only recently that he’s shown how funny he can be. And as demand for his comic talents has grown, balancing the resulting opportunities with his day job has proved more challenging. Such are the hazards of juggling the roles of anchor and semi-pro wiseacre that the necktie he removed as we sat down for supper—a purple number, bordering on the foppish—had earlier that day been the source of mild controversy: To buy time for his appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show, which tapes in the late afternoon, Williams had prerecorded the headlines segment that opens his 6:30 newscast earlier than usual, then, on his way back to the newsroom from Fallon’s studio, spilled soda on himself, requiring a tie change before the live newscast began. Eagle-eyed viewers noticed the switcheroo, prompting Williams to put up a blog post in which he came clean about l’affaire cravate and offered an apology to “the tie community.”

No this is not a backlash piece, and yes, Williams appears to have great comedic timing and wit. But Williams’ well-honed reputation of being really funny actually hurts his attempts at being…well, really funny.

Take, for example, Williams’ appearance on Morning Joe last December. When asked to recap the year in media, Williams went on a very funny jag about how the wide-eyed wonder that the NY Times had discovered and reported on the borough of Brooklyn :

I think the media story of the year, in 2010, was the NYT’s discovery of Brooklyn. Once a day, there’s a story about all the riches offered in that borough. There are young men and women wearing ironic glass frames on the streets. There are open air markets, like trading posts in the early Chippewa tribe, where you can make beads at home and then trade them for someone to come over and start a small fire in your apartment that you share with nine others. Artisanal cheeses. For sale, on the streets of an entire American borough. It’s been fascinating to watch the paper venture over the bridge.

In case you missed that particular bit on that episode of Morning Joe, don’t worry. If you ever take a cab in NY City, there is a decent chance that you will catch nearly the same exact gag in a video he did for NY Taxis. Making fun of hipsters in Brooklyn isn’t exactly edgy material, but doing your own material twice is more something you’d see in Hackensack (a video of which you can watch below.)

There is no question that Williams has great comedic chops, but anyone that knows comedy knows it’s all about timing and wit, two characteristics that Williams has in spades. But he also has greatly benefited from the low expectations of humor that have gone hand in hand with his national news anchor gravitas (accumulated for well over a decade now.) While he benefits from the news anchor persona, it also does his comedic delivery a slight disservice as the viewer almost never can forget that “hey that’s Brian Williams being funny!”

This is not to take anything away from Williams, whose best attribute is perhaps his willingness to play the fool and/or make fun of himself. It’s just that he’s “news-anchor funny,” in the same way that Chris Christie is “Governor hot.”

The entire piece on Brian Williams is worth reading, but don’t expect to laugh. Its a fun read, just not funny. Almost like Brian Williams himself.

Watch Williams’ NY Taxi video embedded below:

Rove has apparently drawn Malkin’s ire with his latest attack on Palin’s “gravitas” in a New York Magazine interview:

When I bring up his statements about Palin during our interview, Rove says only that he wished he’d made his comments on Fox News instead—before going into a withering impersonation of Palin, recalling a scene from her TV show in which she’s fishing.

“Did you see that?” he says, adopting a high, sniveling Palin accent: “ ‘Holy crap! That fish hit my thigh! It hurts!’ ”

“How does that make us comfortable seeing her in the Oval Office?” he asks, disgusted. “You know—‘Holy crap, Putin said something ugly!’ ”

Carlson, meanwhile, tested the limits of his boyish charm with a much more on-the-nose tweet about Palin:

Palin’s popularity falling in Iowa, but maintains lead to become supreme commander of Milfistan

For the uninitiated, MILF is an acronym for “Mother I’d Like to F***,” and MILFistan is, presumably, where Carlson would like to set up The Daily Caller‘s first foreign bureau.

Malkin let loose with a flurry of tweets this morning, denouncing Rove and Carlson for being misogynistic, while lashing out at liberals for being…too much like girls?

Ok, what’s this about “MILFistan?!” Keep it in the locker room, boys.http://twitpic.com/44w6c3

Conserv women get enuf crap from lib pantywaists. Beltway boys (u ALL know who u are) should watch their mouths. #RESPECT

I am not down with @karlrove @tuckercarlson misogynist mockery of @sarahpalinusa. Sick of it.

Beltway Boyz in FRAT-i-stan: Try RESPECTING conservative DAUGHTERS,, WIVES, MOTHERS & GRANDMOTHERS on front lines.

Beltway Dems aren’t the only ones still in their Huggies pull-ups. GOP boyz tugging at conservative mom’s skirt.

Fellow right-wing moms, when our boys misbehave, we don’t coddle. We lay the smack down. #MILFistan

Aside from the simultaneously humorous and offensive use of the term “pantywaist,” Malkin doesn’t seem to grasp the irony that she’s essentially mocking her own calls for sensitivity. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the same sort of thing the right mocks as “political correctness” when we do it?

Carlson responded by deleting his offending tweet, and offering this topical apology:

Apparently Charlie Sheen got control of my Twitter account last night while I was at dinner. Apologies for his behavior.

In the final analysis, I find myself largely in agreement with Malkin that gender-based insults have no place in political discourse, or elsewhere. I would go a step further and suggest that pointing this out does not make you a “pantywaist,” or any other term from the Bowery Boys Glossary of Slang.

Update: Carlson is, apparently, still on the hook, as Michelle points out the feather-lightness of his apology:

@kill_truck @KatMcKinley He did NOT apologize. He turned it into a lame Charlie Sheen joke.

Beginning in June, Rich will not only contribute essays for the magazine, he’ll also act as its editor at large, overseeing a “special monthly section anchored by his essay,” and posting regularly to nymag.com.

As expected, Twitter is, well. All atwitter with the news. New York Times cultural news editor and restaurant critic Sam Sifton, for one, noted that NY Mag editor in chief Adam Moss sounded “pleased as punch” to announce the hire. And T.J. Ortenzi, the Washington Post‘s senior social media producer, declared Rich’s move a bold, if humble, one:

Frank Rich is leaving NYT. Which means new headshot. Which, as a vain person, I imagine is reason enough for aging columnists to stay put.

One Tweeter (Twitter user? Twitterer? Twit? Your guess is as good as ours.) made a rather interesting choice for Rich’s possible replacement, telling Keith Olbermann, now of Current TV, that there should be a regular New York Times byline in his future.

Rich, for his part, leaves the New York Times with fond memories and high hopes:

I leave the paper with deep affection for both the institution and my many brilliant colleagues, and with much gratitude for the opportunity the paper gave me to serve in two dream jobs in journalism. I’ve spent much of the past year talking to friends inside and outside the Times about what might be most exciting for me next. It was impossible to top the idea of reuniting with my friend Adam Moss, who has played a crucial role in my writing life since the late eighties and who, as editor of the Times Magazine, was instrumental in my transition from arts criticism to broader essay writing.

h/t New York Magazine

Introducing the segment by describing the interview with “Fox News comedian” Rove, O’Donnell gave his Karl-Rove-as-Sarah-Palin impression about three seconds before giving up and reading the excerpt, in which Rove mocks a hypothetical President Palin as whining, “Holy crap! Putin said something ugly!” Hagan added some color to the text by describing the moment in which Rove made said impression in person. “The disgust in his voice is naked,” he told O’Donnell, adding that it was not particularly surprising to hear him do impressions and that Rove actually has a reputation for them among his friends.

So why the disdain? Hagan argues that, as an old guard Republican, “it’s not in his interest to see her succeed,” as she represents a wing of the Republican Party that split into the Tea Party, people who “used to be the base but they [the old guard] don’t have as much control [over them] as they used to.” Rove, O’Donnell adds, doesn’t appear to believe that politics is volatile enough for macro-patterns to change quickly in a way that would make Palin a successful candidate. On that note, O’Donnell asks Hagan if he got a sense of what candidates Rove would back given a chance, the latter answered that Rove would “be extremely happy” with former Florida governor Jeb Bush, but barring that unlikely scenario, he would also support Indiana governor Mitch Daniels.

The segment via MSNBC below:

We learn that Schultz prefers the new Times Square to the old, porn-y Times Square, but he hedges by saying he’s only really lived in New York for a matter of months. He also says his favorite New Yorker–alive or dead–is Hillary Clinton.

Asked about NYC’s newspapers, Schultz gives an answer that will surely get eyes rolling among the Fox News viewers of the world: “Times exclusively. Post and Daily News … never.” Not even PAGE SIX?

In the piece, Schultz also reveals where he goes to be alone, how much he pays for a haircut, and what’s hanging over his sofa. And no, it’s not an oil painting of Bill O’Reilly.

As Michael Calderone reports, Sherman’s book will feature extensive reporting on Fox News boss and founder Roger Ailes:

Sherman, a contributing editor at New York magazine, penned a cover story last year on the cable news universe and how both MSNBC and CNN are trying to catch up to the ratings leader. Sherman’s deeply reported piece—appropriately titled “Chasing Fox”—made The Cutline’s 2010 list of top long-form magazine writing.

Jonathan Jao will edit the book, which does not yet have a publication date.

It reflects a changing set of rules:  As the show has been pushed off time and time again, “critics have been growing impatient,” says Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times. Some of them “broke protocol and filed assessments even though the show was still incubating in previews.”  No matter whether how you feel about these early reviews, “the outlaw values of the Wild, Wild Web have changed the landscape for the reporter and the reported alike.” But enough is enough. “Until this latest postponement, I haven’t felt any urgency to review the production before its producers deemed it ready. But I think it’s perfectly acceptable for critics to jump the gun on this one.” Let critics be critical when it’s deserved.

I couldn’t wait…to praise it: This show has been in previews for”an unreasonably long period of time,” says Jay Lustig in the Newark Star-Ledger. And “it’s time to go public about the famed web-slinger’s latest incarnation.” It would be “absurd” to wait to write about it when I’ve already seen the show. The thing is, “I ended up enjoying it very much,” and “even in its current state (without the improvements that may follow), it’s worth seeing.” This may be a case where the show will “appeal more to the general public than critics which could explain why “producers want to keep the critics away.” After all,  it’s “the public’s curiosity” that is filling seats right now.

I’m moving forward according to plan: I was planning to stick to the rules, but “the producers of Spider-Man have quite demonstrably abused, confused, and perverted this long tradition of creative civility between theatrical endeavors and media outlets,” says Scott Brown at New York. I will publish a review, “or something not unlike one,” around February 7, when they announced they’d be opening. “This isn’t churlishness, and it isn’t something I plan to make a habit of.” They can keep pushing their date back, but I won’t budge on mine.

I hope the show lasts, so I can see it: I love a good disaster, says Robert Trussell in the Kansas City Star. Since I won’t be in New York City for a while, “I can only hope the producers keep the show running even if it loses buckets of money, which it almost certainly will.” Why do I want to see it? “Some of my fondest memories are watching expensive, ill-conceived shows that improbably made it to Broadway.” These “hubris-fueled catastrophes” are always pleasing, but Spider-Man may take the cake and require theater historians to “make sense of it” someday.

Beck’s story imagines Gore in 2004 and 2005, “doing what second-term presidents do best: micromanaging their legacies.” In Beck’s imagination, the hypothetical President Gore has had a lot of problems since 2000, problems that might look familiar:

The Afghan War had turned sour. Especially since that speech on the aircraft carrier: another perfect photo op gone wrong. It had become a rite of passage for Republican talking heads to bring that MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner up anytime they found themselves within three blocks of a TV camera. Did they even listen to the speech? Gore thought to himself. I didn’t even say “Mission accomplished”! I said we still have “difficult work to do.” I said, “Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed.” I even said that “our mission continues!”

… Sensing vulnerabilities, the right wing went back to basics: boomsticks and babies. The elder statesman of gun rights from the Senate and the co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus teamed up to form a dream team for red-meat Republicans. To defeat the socially conservative Larry Craig–Mark Foley 2004 ticket, Gore needed to fill the Lieberman vacancy with someone centrist, and it hadn’t taken him long to settle on the perfect solution: Get me Arlen. Gore was referring, of course, to bipartisan-esque Republican-ish Senator-for-life Arlen Specter—quite possibly the only human being less dynamic than Joe Lieberman.

Arlen was available. In fact, he had pursued the gig with the visceral lust that teenagers reserved for Googling pictures of Mischa Barton. The subsequent election had been tight, but Gore wasn’t rattled when he lost the popular vote by 1.3 million ballots, since he had prepped for that situation as a just-in-case scenario four years earlier. It’s the electoral vote that counts, he said. That’s what our Founders wanted.

Later in the story, Gore gets a visit from a charismatic young official: “Barry Obama,” his deputy attorney general. (As Beck writes, “Barry had tried to hold out for the top gig at the Department of Justice, but too many questions would be raised if a guy with virtually no experience somehow became attorney general. It was completely implausible.”)

Beck goes fairly easy on Obama, though he continues to mock Gore mercilessly through the end of the piece—in which newly-appointed FEMA director Robert Gibbs (“Gibbs had about as much qualification to deal with natural disasters as he had to be the starting shooting guard for the Miami Heat, but FEMA director was really just a PR job anyway”), asks the president if he’s planning to do anything about Hurricane Katrina.

Gore’s response? “Let’s chat about it tomorrow night. Oh, and Gibby? You’re doing a heckuva job.” Read Beck’s tale in full at NYMag.com.

The three new blogs include The Cutline, a media blog run by Michael Calderone and Joe Pompeo; The Lookout, a blog covering national affairs run by Zachary Roth, Brett Michael Dykes, and Liz Goodwin; and The Ticket, a political blog run by Holly Bailey and Rachel Rose Hartman.

The announcement on the Upshot says:

The Upshot has just given birth to triplets.

Since the site launched in July, we’ve hustled to pull together the most interesting and important news on three core beats: politics, national affairs and media. Our bloggers have broken news and analyzed big stories, pointed out to great stories by other publications, and done our best to offer you a comprehensive media diet.

And you’ve responded. Readers inside and outside of the Yahoo! network have read the site by the millions, shared our stories via email, Twitter and Facebook, and engaged with our bloggers.

So today, we’re launching three new sites dedicated specifically to the topics The Upshot was already covering.

In addition, Advertising Age has a lengthy piece out today about Yahoo’s growth — and struggles — which reveals that although Yahoo! has had layoffs recently on the tech side, they continue to bring in new editorial hires, including Deadspin founder & New York Contributing Editor Will Leitch, who will head up movie coverage. Yahoo also recently hired former Defamer editor Mark Lisanti to head up their entertainment coverage, as well as a number of other bloggers and reporters to fill out their yet-to-launch entertainment and finance blogs.

Although Yahoo is the web’s #1 most-trafficked news site, much of their content has long been syndicated from places like the Associated Press and Reuters.  With the launch of the Upshot and three sister blogs, as well as their growing stable of veteran reporters poached from other media organizations, Yahoo is clearly betting on original content as the key to their success strategy.

The articles’ tones vary drastically. The WSJ‘s Katherine Rosman and Lauren A. E. Schuker offer a measured view of Frey’s operation, noting how little Frey pays the young writers he employs (“they get $250 upon signing and another $250 upon completion of a book”) as well as how successful its first major product, a story called I Am Number Four that’s being adapted into a movie by Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg, has been. New York Magazine‘s Suzanne Mozes, by contrast, is unabashedly negative in her (much-longer) piece. She accuses Frey of rampant exploitation and implies that the bestselling author is an insufferable, amoral egomaniac (“he’s in it to ‘change the game’ and ‘move the paradigm’; he won’t write anything that doesn’t change the world,” she writes).

As it turns out, Mozes has a personal ax to grind against Frey. In her article, she recalls how she was once in talks to write a book for Full Fathom Five. She implies that Frey ultimately declined to work with her because she requested a more equitable contract: “Twenty-eight minutes after I sent an e-mail requesting amendments to the contract, I received an e-mail from Frey rescinding his offer to collaborate. ‘We loved the idea that we eventually arrived at together,’ he wrote. ‘At this time, though, we don’t think this going to work out.’”

Rosman and Schuker, by contrast, have no connection to Frey outside of their article. They do, however, make reference to Mozes’s story in a paragraph describing the disputes authors have had with Full Fathom Five:

Full Fathom Five is already wrapped in real-life drama. One writer hired attorneys to represent him when dealings with Mr. Frey grew contentious (the dispute was settled late last month). Mr. Frey says that a disgruntled writer is working on a magazine story about him. The writer declined comment. “I go to work and try to do cool things. I can’t control what people write about me,” says Mr. Frey.

And there’s more to the story than that. A source familiar with both Frey stories tells us that New York Magazine wasn’t planning to run Mozes’s piece early this morning. The article, supposedly, wasn’t ready yet; the magazine’s editors thought they would have all day to prepare it, since the WSJ‘s story wasn’t supposed to go online until this evening.

The source tells Mediaite that when NY Mag discovered the WSJ‘s story’s true publication date, they scrambled to get Mozes’s piece ready. They called a Frey rep to do some last-minute fact checking, supposedly discovering in the process that eight of the 12 facts they had left to verify were incorrect. The Frey rep they contacted was reportedly so exasperated with New York that he told the mag, “Well, the Wall Street Journal piece is now up, so why don’t you fact check against that?”

Mozes also writes this in her Frey take-down: “Fathom Five has shrouded itself in a degree of secrecy unusual in the publishing world, and Frey declined to participate in this story.” Our source, however, says that Frey did give New York two quotes for Mozes’s story—both of which were rejected. They were:

“For an accurate piece about me and my business, please see The Wall Street Journal.”

-and-

“8 of the 12 ‘facts’ New York Magazine checked with us are wrong, so judge this article accordingly.”

Our take? Frey comes off as kind of a jerk in both articles, though Mozes is clearly biased in her piece—maybe that’s why so many of her facts were supposedly incorrect. Regardless, each story is a great read in its own right. Check them out at WSJ.com and NYMag.com.

While CNN and Fox News are involved, the juiciest tidbits come from where he got the most access – MSNBC. Here’s a roundup of some of the revelations:

First, in the context of MSNBC outcast David Shuster, we get this info about what happens when you tweet about Keith Olbermann:

Last spring, after David Shuster tweeted that he was guest-hosting Countdown while Olbermann was out sick, Olbermann erupted when a blog mentioned Shuster’s tweet and he fired off an e-mail to him saying, “Don’t ever talk about me and medical issues again.” Olbermann’s executive producer later told Shuster that there’s a rule against mentioning Olbermann on Twitter.

Also, Sherman has more information about that new ad campaign shot by Spike Lee. “The network hired Spike Lee to shoot a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign and developed its own obtuse slogan: ‘Lean Forward.’” (Also, Sherman reports MSNBC recently tried to buy the Huffington Post).

With Olbermann as a key source throughout the piece, the MSNBC was a major focus. The entire article kicked off with Olbermann telling the story of how now former CNN President Jon Klein tried to hire him over to CNN.

He told Olbermann he could bring Countdown to CNN—the two even discussed which members of Olbermann’s staff would make the move with him. “Jon and I were in very deep discussions on a regular basis for me to go over there,” says Olbermann. “One of the premises was we would have put MSNBC out of business.”

But according to Sherman, CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton said no, and once Walton expressed his disinterest, Olbermann stepped away from the possibility (again, according to Olbermann). “I bailed out when it became apparent that the people above [Klein] were less than sanguine about this,” he said.

Finally, as quoted as the Countdown host is throughout the piece, he quiets down about one interesting question. Sherman talks about the “tension between morning and night at MSNBC” – with Joe Scarborough describing the “safe house” at Morning Joe. “I have no comment about him,” Olbermann said.

That just scratches the surface. Check out the full story here.

—–
» Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

He also heard from some in the media Stewart covers, including Brian Williams and Glenn Beck.

Williams and Beck seem to envy the freedom of honesty Stewart has. “Jon has chronicled the death of shame in politics and journalism,” says Williams. “Many of us on this side of the journalism tracks often wish we were on Jon’s side. I envy his platform to shout from the mountaintop. He’s a necessary branch of government.” And Beck, a frequent Stewart target, agreed – to some extent.

Jon Stewart is very funny, and if I were in his position, I’d be doing a lot of the same things. In fact, a lot of the jokes I’ve heard before, either from my staff or myself. He takes things out of context (no worse than most of the other mainstream media) and is more interested in being funny than trying to actually understand the key messages in [my] show … But I don’t think he’s looking for a Pulitzer.

The rumored “big announcement” about a Beck-like political event held by Stewart and Stephen Colbert was mentioned briefly. “There’s discussion of a possible Stewart-Colbert public event, a parody of Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally,” writes Smith. “‘Maybe we would do a ‘March of the Reasonable,’ on a date of no particular significance,’ Stewart says.”

Smith also gives a look into Stewart’s print and online daily news consumption, which includes “the New York dailies” but also “Talking Points Memo, Andrew Sullivan, maybe the blogger Allahpundit,” of Hot Air (quite a shout-out!).

Check out the full profile here.

In February, Lehmann secured a book deal based on the columns, which examine the institutions of modern capitalism and a provide “glimpse into how the top one percent maintains an iron grip on almost half of America’s financial wealth.” Last week, Rich People Things became available for preorder, with the release date for preorders slated for September 15. Fans of Lehmann’s column have already been clamoring to order the book — if Lehmann’s columns are any indication, the book promises to be full of his signature mix of biting satire and sharp prose.

This week, I spoke to Lehmann about the book, the column, and the events that led him to write about so-called “Rich People Things” — and Lehmann also provided an excerpt of a chapter for Mediaite readers.

First: tell us a little bit about your book — how would you describe it?

I’d say it’s like a long and sensual walk on the beach with an extremely attractive soulmate. Or else a jaundiced look at a corrupt and wheezing money culture, steeped in denial and free-market propaganda. Take your pick, really.

I tried to keep certain long-ago books on similar themes in mind as I wrote—like Edmund Wilson’s collection of Depression reporting The American Jitters, and Thurman Arnold’s The Folklore of Capitalism. Not that I’d put myself anywhere near such distinguished company, mind you—but both those books sharply expressed the mixture of raw disbelief and restless curiosity about how events conspired to create a catastrophe on the scale of the Great Depression. I’ve seen all too little of that sensibility in reports on our own economic plight, so I’ve tried to revive it a bit, both in the online column for the Awl and in the book.

A curious note about Thurman Arnold, who was a bitterly cynical former antitrust official in the Roosevelt years: There’s an office building named for him now in downtown DC. I can’t tell which is stranger: That there was once a federal appointee who could write a scabrous attack on free-market pieties called The Folklore of Capitalism, or that his most visible legacy is an office building full of bankers and lobbyists toiling unknowingly in his name.

In your first column for the Awl, you talked about your experience working at New York magazine and particularly your reaction to  their “Rage of the Rich” issue in spring 2009. Can you tell us a bit about that experience at New York?

Hoo boy. Well, suffice it to say, after a lot of loose talk about “giving the New Yorker a run for its money” and “reviving long-form literary journalism” and whatnot during my interviews there, I was instantly tasked upon my arrival with overseeing the redesign of “The Strategist” shopping section and its metastasis from 6 or so to 24 or so pages in the magazine. There was also the agonizing meeting to determine the Platonic form of the New York Magazine Cover Story, and the consensus choice was a profile of bag-making ingénue Kate Spade. I blurted out in reply that I would flee the building before I would read such a thing. From then on, let’s just say it became clear to all concerned parties that my hire was less than an ideal fit.

And, what gave you the idea to start writing the Rich People Things column?

The aforementioned New York mag issue. Alex Balk and Choire Sicha had asked me to write for the Awl prior to its launch, but I wasn’t really intending to. (Hello, they still don’t pay contributors!) But I saw that NY mag package, and could imagine all too vividly the process by which it was conceived and executed, and when I resolved I couldn’t remain silent, I also knew that the Awl would probably be the only place to run such a thing. I had no intention of writing a column; Choire had given it the Rich People Things slug, which I believe was coined originally during his tenure at either Gawker or the New York Observer, when he posted that first entry. Alex asked me if I objected afterward, but I couldn’t think of any grounds to complain, partly because I didn’t really understand what the phrase was supposed to mean.

But as it happened, this was the spring of 2009, and the economic indignities just kept on coming. Someone else the following week forwarded me a link to really myopic piece in the Washington Post on Obama’s tax policy, and from then on, I realized this was actually one of the easiest columnizing gigs on the planet—and a good thing, too, since as I mentioned before, it DOESN’T PAY A GODDAMN THING.

You’ve described the book in the past as a ”bestiary of the permanent institutions of American capitalism.” What institutions do you single out the most for analysis and why?

Well, I thought it would be good to use the column’s point of view to examine a lot of things that we take for granted as other-than-rich-people-things in our common life—like the Constitution, the Democratic party, the Supreme Court and whatnot. I also wanted to discuss a few things that were, in the stricter sense of the word, actual things—like the iPad, the art of Damien Hirst, and reality TV. The idea, I think, was to mix more somber historical and political features of economic life with the cultural forces that sustain our beliefs in meritocracy and the gospel of success. Also to keep the tone pretty arch and satirical, since our guiding economic dogmas are many things, but as the events of the past two-plus years or so have shown, they are really not all that rational.

In your columns you’ve referenced those who you call the “are nots.” How do you define this term, and who are you classifying as are-nots?

I think the phrase—which I cribbed from political scientist Marc Landy, if memory serves—invokes the idea that our incomes and wealth-holding don’t match up to our status anxieties. So, for instance, if a Tea Party protestor was absolutely convinced that the Obama stimulus plan was a tax increase—when it was in fact a tax CUT for anyone earning less than 250K a year, you sort of have to conclude that person is protesting something other than their slipping economic footing. What that is, I could only guess at—but it would seem to involve a sense of exclusion from the so-called elites who lay out the economic aims of the liberal state, the Red Army in the lamestream media, the coastal lords of the culture industries and what not. The complaint, near as I can suss out, is that there’s conspiracy afoot among these remote figures to deny, well, something to the overlooked people in the American mainstream. To the extent that something is their own status or sense of self-worth, I think it’s useful to characterize them as “are nots.”

Is any of the book from past Awl columns? How much is new material?

It’s mainly new material—85 percent or so, I’d guess–with some other published work I’ve done in non-Awl outlets also woven in. But since I’ve never really written a book before, I haven’t real mastered the art of repurposing old material in a new format.

Also just to confirm — the official release date is Oct 15, but it’s available for pre-order now, correct?

Yep, it can be pre-ordered now—and the release date for pre-orders, for both the e-book and print version appears to be Sept. 15. This all has something to do with the bold new DIY business model at OR books, but it’s so bold and new that I don’t really grasp it. My editor, the delightful Colin Robinson, constantly tells me, though, that the volume of pre-orders will determine the eventual print run in October, so tell your readers to take pity on an poor old unpaid Awl columnist and pre-order the thing in droves.

********

>>>NEXT: Exclusive excerpt from Rich People Things, featuring New York Times columnist David Brooks! Click if you want to find out if it’s flattering or not.

New York

From the NY Mag report:

CBS News and CNN are in advanced negotiations about signing a news-gathering partnership, according to executives familiar with the discussions. The talks revolve around how the two news divisions can combine operations in a bid to cut costs and expand audiences on both sides. While such conversations have occurred over the last decade, the current news-business climate — plummeting CNN ratings, ever-shrinking evening-news audiences, major layoffs at ABC — make a deal more logical than ever before.

The report notes that both CBS and ABC had expressed interest in a merger in the past, pointing to the successful transfer of NBC talent to MSNBC, but that the final negotiations to on how to share talent and airtime never reached a conclusive point. This time around, because of CNN’s comparatively lackluster ratings in primetime and CBS’ interest in maintaining a news audience against the current of diminishing network news viewers, NY Mag reporter Gabriel Sherman is saying the deal makes “too much sense” from a financial standpoint.

The main issue in the merger– the one that has apparently ended all previous talks between CNN and network news– is the way in which talent would be distributed across networks. As the companies would remain separate entities despite cross-promoting, the balance between the two in making new decisions and giving their talent publicity is the trickiest part of the deal. NY Mag reports that two of the names most likely to make cross-network appearances are Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric, the latter whose contract is will be up for negotiations next year. Sherman posits that Couric would be a possible successor to Larry King, bringing her into cable news primetime.

Because the negotiations are still ongoing, neither network has made public statements on the matter, but the idea is, at the very least, innovative. CNN is already unique among the three biggest cable news outlets because it is not associated with one of the major broadcast networks. Unlike MSNBC or Fox News, a deal like this would allow CNN to remain semi-autonomous but still reap the starpower of a major network, while giving CBS news the backing of television’s first 24-hour news network.

But one tipster pointed us to New York Mag’s slideshow, and their caption for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg…and the incorrect description of his “date.”

Since last night (and as of 8:30amET), New York has the duo identified as “New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Susan Bloomberg.” Unfortunately, Susan and Michael Bloomberg divorced in 1993 – the woman with Bloomberg is Diana Taylor, his longtime girlfriend.

But…who did they wear?

For more on the gala, check out Styleite’s picks for best dressed and worst dressed.

—–
» Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

“We have a two-year program here, and we try like hell to hire women into that program,” says Union Square Ventures’ Wilson (whose office, except for his assistant, is all male). “We tell the world we’ve got this opening, and anybody who’s interested can apply, and it’s 90 percent men who even bother to apply. I mean, I don’t know what the problem is.”

Imagine for a moment that Fred Wilson just gave a start-up a big chunk of money, and a goal. If that goal was 90% a failure, do you think it would be enough if they were just “trying like hell?” If you “don’t know what the problem is,” you tackle it and find out. Fred Wilson knows that, it’s how every single startup is born. But that problem has to first be a priority.

As for “telling the world” — well, it depends how you define “world.” Wilson has advertised it in his popular wee-hours email (see here and here) and on the Union Square Ventures blog (see here and here), but that seems only to be telling his world. And if that world reaches 90% men and you’re trying to bring in women, then maybe a different solution is required. To paraphrase Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley: “To make a foosball table smarter isn’t that different from ‘Let’s make a VC smarter.’ ”

There is a lot to this article — including some friends of mine! — so pardon me for focusing on the demographics first. As Joe Coscarelli pointed out yesterday at the Village Voice, “It’s a boy’s world, still: of the 53 entrepreneurs photographed, only 6 are women.” Sigh. Those odds not only suck, but they don’t reflect my own experience in this milieu — who I see at events, at SXSW, at Tom & Jerry’s. (12% doesn’t even reflect the audience at a New York Tech Meetup, at least in my experience. Though if you’re a single guy on the prowl, you may want to try elsewhere.) These companies don’t run themselves and so many of the crucial team members are women — not necessarily founders, but their right arms and guts and blood — who are integral to strategy and growth and implementation. I’m not saying it would be 26.5 out of 53, but more than 6? It would have to be. Even if you just want to attempt to approximate the ratio in the actual industry.

But Wilson is talking about the people at the top, and I guess NYmag is, too. Paging through the online gallery, I looked for the pic featuring Drop.io, knowing that they’d recently hired Soraya Darabi, an SAI 100 designee and well-known new media/tech industry maven. I know she’s there providing crucial support in the background, but you’d never know it from the pic, featuring three guys. (Sidebar: Apparently being a young tech entrepreneur in New York City also means being photographed upside down.) And of course, more women were mentioned in the article than were shot — Emily Gannett of KlickableTV, Brooke Moreland of Fashism.com, Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson of Gilt Groupe — all which launched before 2010, unlike a number of those photographed.

So: If only 6 out of 53 featured NYC tech superstars are women, then are we using the wrong criteria? And by “we” I mean the royal we – we the media, in the criteria we are using to assess “success,” and in how we the industry are looking to galvanize, recruit and train. I would venture to say yes — below the surface (or, at least according to the average Foursquare leaderboard) there is a robust presence of women — more than 12%, at least! — making things happen and contributing to the whole. If the data is there, and the resources are there, then all that remains is to do something about it. If we can make a foosball table smarter, than surely we can do that.

Tweet Tweet Boom Boom [New York]

Photographs from NYMag.com by Jake Chessum.

Killen’s first outings into the blogosphere were with PopEater, New York Magazine and MTV News, and her only pre-CNN television appearance on her local network news. Through those interviews, Killen has managed to form an image of herself as an everyday girl with everyday hopes whose life was turned upside down by the restlessness of arguably the nation’s most beloved comic. Her food tastes (the main thing Conan focused on) are as widely embraced as they are top-notch and her economic troubles resonate in this economy, too.

And the reviews from the blogs have been almost universally positive (except for Gawker indirectly calling her a shill), praising Sarah for remaining level-headed and humble, and using her newfound fame to raise money for cancer research.

CNN anchors Kiran Chetry and John Roberts continued to shower praise on her– and her fiancee, who had not actually spoken in public before– while having unexpectedly unveiled a side of Killen it appears she had been trying to hide from the public. For the first time since her fateful Friday, Killen lost her deer-in-the-headlights look and let herself enjoy the moment a bit, describing the perks of fame that have come her way: wine, a limo, and a wedding dress for her big day, a new computer, and meeting rapper Ludacris, for a start.

Her fiancee John described himself as her “manager”– the first indication that Killen may perhaps be keen on making her fifteen minutes in the spotlight as long as possible. Chetry and Roberts replied to the “manager” comment with what was perhaps the most offensive part of the interview, citing what seems to be the only celebrity couple they could think of that was famous without actually doing anything worthy of attracting the spotlight. Watch the couple reel in disgust as they are compared to Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag (and talk about their post-Conan lives!) below (also, Killen is back on CNN tonight, appearing on Larry King Live:

Be warned: depending on the depth and genus of your news-addiction, “My Town of Kind” may also induce sensations in the realm of déjà vu.

Conceptually, “My Town” is a flashy number.  It postulates, and then analyzes, an epidemic of politeness sweeping the nether regions of the web.  Blogs, comment-boards, Twitter – until recently, these places were little more than steam-rooms for pissed-off subliterates.  Now, Ms. Bryan observes, “wide swaths of the Web have become bastions of support and earnest civility.”  So “My Town” has that in its favor already: a good idea.  To boot, the author wields a brisk and able prose-style.  Lightly jaded, unflaggingly urbane, her tone is pure Observer.

Yet “My Town” is also mortifying, in its way, and a sign of The NYO’s quickening decline.

Here’s why.  Chronic readers of classy-glossy NYC weeklies may have noticed a piece in New York Magazine’s “Daily Intel” section last December.  Its title was “The Warm-Fuzzy Web”, and it was written by Doree Shafrir, formerly of – wait for it – none other than The NY Observer.  It’s about the epidemic of politeness sweeping the nether regions of the web . . .

To say the two pieces bear something of a resemblance to one another would be a little like saying Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” (2007) bears something of a resemblance to Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” (1997) – an understatement flirting with mental illness.

Aside from the basic sameness of their gist (and The NYO piece, damningly, neither nods nor links to its “Intel” precursor), the articles follow gravely parallel trajectories.

Both quote media consultants about how cynicism and sarcasm flop online.  Both comment on the obsession, bred by social media, with hoarding friends and followers.  Both note how this M.O. has superseded the anonymous shit-flinging of the Internet’s teen-years. Both express a certain nostalgia for these bygone anonymous shift-flingers.  Both quote David Karp going on rather mind-numblingly about how well-behaved everybody is on Tumblr, which he founded.  And both pause to note, catalogue-style, the ingenuity with which social media stymie the visitor who wishes to vent his displeasure.  Here’s Shafrir:

On Facebook, we can only “like” things that people post; on Tumblr, there’s likewise only a “heart” button to indicate our approval. Twitter has a star. When people write things on Facebook or Tumblr or Twitter that we disagree with or simply find disagreeable, we can block them without their knowledge of our disapproval, and we never again have to see their posts about how much Going Rogue speaks to them.

And here’s Bryan:

To “like” someone’s post [on Tumblr] is to click on a heart-shaped symbol—an easy, “friction-less” gesture, [Karp] said—but there is no way to express the opposite if you find the post vaguely illiterate. (Similarly, on Facebook, there is no thumbs-down symbol.) There is however plenty to gain in terms of followers for your own blog if you opt to re-post people’s posts and add your own witty, positive commentary. Unlike many vicious Web commenters, users of these social-media platforms can be de-friended, unfollowed, ignored and potentially silenced by the platform itself.

This isn’t plagiarism, of course.  What it is is evidence of an idea-drought compounded by a near-total evaporation of pride.  Not a year after wrapping up one of the more sanguinary house-cleanings in recent memory (even the cleaning-lady got sacked), The NYO has been reduced to running slavish retreads of articles penned months earlier by writers they once employed.  And not just that: The NYO is affording these retreads marquee placement on their website.

Even the steeliest connoisseur of comeuppance has to find this sadder than funny.  From rags to riches, and back again, the bass-ackwards fairy-tale of a highbrow broadsheet . . .

While we’re feeling superior: check out the cover story. For our friends in the media industry, it should be considered inspirational. For if you’re struggling every day to publish magazines and newspapers that, unfortunately, probably won’t be along much longer (or websites that, unfortunately, will) – at least you’re not making $23,200 a year.*

That princely sum was the 1977 annual salary of Eileen Shields, Time‘s New York reporter. On the plus side, it was a 10% jump over her $21,000 1975 salary. In 2010, twenty-one grand is below the Federal poverty level for a family of four.

Ms. Shields wasn’t alone – the Times‘ Judy Klemesrud made only $37,000. Eugene Maleska, that era’s Will Shortz, got $26,000 (earning a place on the magazine’s “Cushiest Jobs in Town” call-out). Peter Fleischmann, Chairman of The New Yorker, only got $76,800. I know people that make more than that! (Demonstrating that 1977′s priorities weren’t completely out of whack with our own, A. O. Sulzberger pulled in a much more robust $285,000 – just over a million dollars in 2010 money.)

Hundreds of salaries are detailed. Sandy, the dog from Annie (which is also reviewed in this issue), earned $200 a week, twice as much as the doorman with whom he shares the cover. Mario Cuomo, then Secretary of State, made $47,800 – bested by “Duane”, a pimp in Midtown who made $54,000. (See, media drones! Some of you are making more than stereotypical late ’70s pimps!)

The list is amazing – so many names you recognize in jobs that you didn’t know they held. (David Dinkins was City Clerk! John Marr was the city’s Chief Epidemiologist!) Here is the list, in full.

New York has done this since, multiple times, most recently (as far as I can tell), in 2005. This newest list is also very much worth a look, if only to see the athletes and now-disgraced titans of industry and who make their 1977 counterparts look like relative hobos. (Lehman’s Dick Fuld made $35,000,000 in 2005; Frank Cary, CEO of IBM, earned $595,000 28 years prior. Raise your hand if you still do business with Lehman Brothers.)

These comparisons aren’t fair, of course. A dollar in 1977 isn’t the same as a dollar today. (In fact, a 1977 dollar is worth about three-and-a-half times a 2010 dollar.) But it’s more fun comparing your salary to Rose Ann Scamardella‘s $60,000 annual earnings than her actual $214,000-in-2010-dollars haul. (“Tony”, who passed out flyers for the Harem massage parlor, gets boosted from $3 an hour to only $10, so feel free to act superior.)

So ignore those dollar conversions. Our goal here is to make you feel rich, that you’re worth more than the Director of the FBI ($42,500) or the Chancellor of schools ($53,000) or, at the very least, the Chair of the Arts Department at Paterson State College ($16,993). And here’s another way to feel better. Punch your salary, however meager, into the Global Rich List calculator, and you’ll learn that, pretty much no matter what, you’re in the 95% of wealth in the world. (Don’t ruminate on what that means for the rest of the world. Just feel rich.)

I’ll leave you with one last ego boost. Robert Moses, the architect of much of modern New York City transportation, earned $35,000 in 1977. In 2005, New York‘s survey discovered that Anna Wintour‘s assistant made $40,000. I think we can all agree that when assistants at magazines earn more than public servants, it’s a sign that the universe is shifting into proper alignment.

Just don’t adjust for 2005 dollars.

* Unless, of course, you do. In which case… man. I mean… man.

Gawker in 2005, featuring Denton, Coen and Johnson

New York magazine lost two high-ranking employees this week, as announcements surfaced that deputy editor Hugo Lindgren would move to the revamped Bloomberg BusinessWeek, while online managing editor Jessica Coen would reenter the Gawker Media world that spawned her, this time as executive editor of the women’s blog Jezebel.

But apart from possible bellwether changes at New York, Gawker Media’s reacquisition of Coen is the fourth in a recent trend: medium-to-high profile bloggers and reporters, nursed as neophytes on Nick Denton‘s teat, coming back to Gawker Media for a second time. Doree Shafrir, Richard Lawson, Joel Johnson and Jessica Coen: If these names make you think of people you follow on Twitter or Tumblr, read on. It seems like their movement — usually away from corporate or old guard institutions — means that this is the future. Right here on the internet?

Gawker used Lindgren leaving the side of his longtime leader, New York editor-in-chief Adam Moss, to chronicle the dying breed of a true Number Two, or the “trusted confidante on staff,” but more interesting is the byline on the piece: Doree Shafrir, a former Gawker.com editor who returned at the start of the new year after a stint at the New York Observer. Now a contributor under the “Culture” umbrella, Shafrir seems to have brought her Observer-style conceptual trend pieces (usually NYC-centric, naturally) back to the flagship site, enjoying both editorial freedom and a relaxed posting schedule. She’s earned it, as a veteran of the NYC media clusterfuck/graveyard/dating pool/drinking team/etc. and the site is richer with her back, whether at a post a month or a post a day.

But it’s also a deliberate move, not unlike hiring John Cook as the “Investigations” team. Denton has gone legitimate and is gunning for a dynasty with long term investments. The moves are also as symbolic as they are practical, with overlord Denton snatching back polished and influential writers that he may see as rightfully his from the more “respectable” companies they bailed for in the first place.

Come with me, if you will, to the sports world, just for one paragraph: Gawker Media was once a minor league team, whipping prospects into shape before shipping them to the big leagues — Vanity Fair, the Observer, New York and more. But in a few turbulent years, the Major League teams (Old Media) struggled financially, leading to an arguable drop in quality. Gawker, in the minors where the costs and pressures were less, started playing better ball, eventually competing with (and beating!) more established teams. With newfound money and respect, they have the cash and cachet to buy back their now fully formed former prospects.

This evolution, for those who have been following the New Media Cabal for years, was teased in the oft-cited n+1 piece (obituary?) “Gawker 2002-2007″ by Carla Blumenkranz, but her analysis ended prematurely and her prediction was unnecessarily grave. The piece told tale of a scrappy upstart truly gawking at its idols-turned-victims-turned-bosses: cutting media’s real stars (Tina Brown, Anna Wintour) down to size, ultimately in hopes of impressing (or at least embarrassing) them. A site history follows, from O.G. gawker (lower-case) Elizabeth Spiers to Coen, Emily Gould and Choire Sicha (twice, too!).

Then, the eventual attempted guillotine from n+1: “You could say that as Gawker Media grew, from Gawker’s success, Gawker outlived the conditions for its existence.” Except that three years later it hasn’t. Now, some people who don’t read literary magazines are paying attention. New York is no longer the only audience, like New York is no longer an endgame.

>>>NEXT: More on Jessica Coen, Gawker Media’s future and Nick Denton’s ambition…

While New York‘s assumption speaks to the persistence of the sexual status quo and heteronormativity, Out‘s teasing, hinting and winking plays a game of sexual politics that seems beneath them as a forward-thinking publication and unfair to a young, serious actor who should be above a tabloid treatment. Comparing and contrasting the handling of sexuality — doubtlessly a centerpiece in both articles — it appears that the chasm between the establishment entertainment press and gay publications sparks an ultimately shallow conversation — salacious, sure, but that shouldn’t be the point.

In the New York piece, the reporter asks Dancy and Whishaw if they had hesitations about playing an “explicit gay role” since they’re both straight, a statement presumably predicated on one being married and the other never having been confirmed as anything but. (Disclosure: Mike Vilensky, New York‘s reporter, is a friend.) Dancy, the married one, matter-of-factly says “no,” while Whishaw evades the question altogether and says that the play is about “people wanting to know themselves better.” Later, when asked what traps his character faces in 2008, Whishaw says: “Very specifically gayness. Or his sexuality.” His character and his craft should be more important than the actor’s sexuality, but that might not sell magazines.

An anecdote is also relayed in the interview where Whishaw says “We’re like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna do the [gay] sex scene! [Claps.] So pull down your pants.” Even if some of these quotes seem to imply something, New York focuses on the raunchy aspects of the play and doesn’t quite plow into Whishaw’s sexuality, leaving it at an unconfirmed straight.

Out on the other hand, makes Whishaw’s ambiguous sexuality the crux of its piece, and the mag virtually calls him a homosexual. “I was really drawn to Cock,” they quote Whishaw, who was referring to his play, titled Cock. “But it’s Whishaw’s most recent choice of theater roles that has been his most intriguing,” author Gareth McLean writes, and then states that Whishaw plays gay in those roles, implying that his straight roles are less “intriguing” to the gay magazine. But if they’re just making a case for his gayness, it’s at least a compelling one:

Asked if he thinks it’s important for young gay people to have positive role models, his ambivalence vanishes. “I really agree with that, and I feel in my heart that it’s important, but I don’t quite know yet the way to go about that. Maybe that’s the transitional thing I feel I’m in the middle of at the moment. It’s something I think about, but it’s important for me to do it at the time that’s right for me. And I’m not there yet.”

That quote sounds like as close to a confession as one’s going to get from him right now, but the author kind of brushes over it, which makes it an odd moment. The whole point of Out‘s story seems to be to out Whishaw, whether he’s actually gay or not, and since this quote almost does, it’s sort of curious that the author remains ultimately ambiguous about Whishaw’s sexuality. Was the quote out of context? Is he trying to respect Whishaw’s privacy? He ends the story with, “And with that, Ben Whishaw walks off through the throng in the bar and is gone. If, that is, he was ever here in the first place.”

Today, Gawker noticed the discrepancy between the two pieces, also noted by Michael Musto and Out editor-in-chief at the Village Voice, arguing that though Whishaw never states his sexuality explicitly, “he makes it pretty easy to read between the lines.” And yet, to be sure, not everyone to ever appear in Out magazine identifies as homosexual, and his role in The Pride alone should earn Whishaw a newsworthy press appearance.

Gawker, though, points out that New York removed the line calling both actors straight from the online version of the piece. That could be seen as a “concession,” or New York merely not wanting to be in direct opposition to a parallel article running simultaneously. But the case of Whishaw aside, does a niche magazine feel they must shoehorn every subject into their pages? And can the same be said for a more “mainstream” magazine, even one as progressive and open as New York? Again, it’s a shame that this is the only part of the young actor’s story anyone will talk about.

Whishaw addresses the media’s different takes on him in Out: “As an actor you have total rights to privacy and mystery, whatever your sexuality, whatever you do. But at the same time I know this is a gay magazine and that means there’s a conflict there.”

While New York doesn’t delve right into the is-he-or-isn’t-he game, it seems like a young, attractive actor who doesn’t comment on his sexuality remains a Straight Actor (with rumors) to the mainstream press, and the gay press can’t write about him without at least implying that he’s really a Gay Actor.

Sherman’s breaking news exclusive continues, short on specifics but long on analysis and insider quotes:

One personal friend of Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days, and a senior newsroom source agreed, adding that the plan could be announced in a matter of weeks. (Apple’s tablet computer is rumored to launch on January 27, and sources speculate that Sulzberger will strike a content partnership for the new device, which could dovetail with the paid strategy.) It will likely be months before the Times actually begins to charge for content, perhaps sometime this spring. Executive Editor Bill Keller declined to comment. Times spokesperson Diane McNulty said: “We’ll announce a decision when we believe that we have crafted the best possible business approach. No details till then.”

For much more on the New York Times decision process in charging for online content, read the rest of Sherman’s report here.

We interviewed some of the major figures in the book more than half a dozen times. We had interviews that lasted up to 6 or 7 hours. It was not at all unusual for our interviews, over 300 interviews with over 200 people, to last several hours. That was the norm.

No one, of course, is doubting that these interviews took place. It’s more the nature of the interviews and under what rules they were conducted and how they were attributed that is causing the furor: there are a lot of anonymous quotes in this book and a lot of supposed in-the-room recountings, which no doubt are far easier to make when you don’t suffer under the fear of retribution or vetting. Per HuffPo’s Jason Linkins:

In their book, Halperin and Heilemann establish a set of rules governing how things are attributed and what quotation marks are meant to convey in their authors’ note: “Where dialogue is in quotation marks, it comes from the speaker, someone who was present and heard the remark, contemporaneous notes, or transcripts. Where dialogue is not in quotes, it is paraphrased, reflecting only a lack of certainty on the part of our sources about precise wording, not about the nature of the statements. Where specific thoughts, feelings, or states of mind are rendered in italics, they come from either the person identified or someone to whom she or he expressed those thoughts or feelings directly.”

So if these guidelines were followed, how then did Harry Reid’s “negro dialect” comment get reported but the identity of Bill Clinton’s supposed girlfriend did not? Reid says he was under the impression his remark, and discussion with the “two disarmingly charming book authors” was off-the-record. In Politico’s account of how the quote came about they say “Capitol Hill veterans said there was no way that such inflammatory words from a Senate majority leader would remain off the record, even if that had been the arrangement.” Which, as Linkins points out is utterly “absurd” and galling. Andrew Sullivan says he “cannot square this story with the principles of ethical journalism as laid out by the authors themselves.”

Of course, what all this anonymous sourcing also leaves itself open to is cries of stories being distorted, which Sarah Palin was happy to make last night on the O’Reilly Factor “These reporters weren’t there…I don’t think I have ever met these guys. They certainly didn’t interview me for the book.”

Is the lesson here that nothing should be considered off-the-record anymore? Fairly or not, the easy access of the blogosphere and Twitter has put a lot of things up for fair game that would have otherwise remained under wraps. Remember Obama’s “jackass” remark? That was also supposed to be off the record but made it on to Twitter courtesy of veteran journo Terry Moran. It would appear, that like it or not, Halperin has merely taken the new journalism ethos of Twitter (with some original The Note added in) and applied it to campaign book publishing.