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		<title>Michael Malice Will Write an Autobiography of Kim Jong-il</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2013/03/michael-malice-will-write-an-autobiography-of-kim-jong-il/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:48:19 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2013/03/michael-malice-will-write-an-autobiography-of-kim-jong-il/</link>
			<dc:creator>Matthew Kassel</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=293954</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_293956" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 205px"><a href="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/kim-jong-il.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-293956" alt="Kim Jong-il (Wikimedia Commons)" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/kim-jong-il.jpg" width="195" height="266" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Kim Jong-il (Wikimedia Commons)</p></div></p>
<p>Michael Malice, the celebrity ghost writer, recently raised <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1030212426/kim-jong-il-the-unauthorized-autobiography">more than $30,000</a> on Kickstarter to write an autobiography of Kim Jong-il.</p>
<p>Mr. Malice never met Mr. Kim, who died in 2011, but he has traveled to North Korea, where he got a bunch of books about the dictator for research purposes. The title of the book, which Mr. Malice will write from Mr. Kim's perspective, will be <em>Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il.</em></p>
<p>In February, Mr. Malice <a href="http://observer.com/2013/02/help-michael-malice-write-an-autobiography-of-kim-jong-il/">told me in an email</a> that the first line of the book will be: "I remember the day when I was born perfectly."</p>
<p>I reached out to Mr. Malice via email this afternoon with a couple of follow-ups. He told me that he plans to to finish the book by October, though he hasn't started writing it yet.</p>
<p>Won't it be weird thinking from Mr. Kim's perspective?</p>
<p>"not weird thinking from his perspective at all since it's very simplistic," Mr. Malice bluntly replied, lower case his.</p>
<p>The late cartoonist Harvey Pekar published a book in 2006 called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Hubris-Michael-Malice-Story/dp/0345479394"><i>Ego &amp; Hubris: The Michael Malice Story</i>.</a> Based on the title of that book, I asked Mr. Malice if he at all relates to Mr. Kim's hubristic nature.</p>
<p>"well, I have to relate to anyone I write for. that's the nature of the work," Mr. Malice wrote. "But I think his nature is quite different from mine, I mean the man has hundreds of thousands of people in concentration camps. and he also knowingly spreads lies to his entire country."</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_293956" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 205px"><a href="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/kim-jong-il.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-293956" alt="Kim Jong-il (Wikimedia Commons)" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/kim-jong-il.jpg" width="195" height="266" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Kim Jong-il (Wikimedia Commons)</p></div></p>
<p>Michael Malice, the celebrity ghost writer, recently raised <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1030212426/kim-jong-il-the-unauthorized-autobiography">more than $30,000</a> on Kickstarter to write an autobiography of Kim Jong-il.</p>
<p>Mr. Malice never met Mr. Kim, who died in 2011, but he has traveled to North Korea, where he got a bunch of books about the dictator for research purposes. The title of the book, which Mr. Malice will write from Mr. Kim's perspective, will be <em>Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il.</em></p>
<p>In February, Mr. Malice <a href="http://observer.com/2013/02/help-michael-malice-write-an-autobiography-of-kim-jong-il/">told me in an email</a> that the first line of the book will be: "I remember the day when I was born perfectly."</p>
<p>I reached out to Mr. Malice via email this afternoon with a couple of follow-ups. He told me that he plans to to finish the book by October, though he hasn't started writing it yet.</p>
<p>Won't it be weird thinking from Mr. Kim's perspective?</p>
<p>"not weird thinking from his perspective at all since it's very simplistic," Mr. Malice bluntly replied, lower case his.</p>
<p>The late cartoonist Harvey Pekar published a book in 2006 called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Hubris-Michael-Malice-Story/dp/0345479394"><i>Ego &amp; Hubris: The Michael Malice Story</i>.</a> Based on the title of that book, I asked Mr. Malice if he at all relates to Mr. Kim's hubristic nature.</p>
<p>"well, I have to relate to anyone I write for. that's the nature of the work," Mr. Malice wrote. "But I think his nature is quite different from mine, I mean the man has hundreds of thousands of people in concentration camps. and he also knowingly spreads lies to his entire country."</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html">mkasselobserver</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Kim Jong-il (Wikimedia Commons)</media:title>
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		<title>Daily Beast&#8217;s Robin Givhan: Enough About Michelle&#8217;s Clothes!</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/11/beasts-robin-givhan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Nov 2012 11:59:32 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/11/beasts-robin-givhan/</link>
			<dc:creator>Daniel D'Addario</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=275255</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><em></em></p>
<p><div id="attachment_275264" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 209px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/11/beasts-robin-givhan-leave-michelle-alone/calvin-klein-collection-front-row-spring-2012-mercedes-benz-fashion-week/" rel="attachment wp-att-275264"><img class="size-medium wp-image-275264" title="Robin Givhan (Getty Images)" alt="" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/125078597.jpg?w=199" height="300" width="199" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Robin Givhan (Getty Images)</p></div></p>
<p><em>Newsweek</em>/The Daily Beast's fashion critic, Robin Givhan, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/05/first-lady-fashion-fatigue.html">has published an essay today</a> pleading for an end to the discussion of Michelle Obama's clothing--or, at least, "breathless, fanzine-style chronicling of her attire."<!--more--></p>
<p>"[T]he flood of Joan Rivers-style verbiage about her day-to-day wardrobe has overwhelmed those nuanced conversations" about Ms. Obama's role as a fashion industry ambassador and the degree to which she could occupy both public and private lives.</p>
<p>The diatribe, consistent with Ms. Givhan's longstanding position on assessing clothes through a political lens (she won a Pulitzer for similar work at the <em>Washington Post</em>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Givhan-published-Triumph-Paperback/dp/B008JM9NXG/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352133630&amp;sr=8-6&amp;keywords=robin+givhan">wrote a book</a> on Ms. Obama's first year as First Lady), shares the page with a very apt example of the phenomenon Ms. Givhan decries. Just above the pullquote "Every garment is not symbolic. Every dress is not fraught with meaning" resides a link to the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2010/05/07/first-lady-fashion.html#1d4a4e52-e02e-43b4-9e4f-cabd9da45afb">"Michelle Obama Lookbook,"</a> a 91-page slideshow of garments either devoid or possessed of meaning.</p>
<p>Either way, they're mesmerizing to click through.</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em></em></p>
<p><div id="attachment_275264" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 209px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/11/beasts-robin-givhan-leave-michelle-alone/calvin-klein-collection-front-row-spring-2012-mercedes-benz-fashion-week/" rel="attachment wp-att-275264"><img class="size-medium wp-image-275264" title="Robin Givhan (Getty Images)" alt="" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/125078597.jpg?w=199" height="300" width="199" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Robin Givhan (Getty Images)</p></div></p>
<p><em>Newsweek</em>/The Daily Beast's fashion critic, Robin Givhan, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/05/first-lady-fashion-fatigue.html">has published an essay today</a> pleading for an end to the discussion of Michelle Obama's clothing--or, at least, "breathless, fanzine-style chronicling of her attire."<!--more--></p>
<p>"[T]he flood of Joan Rivers-style verbiage about her day-to-day wardrobe has overwhelmed those nuanced conversations" about Ms. Obama's role as a fashion industry ambassador and the degree to which she could occupy both public and private lives.</p>
<p>The diatribe, consistent with Ms. Givhan's longstanding position on assessing clothes through a political lens (she won a Pulitzer for similar work at the <em>Washington Post</em>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Givhan-published-Triumph-Paperback/dp/B008JM9NXG/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352133630&amp;sr=8-6&amp;keywords=robin+givhan">wrote a book</a> on Ms. Obama's first year as First Lady), shares the page with a very apt example of the phenomenon Ms. Givhan decries. Just above the pullquote "Every garment is not symbolic. Every dress is not fraught with meaning" resides a link to the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2010/05/07/first-lady-fashion.html#1d4a4e52-e02e-43b4-9e4f-cabd9da45afb">"Michelle Obama Lookbook,"</a> a 91-page slideshow of garments either devoid or possessed of meaning.</p>
<p>Either way, they're mesmerizing to click through.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html">ddaddarioobserver</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Robin Givhan (Getty Images)</media:title>
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		<title>Dave Karger Leaves Entertainment Weekly for Fandango</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/09/dave-karger-leaves-entertainment-weekly-for-fandango/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:24:46 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/09/dave-karger-leaves-entertainment-weekly-for-fandango/</link>
			<dc:creator>Daniel D'Addario</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=266195</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/09/dave-karger-leaves-entertainment-weekly-for-fandango/scaled/" rel="attachment wp-att-266201"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-266201" title="scaled" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/scaled.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>Dave Karger, perhaps the most widely-known awards-season journalist (yes), has left his longtime perch at <em>Entertainment Weekly </em>for a newly-created position at movie-ticket vendor Fandango, <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/fandango-com-hires-away-entertainment-weeklys-longtime-oscar-expert/?smid=tw-mediadecodernyt&amp;seid=auto">reports the <em>Times</em></a>. Mr. Karger, who frequently does media hits in the (roughly) November to February "Oscar season," will report to an integrated marketing executive, fitting given the dearth of editorial employees at Fandango, which is only now broadening its online offerings in hopes of attracting further advertisers.</p>
<p>It's not all bad news for the Time Inc. entertainment magazine--they <a href="http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2012/09/geoff_boucher_joins_enter.php">recently gained</a> longtime <em>L.A. Times </em>entertainment reporter Geoff Boucher, <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2012/09/geoff-boucher-joining-ew-and-jj-abrams/">prompting Nikki Finke</a> to announce she'd never tried to hire him. Okay!</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/09/dave-karger-leaves-entertainment-weekly-for-fandango/scaled/" rel="attachment wp-att-266201"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-266201" title="scaled" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/scaled.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>Dave Karger, perhaps the most widely-known awards-season journalist (yes), has left his longtime perch at <em>Entertainment Weekly </em>for a newly-created position at movie-ticket vendor Fandango, <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/fandango-com-hires-away-entertainment-weeklys-longtime-oscar-expert/?smid=tw-mediadecodernyt&amp;seid=auto">reports the <em>Times</em></a>. Mr. Karger, who frequently does media hits in the (roughly) November to February "Oscar season," will report to an integrated marketing executive, fitting given the dearth of editorial employees at Fandango, which is only now broadening its online offerings in hopes of attracting further advertisers.</p>
<p>It's not all bad news for the Time Inc. entertainment magazine--they <a href="http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2012/09/geoff_boucher_joins_enter.php">recently gained</a> longtime <em>L.A. Times </em>entertainment reporter Geoff Boucher, <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2012/09/geoff-boucher-joining-ew-and-jj-abrams/">prompting Nikki Finke</a> to announce she'd never tried to hire him. Okay!</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html">ddaddarioobserver</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/scaled.jpg?w=300" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">scaled</media:title>
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		<title>Asking Price for Variety? $30 Million or Less</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/09/asking-price-for-variety-30-million-or-less/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:41:31 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/09/asking-price-for-variety-30-million-or-less/</link>
			<dc:creator>Daniel D'Addario</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=261745</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/09/asking-price-for-variety-30-million-or-less/variety-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-261755"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-261755" title="Variety" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/variety-cover.jpg?w=233" alt="" width="233" height="300" /></a><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/variety_race_day_Rz32ze4gmPgaMSNTkAYYrN">Keith Kelly at the <em>Post </em>reports</a> that Reed Elsevier has cut the asking price for Hollywood trade rag <em>Variety </em>to under $30 million, from over $40 million. The leading bidders include Jay Penske's Penske Media Corporation, which owns Nikki Finke's Deadline and Bonnie Fuller's Hollywood Life, and would, Mr. Kelly speculates, benefit from ensuring no rival can revamp the attenuated, paywall-restricted <em>Variety.</em></p>
<p><em>Variety </em>and <em>The Hollywood Reporter</em> historically battled as the movie industry's two top trades, but <em>THR</em>, in the era of editor Janice Min, has become a more general-interest magazine, while sites like Deadline garner the scoops that the trades once received. <em>Variety </em>has valuable real estate but a precarious position--it's the last of its kind.</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/09/asking-price-for-variety-30-million-or-less/variety-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-261755"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-261755" title="Variety" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/variety-cover.jpg?w=233" alt="" width="233" height="300" /></a><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/variety_race_day_Rz32ze4gmPgaMSNTkAYYrN">Keith Kelly at the <em>Post </em>reports</a> that Reed Elsevier has cut the asking price for Hollywood trade rag <em>Variety </em>to under $30 million, from over $40 million. The leading bidders include Jay Penske's Penske Media Corporation, which owns Nikki Finke's Deadline and Bonnie Fuller's Hollywood Life, and would, Mr. Kelly speculates, benefit from ensuring no rival can revamp the attenuated, paywall-restricted <em>Variety.</em></p>
<p><em>Variety </em>and <em>The Hollywood Reporter</em> historically battled as the movie industry's two top trades, but <em>THR</em>, in the era of editor Janice Min, has become a more general-interest magazine, while sites like Deadline garner the scoops that the trades once received. <em>Variety </em>has valuable real estate but a precarious position--it's the last of its kind.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<media:content url="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/variety-cover.jpg?w=233" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Variety</media:title>
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		<title>Fun, Fearless, Future: Joanna Coles Named New Editor of Cosmo</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/09/fun-fearless-future-joanna-coles-named-new-editor-of-cosmo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:27:52 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/09/fun-fearless-future-joanna-coles-named-new-editor-of-cosmo/</link>
			<dc:creator>Megan McCarthy</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=260764</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>The Fall Fashion Season began with a complex game of editorial musical chairs at Hearst this morning. Current <em>Marie Claire</em> editor <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/new-editor-at-cosmopolitan-joanna-coles-replaces-kate-white/">Joanna Coles has been named editor of famed women's title</a> <em>Cosmopolitan</em>, replacing a retiring Kate White. <em>Brides</em> editor <a href="http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/anne-fulenwider-to-head-marie-claire-6218504">Anne Fulenwider will replace Coles at <em>Marie Claire</em></a>. As of this publication time, no one has been engaged for the <em>Brides</em> editorship yet.</p>
<p>In case you've ever wanted to see what life as a women's magazine editor-in-chief entails, Cosmo released a behind-the-scene video where Coles practices her new editorial focuses, answering questions about the 365 sex positions a day iPhone app (order the "Linguine"!) and unintentionally displaying her multitasking ability to respond to questions while staring intently at her iPhone.</p>
<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=063Sq7LgUmI</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Fall Fashion Season began with a complex game of editorial musical chairs at Hearst this morning. Current <em>Marie Claire</em> editor <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/new-editor-at-cosmopolitan-joanna-coles-replaces-kate-white/">Joanna Coles has been named editor of famed women's title</a> <em>Cosmopolitan</em>, replacing a retiring Kate White. <em>Brides</em> editor <a href="http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/anne-fulenwider-to-head-marie-claire-6218504">Anne Fulenwider will replace Coles at <em>Marie Claire</em></a>. As of this publication time, no one has been engaged for the <em>Brides</em> editorship yet.</p>
<p>In case you've ever wanted to see what life as a women's magazine editor-in-chief entails, Cosmo released a behind-the-scene video where Coles practices her new editorial focuses, answering questions about the 365 sex positions a day iPhone app (order the "Linguine"!) and unintentionally displaying her multitasking ability to respond to questions while staring intently at her iPhone.</p>
<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=063Sq7LgUmI</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html">jhanasobserver</media:title>
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		<title>Sally Singer Departing Times Company</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/08/sally-singer-departing-times-company/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:58:50 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/08/sally-singer-departing-times-company/</link>
			<dc:creator>Daniel D'Addario</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=259820</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/08/sally-singer-departing-times-company/sally_0_0/" rel="attachment wp-att-259822"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-259822" title="Sally" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/sally_0_0.jpg" alt="" width="242" height="241" /></a>Sally Singer, the editor of <em>T</em>, the <em>Times </em>style magazine, is to depart the magazine and the company by the end of the week, <a href="http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/sally-singer-out-at-t-6200721?src=nl/newsAlert/20120828-4">reports <em>WWD</em></a>, which has a memo from the paper's editor Jill Abramson. "<a href="http://observer.com/2010/06/whoa-sally-singer-named-editor-of-it-magazinei/">Arthur Sulzberger Jr. just stunned the city</a>," this paper wrote when Ms. Singer was hired in 2010 from <em>Vogue</em>; she'd been known for her literary and intellectual bent rather than a deep interest in the sort of fashion industry fluff that tends to sell ad pages. No word, yet, on what the future holds either for the onetime Condé Nast wunderkind or for the magazine she ran at the <em>Times</em>.</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/08/sally-singer-departing-times-company/sally_0_0/" rel="attachment wp-att-259822"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-259822" title="Sally" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/sally_0_0.jpg" alt="" width="242" height="241" /></a>Sally Singer, the editor of <em>T</em>, the <em>Times </em>style magazine, is to depart the magazine and the company by the end of the week, <a href="http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/sally-singer-out-at-t-6200721?src=nl/newsAlert/20120828-4">reports <em>WWD</em></a>, which has a memo from the paper's editor Jill Abramson. "<a href="http://observer.com/2010/06/whoa-sally-singer-named-editor-of-it-magazinei/">Arthur Sulzberger Jr. just stunned the city</a>," this paper wrote when Ms. Singer was hired in 2010 from <em>Vogue</em>; she'd been known for her literary and intellectual bent rather than a deep interest in the sort of fashion industry fluff that tends to sell ad pages. No word, yet, on what the future holds either for the onetime Condé Nast wunderkind or for the magazine she ran at the <em>Times</em>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html">Sally</media:title>
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		<title>L&#8217;Affaire Lehrer: In Defense of Jonah</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/08/laffaire-lehrer-sticking-up-for-jonah/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:35:30 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/08/laffaire-lehrer-sticking-up-for-jonah/</link>
			<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=255150</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_255167" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/08/laffaire-lehrer-sticking-up-for-jonah/thelavinagency-com/" rel="attachment wp-att-255167"><img class="size-medium wp-image-255167" title="thelavinagency.com" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/lehrer.jpeg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="258" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Lehrer.</p></div></p>
<p><em>Amid the pile-on of denunciations of Jonah Lehrer, the </em>New<em> </em>Yorker<em> writer whose <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions">invention of a Bob Dylan quote</a> was uncovered earlier this week by <a href="http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-bob-dylan-07302012/">a contributor to the Tablet</a>, his former editor steps up to defend him. </em></p>
<p>I was Jonah Lehrer's editor at <a href="http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reinvention_of_the_self/"><em>Seed</em> magazine</a>, which I believe was the first magazine to publish his writing on neuroscience, and the originator of his "Frontal Cortex" blog. One of the stories we worked on together was included in the 2007 edition of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Science-Nature-Writing/dp/0618722319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343796250&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=2007+best+american+science+and+nature+writing">Best American Science and Nature Writing</a></em> (although <a href="http://paultullis.net/Paul_Tullis/Edits_files/Seed_June-July_Pgs50-57.pdf">that one</a>, in truth, didn't need much help from me).</p>
<p>He is one of the most talented, hard-working, meticulous, and careful writers I've edited (a group that includes Dave Eggers, Geraldine Brooks, Peter Godwin, Michael Eric Dyson, Evan Ratliff, Bryan Walsh, Jake Silverstein, and Tom Clynes). And having first-hand experience of the fact-checking departments at <em>The New Yorker</em> and <em>Wired,</em> the magazines for which Lehrer most recently wrote, I doubt very much that his manufacturing or misuse of quotes extends much to his magazine writing.</p>
<p>It’s possible that this analysis is colored by my being invested in the outcome of this affair—I don’t know him well but I like and admire the guy. The <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=6">corrections</a> and <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2012/06/20/questions-about-jonah-lehrers-reporting-were-raised-in-2009/">suspicious non-attributions</a> that others have uncovered have no doubt already led some editor somewhere in Manhattan to assign a young writer to fact-check all Lehrer’s work; if <a href="http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-bob-dylan-07302012/">Michael C. Moynihan</a>’s Tablet article is just the opening of the floodgates, expect the water to rise suddenly sometime next week.</p>
<p>Absent further revelations, though, I find it an unfair double-standard that something Lehrer falsely attributed to Bob Dylan—which is essentially accurate, even if it isn't technically—has cost him his job, and that his publisher is yanking his book. It’s not as if he quoted Dylan as saying, “I’m a Wiccan,” or “Wallace Stevens was a sucky poet.” He wrote, “‘It’s a hard thing to describe,’ Mr. Dylan said. ‘It’s just this sense that you got something to say.’” Here’s Dylan, to Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes” (<a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/interpreting-dylan-always-treacherous-was-lehrers-undoing/">according to</a> the <em>New York Times</em>’ Media Decoder blog): “It came from, like, right out of that wellspring of creativity…I don’t know how I got to write those songs.”</p>
<p>(This isn't to say what Lehrer did is OK, but as in many cases it seems the <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions">attempted cover-up</a> was worse than the misdeed itself; if, say, Lehrer had cut corners in his book proposal’s sample chapter and forgotten or otherwise failed to fix it later, then admitted as much to Moynihan, I venture that he’d still have his cushy <em>New Yorker</em> contract, and his best-seller status.)</p>
<p>Because meanwhile, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=cWm4VfqaADkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=lies+and+the+lying+liars&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=jTgaPy-KCP&amp;sig=CHLf_8AiIXwf1TSkWZ5rgc5zAwQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=p7gYUIyXGuOXiALJnoCICw&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=o'reilly&amp;f=false">fatheads on cable TV</a> like Bill O’Reilly knowingly (and probably unknowingly, too) purvey falsehoods every day and they don't lose their jobs, and their books (of much lower quality, and higher degree of falsehood, than Lehrer’s “Imagine,” in nearly all instances) stay on the shelves. Books by <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/05/27/dinesh-dsouzas-lies-about-obama-now-in-movie-fo/186695">Dinesh D’Souza</a> and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=cWm4VfqaADkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=lies+and+the+lying+liars&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=jTgaPy-KCP&amp;sig=CHLf_8AiIXwf1TSkWZ5rgc5zAwQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=p7gYUIyXGuOXiALJnoCICw&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=nascar&amp;f=false">Ann Coulter</a> have been full of demonstrable falsehoods for years, and what do these authors get? Another six-figure book contract, that’s what. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s and Amazon’s actions to erase <em>Imagine</em> from the market are cowardly, seen in this light.</p>
<p>And what of the politicians’ lies? Sad to say, but the only explanation is that we expect it of them, and hold our writers to a higher standard than our policy makers.</p>
<p>Dylan himself has not been immune to borrowing, appropriation, theft—<a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387">Jonathan Lethem would know</a> what to call it: Dylan’s artworks displayed at Gagosian Gallery last year <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/questions-raised-about-dylan-show-at-gagosian/">included</a> an image that appeared to be mimicry of Henri Cartier-Bresson; he was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dylan-borrowed-from-obscure-civil-war-poet-say-critics-416069.html">accused of appropriating lyrics</a> from a Civil War-era poet; and his album “Love &amp; Theft” contains melodies and chord progressions that sound remarkably similar to earlier songs, including one from his own album, “Oh Mercy.”</p>
<p>The fact is that the reporter at Tablet who busted Lehrer; most of the bloggers who've recycled the Tablet article and make a living as parasites on the work of better reporters than themselves (the twit at FishbowlNY<a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/jonah-lehrer-might-have-been-addicted-to-lying_b65223"> can't even bother</a> to spell Jonah’s name right); and this reporter, too, couldn't hold a candle to him as a writer or original—yes, original—thinker. (He's also a hell of a nice guy.)</p>
<p>People will point to Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass (whose articles I ex post facto fact-checked, with Lorne Manly, for <a href="http://paultullis.net/Journalism/Short/Fact_Checker.html">Brill’s Content</a>) as evidence that Lehrer’s career as a journalist is over. But, while the editors of <em>The New Yorker</em> and <em>Wired</em> will argue the point, Lehrer has become less a journalist and more of a purveyor of ideas. He’s much higher on the media totem pole than Blair or Glass ever were, and he can come back as an author of books, public speaker, TV commentator, screenwriter.… David Remnick’s <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehrer-resigns-from-new-yorker-after-making-up-dylan-quotes-for-his-book/">distancing statement</a> notwithstanding, Lehrer doesn’t need <em>The New Yorker</em> anymore (not that they would take him).</p>
<p>I hope Jonah relaxes and spends a lot of time watching his child grow for a couple of years until this sad, stupid affair blows over and he goes back to earning a fortune by helping us understand ourselves better. I wonder where the people talking smack about him now will be then.</p>
<p><em>Paul Tullis has written for </em>New York, Businessweek, Scientific American Mind, Fast Company, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Bon Appetit, Radar,<em> and more than 50 other print, digital, and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Los Angeles.</em></p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_255167" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/08/laffaire-lehrer-sticking-up-for-jonah/thelavinagency-com/" rel="attachment wp-att-255167"><img class="size-medium wp-image-255167" title="thelavinagency.com" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/lehrer.jpeg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="258" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Lehrer.</p></div></p>
<p><em>Amid the pile-on of denunciations of Jonah Lehrer, the </em>New<em> </em>Yorker<em> writer whose <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions">invention of a Bob Dylan quote</a> was uncovered earlier this week by <a href="http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-bob-dylan-07302012/">a contributor to the Tablet</a>, his former editor steps up to defend him. </em></p>
<p>I was Jonah Lehrer's editor at <a href="http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reinvention_of_the_self/"><em>Seed</em> magazine</a>, which I believe was the first magazine to publish his writing on neuroscience, and the originator of his "Frontal Cortex" blog. One of the stories we worked on together was included in the 2007 edition of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Science-Nature-Writing/dp/0618722319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343796250&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=2007+best+american+science+and+nature+writing">Best American Science and Nature Writing</a></em> (although <a href="http://paultullis.net/Paul_Tullis/Edits_files/Seed_June-July_Pgs50-57.pdf">that one</a>, in truth, didn't need much help from me).</p>
<p>He is one of the most talented, hard-working, meticulous, and careful writers I've edited (a group that includes Dave Eggers, Geraldine Brooks, Peter Godwin, Michael Eric Dyson, Evan Ratliff, Bryan Walsh, Jake Silverstein, and Tom Clynes). And having first-hand experience of the fact-checking departments at <em>The New Yorker</em> and <em>Wired,</em> the magazines for which Lehrer most recently wrote, I doubt very much that his manufacturing or misuse of quotes extends much to his magazine writing.</p>
<p>It’s possible that this analysis is colored by my being invested in the outcome of this affair—I don’t know him well but I like and admire the guy. The <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=6">corrections</a> and <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2012/06/20/questions-about-jonah-lehrers-reporting-were-raised-in-2009/">suspicious non-attributions</a> that others have uncovered have no doubt already led some editor somewhere in Manhattan to assign a young writer to fact-check all Lehrer’s work; if <a href="http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-bob-dylan-07302012/">Michael C. Moynihan</a>’s Tablet article is just the opening of the floodgates, expect the water to rise suddenly sometime next week.</p>
<p>Absent further revelations, though, I find it an unfair double-standard that something Lehrer falsely attributed to Bob Dylan—which is essentially accurate, even if it isn't technically—has cost him his job, and that his publisher is yanking his book. It’s not as if he quoted Dylan as saying, “I’m a Wiccan,” or “Wallace Stevens was a sucky poet.” He wrote, “‘It’s a hard thing to describe,’ Mr. Dylan said. ‘It’s just this sense that you got something to say.’” Here’s Dylan, to Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes” (<a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/interpreting-dylan-always-treacherous-was-lehrers-undoing/">according to</a> the <em>New York Times</em>’ Media Decoder blog): “It came from, like, right out of that wellspring of creativity…I don’t know how I got to write those songs.”</p>
<p>(This isn't to say what Lehrer did is OK, but as in many cases it seems the <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions">attempted cover-up</a> was worse than the misdeed itself; if, say, Lehrer had cut corners in his book proposal’s sample chapter and forgotten or otherwise failed to fix it later, then admitted as much to Moynihan, I venture that he’d still have his cushy <em>New Yorker</em> contract, and his best-seller status.)</p>
<p>Because meanwhile, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=cWm4VfqaADkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=lies+and+the+lying+liars&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=jTgaPy-KCP&amp;sig=CHLf_8AiIXwf1TSkWZ5rgc5zAwQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=p7gYUIyXGuOXiALJnoCICw&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=o'reilly&amp;f=false">fatheads on cable TV</a> like Bill O’Reilly knowingly (and probably unknowingly, too) purvey falsehoods every day and they don't lose their jobs, and their books (of much lower quality, and higher degree of falsehood, than Lehrer’s “Imagine,” in nearly all instances) stay on the shelves. Books by <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/05/27/dinesh-dsouzas-lies-about-obama-now-in-movie-fo/186695">Dinesh D’Souza</a> and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=cWm4VfqaADkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=lies+and+the+lying+liars&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=jTgaPy-KCP&amp;sig=CHLf_8AiIXwf1TSkWZ5rgc5zAwQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=p7gYUIyXGuOXiALJnoCICw&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=nascar&amp;f=false">Ann Coulter</a> have been full of demonstrable falsehoods for years, and what do these authors get? Another six-figure book contract, that’s what. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s and Amazon’s actions to erase <em>Imagine</em> from the market are cowardly, seen in this light.</p>
<p>And what of the politicians’ lies? Sad to say, but the only explanation is that we expect it of them, and hold our writers to a higher standard than our policy makers.</p>
<p>Dylan himself has not been immune to borrowing, appropriation, theft—<a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387">Jonathan Lethem would know</a> what to call it: Dylan’s artworks displayed at Gagosian Gallery last year <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/questions-raised-about-dylan-show-at-gagosian/">included</a> an image that appeared to be mimicry of Henri Cartier-Bresson; he was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dylan-borrowed-from-obscure-civil-war-poet-say-critics-416069.html">accused of appropriating lyrics</a> from a Civil War-era poet; and his album “Love &amp; Theft” contains melodies and chord progressions that sound remarkably similar to earlier songs, including one from his own album, “Oh Mercy.”</p>
<p>The fact is that the reporter at Tablet who busted Lehrer; most of the bloggers who've recycled the Tablet article and make a living as parasites on the work of better reporters than themselves (the twit at FishbowlNY<a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/jonah-lehrer-might-have-been-addicted-to-lying_b65223"> can't even bother</a> to spell Jonah’s name right); and this reporter, too, couldn't hold a candle to him as a writer or original—yes, original—thinker. (He's also a hell of a nice guy.)</p>
<p>People will point to Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass (whose articles I ex post facto fact-checked, with Lorne Manly, for <a href="http://paultullis.net/Journalism/Short/Fact_Checker.html">Brill’s Content</a>) as evidence that Lehrer’s career as a journalist is over. But, while the editors of <em>The New Yorker</em> and <em>Wired</em> will argue the point, Lehrer has become less a journalist and more of a purveyor of ideas. He’s much higher on the media totem pole than Blair or Glass ever were, and he can come back as an author of books, public speaker, TV commentator, screenwriter.… David Remnick’s <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehrer-resigns-from-new-yorker-after-making-up-dylan-quotes-for-his-book/">distancing statement</a> notwithstanding, Lehrer doesn’t need <em>The New Yorker</em> anymore (not that they would take him).</p>
<p>I hope Jonah relaxes and spends a lot of time watching his child grow for a couple of years until this sad, stupid affair blows over and he goes back to earning a fortune by helping us understand ourselves better. I wonder where the people talking smack about him now will be then.</p>
<p><em>Paul Tullis has written for </em>New York, Businessweek, Scientific American Mind, Fast Company, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Bon Appetit, Radar,<em> and more than 50 other print, digital, and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Los Angeles.</em></p>
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		<title>The Sunset of Si: As the Conde Nast Chairman Fades Away, His Glossy Kingdom is Losing Some Sparkle</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/08/the-sunset-of-si-as-the-conde-nast-chairman-fades-away-his-glossy-kingdom-is-losing-some-sparkle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2012 08:00:39 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/08/the-sunset-of-si-as-the-conde-nast-chairman-fades-away-his-glossy-kingdom-is-losing-some-sparkle/</link>
			<dc:creator>Kat Stoeffel</dc:creator>
				
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		<description><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_255101" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/08/the-sunset-of-si-as-the-conde-nast-chairman-fades-away-his-glossy-kingdom-is-losing-some-sparkle/newfinal_sinewhouse_jason_seilerweb/" rel="attachment wp-att-255101"><img class="size-medium wp-image-255101" title="NewFinal_SiNewhouse_Jason_SeilerWEB" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/newfinal_sinewhouse_jason_seilerweb.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="245" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Illustration: Jason Seiler</p></div></p>
<p>About six years ago, Tom Florio, then the publisher of <em>Vogue</em>, had an idea. He wanted to expand the fashion bible’s brand into a new platform: online television. The magazine’s discerning editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, approved and Mr. Florio found blue-chip financial investors who did too. He’d been working on the proposal for nine months when he presented it to Si Newhouse, Chuck Townsend and other top Condé Nast brass.</p>
<p>“I hate it,” Mr. Newhouse said.</p>
<p>Encountering Mr. Newhouse at a dinner party a few days later, Mr. Florio asked the Condé Nast chairman to elaborate on his abrupt dismissal of the idea.</p>
<p>“All that did was make money,” the boss told him.<!--more--></p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine the executive who would utter such a sentence in today’s economy (let alone one tasked with navigating the turbulent media market). But the story exemplifies what some say is the defining brilliance of Mr. Newhouse: his quickness to tear a book up, to unceremoniously fire and replace someone (see: Vreeland, Diana, or Mirabella, Grace), to say “no.”</p>
<p>“He makes decisions based on what the essence of Condé Nast was,” Mr. Florio, now CEO of Advanstar Fashion Group, explained.</p>
<p>It’s certainly the signature trait that enabled him to build his stable of glossies into one of the most influential corporate architects of consumer aspiration. But as luxury print advertising—the company’s lifeblood—continues to dry up, Condé Nast is reprogramming its top brass to say “yes”: to brand extensions, such as e-commerce relationships (<em>GQ</em> and Nordstrom), membership programs (Lucky Rewards) and licensed merchandise (<em>Bon Appetit</em> for Home Shopping Network).</p>
<p>Though the 84-year-old Mr. Newhouse remains the company’s chairman and is still regularly spotted in the cafeteria, insiders say his presence is less common and his day-to-day influence quickly waning. The upshot is that the editorial old guard of Condé Nast is losing its best defender, prompting some to wonder if it the company’s “essence,” the ineffable lustre that long captivated advertisers and readers, will survive its 2015 move downtown to 1 World Trade.</p>
<p>Some signs of drift are more apparent than others. Employees have become accustomed to the sight of busted banquettes in the once-gleaming Frank Gehry cafeteria, for instance. “That was the symbol of the luxury of the place,” noted a long-time staffer, adding that the food has also become less appealing. “I think they just stopped caring,” the staffer said. “I think something happened where they were like, ‘I’m not spending any more money.’”</p>
<p>And according to some male editorial employees, even the elevator eye candy isn’t what it used to be. As one put it, “You do sense that maybe one of the weird by-products of the ‘Death of Print’ is that girls in sundresses don’t all flock here quite as much.”</p>
<p>The result seems to be a corporate culture that has lost its edge. “You sense a little bit the loss of that swagger, the feeling that ‘I’m working in some special place,’” the employee added with a sigh.</p>
<p>At this rate, how long will it be before the aroma of garlic—which Mr. Newhouse views with such vampiric scorn that it has been banned from the lunchroom—is wafting through the hallways?</p>
<p><!--nextpage-->THE ELDEST SON of self-made newspaper mogul Samuel Irving Newhouse, Samuel Irving Jr., aka “Si,” knew a thing or two about aspiration. Born rich but chronically unstylish (surrounded by clotheshorses, he favors a sweatshirt), he left something to be desired as an heir apparent. As a student at Horace Mann and Syracuse, he was ambivalent about journalism, introverted and angsty, according to Carol Felsenthal’s biography, <em>Citizen Newhouse</em>. Living in New York after dropping out of college during his junior year, Mr. Newhouse earned a reputation as the family’s “crowned prince,” racking up bills at 21 and the Stork Club while his younger brother, Donald, demonstrated an affinity for the family business at papers like the Newark Star-Ledger.</p>
<p>Condé Nast was an afterthought investment that Newhouse Sr. snapped up as birthday gift for wife Mitzi in 1959, and therefore not considered a suitable perch for junior. But it was there—under the influence of elegant and brilliant editorial advisers like Leo Lerman, the man of letters whose epic house parties earned him a spot on the Mademoiselle masthead, and Alexander Liberman, the Russian-born artist whose judgment even the most headstrong editors trusted—that Mr. Newhouse found his calling. Lerman and Liberman gave Mr. Newhouse access to the kind of artistic high society from which he’d previously felt excluded. Enthralled, Mr. Newhouse threw himself into the work, serving in positions at <em>Glamour</em> and <em>Vogue</em>, reading every line of the magazines, and to the chagrin of his colleagues, showing up before dawn.</p>
<p>When Liberman wasn’t tearing up his editors’ pages, he was teaching Mr. Newhouse what contemporary art to hang on his walls; the collection eventually earned Mr. Newhouse a spot on the board of MoMA. Liberman also imparted one of his signature managerial gifts: identifying talent. Mr. Newhouse watched Mr. Liberman lure Vreeland from rival <em>Harper’s Bazaar</em> with the promise of a bottomless expense account, then made a name for himself poaching Tina Brown, the young editor of <em>Tatler</em> for his revived <em>Vanity Fair</em>.</p>
<p>Mr. Newhouse learned to spot gifted editors practically in utero. “It was often at such an early stage that other people didn’t even realize it was talent,” Mr. Florio said, recalling the days before Tina was Tina. “She was not all fancy and fashionable but she was wickedly irreverent, super brilliant and funny.”</p>
<p>He then kept that talent on its toes by being selective and unpredictable with his attention.</p>
<p>“I always admired that in a board roomful of talking executives that he would quietly listen to what was not being said and then provide the most meaningful comment of the meeting,” former Details publisher Steve DeLuca, now the publisher of <em>Departures</em>, told <em>The Observer</em>.</p>
<p>But while Mr. Newhouse’s shifting affections made Condé Nast a hotbed of competition, where alpha salesmen (and tabloid regulars) like the late Steve Florio (Tom’s older brother), Ron Galotti and Richard Beckman thrived, a series of appointments and hires over the past two years have dramatically altered the character of the company’s leadership.</p>
<p>At the top, there’s Chuck Townsend. An operations-minded backslapper whom sources say earned major brownie points when he streamlined the company by moving its back offices to Delaware, Mr. Townsend ascended to CEO and president in 2004 when Florio, who suffered from heart problems, stepped down. (He died from a heart attack four years later.)</p>
<p>Two years ago, Mr. Townsend relieved himself of the president half of his job title, handing it off to Bob Sauerberg, Condé Nast’s top consumer marketer (thank him for the subscription cards all over your apartment floor), with whom Mr. Townsend had worked at <em>The New York Times Magazine</em> group in the ’90s. Mr. Sauerberg was tapped just as David Carey, a brainy publisher credited with turning <em>The New Yorker</em> around, departed for rival Hearst and dynamic personalities like Mr. Florio (Steve’s brother) and Mr. Beckman fled in search of CEO gigs.</p>
<p>According to insiders, Mr. Sauerberg promised the Newhouse family board that controls the company that he would bring in millions in non-advertising revenue, while magazine publishers would continue to report to Mr. Townsend. Mr. Sauerberg’s appointment signaled a sea change. In a 2010 internal memo, he foretold “a consumer-centric business model, a holistic brand management approach and the establishment of a multi-platform, integrated sales and marketing organization.”</p>
<p><!--nextpage-->In the two years since Mr. Sauerberg took over, he’s significantly reconfigured the top of the company to look less like a magazine publisher, and more like a sales and marketing organization, inventing at least three new positions and eliminating dozens more. First, parent company Advance Publications hired a Yahoo! mergers-and-acquisitions executive, Andrew Siegel, to serve as “senior VP, strategy and corporate development,” i.e., “Find us the next Pinterest, please.” Next, it invested heavily in a brand-new entertainment division to translate so-called “premium magazine content” into television and movies. Almost a decade after <em>Vogue</em> sniffed at Bravo when asked to participate in <em>Project Runway</em> (<em>Elle</em> and <em>Marie Claire</em> happily took part, garnering immeasurable publicity for their efforts), Mr. Sauerberg tapped Dawn Ostroff, the woman behind <em>America’s Next Top Model</em>, to run the new division. In the spring, Condé Nast poached a Lancôme executive, Gillian Gorman Round, to be the first-ever VP of brand development, meaning “e-commerce, membership programs, video, product and sampling.”</p>
<p>The new management structure crowds out the once-crucial editorial director. Liberman hand-picked his replacement: James Truman, the natty, British-born editor who successfully reinvented <em>Details</em> as a proto-lad-mag for marketing-averse Gen Xers. Projecting an aura of millennial cool, he carried the torch for editorial ambition—and its handmaiden, expenditure—up to the brink of the print downturn (and he oversaw the design of that cafeteria). But after Mr. Newhouse used his “no” on Mr. Truman’s proposed art magazine, he left. The position still exists, but it is held by Tom Wallace, a veteran newspaperman and the former editor-in-chief of <em>Condé Nast Traveler</em>. Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Wallace is said to have a mind for budget-conscious as opposed to “visionary” editorial content. Meanwhile, as Condé Nast searches for new revenue streams, it seems to be performing triage internally, siccing Bill Wackermann, an old-school charismatic publisher, on Condé Nast cash cow <em>Glamour</em>, for example.</p>
<p>Critics note that Mr. Sauerberg’s slew of new divisions have yet to yield anything lucrative, and the new team’s mandates are only growing more urgent as Condé Nast’s core businesses fade. Earlier this month, CMO Lou Cona laid off much of the company’s print corporate sales team, including the leader of its brand management service, Ideactive. September issues came in light this year, with the exception of <em>Vogue</em>, and publishers were asked to trim their budgets by 10 percent, according to WWD. Like any Condé Nast insider to climb to the top of the heap, Mr. Sauerberg has quickly become the subject of ouster rumors, but it’s early yet. More important, it’s hard to discern who will be judging his efficacy. The changing business model of Condé Nast combined with dramatic shifts at other arms of Advance Publications have renewed a decades-old media parlor game: speculating about Mr. Newhouse’s succession.</p>
<p>According to Thomas Maier’s <em>Newhouse</em>, a long-standing tax loophole (the subject of a failed $1 billion IRS lawsuit in the 1980s) will expire with the passing of Sam Newhouse’s sons, leaving the third Newhouse generation with an unprecedented tax burden, which it will have to “rally to overcome.” Mr. Newhouse has said that his first cousin Jonathan, who runs Condé Nast’s lucrative international business, will replace him, but Jonathan is said to be happily stationed in Europe. At Advance Publication newspapers in Michigan, Louisiana and New Jersey, Steven Newhouse (Si’s nephew, long identified as the third-gen Newhouse to watch) has proven himself a savvy businessman who little relishes underwriting a failing business model. He has reduced the frequency of the family’s print newspapers, focusing their pared-down staffs on digital platforms instead. Steven’s wife, Gina Sanders, is the CEO of Condé sister Fairchild and well-liked by top Condé Nast editors, making her a favorite internal candidate to replace Si.</p>
<p>While the next generation seems equipped to face Condé Nast’s new economic realities, however, it may no longer have the motive. As Condé Nast diversifies its business, distancing itself from the glamorous magazine company that became an improbable home for the family’s misfit patriarch, a once-unthinkable sale may be far less painful.</p>
<p>“Elegance is refusal,” Diana Vreeland pronounced, back when she was in Si’s good graces. Then again, acquiescence does have its advantages.</p>
<p><em>editorial@observer.com</em></p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_255101" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/08/the-sunset-of-si-as-the-conde-nast-chairman-fades-away-his-glossy-kingdom-is-losing-some-sparkle/newfinal_sinewhouse_jason_seilerweb/" rel="attachment wp-att-255101"><img class="size-medium wp-image-255101" title="NewFinal_SiNewhouse_Jason_SeilerWEB" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/newfinal_sinewhouse_jason_seilerweb.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="245" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Illustration: Jason Seiler</p></div></p>
<p>About six years ago, Tom Florio, then the publisher of <em>Vogue</em>, had an idea. He wanted to expand the fashion bible’s brand into a new platform: online television. The magazine’s discerning editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, approved and Mr. Florio found blue-chip financial investors who did too. He’d been working on the proposal for nine months when he presented it to Si Newhouse, Chuck Townsend and other top Condé Nast brass.</p>
<p>“I hate it,” Mr. Newhouse said.</p>
<p>Encountering Mr. Newhouse at a dinner party a few days later, Mr. Florio asked the Condé Nast chairman to elaborate on his abrupt dismissal of the idea.</p>
<p>“All that did was make money,” the boss told him.<!--more--></p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine the executive who would utter such a sentence in today’s economy (let alone one tasked with navigating the turbulent media market). But the story exemplifies what some say is the defining brilliance of Mr. Newhouse: his quickness to tear a book up, to unceremoniously fire and replace someone (see: Vreeland, Diana, or Mirabella, Grace), to say “no.”</p>
<p>“He makes decisions based on what the essence of Condé Nast was,” Mr. Florio, now CEO of Advanstar Fashion Group, explained.</p>
<p>It’s certainly the signature trait that enabled him to build his stable of glossies into one of the most influential corporate architects of consumer aspiration. But as luxury print advertising—the company’s lifeblood—continues to dry up, Condé Nast is reprogramming its top brass to say “yes”: to brand extensions, such as e-commerce relationships (<em>GQ</em> and Nordstrom), membership programs (Lucky Rewards) and licensed merchandise (<em>Bon Appetit</em> for Home Shopping Network).</p>
<p>Though the 84-year-old Mr. Newhouse remains the company’s chairman and is still regularly spotted in the cafeteria, insiders say his presence is less common and his day-to-day influence quickly waning. The upshot is that the editorial old guard of Condé Nast is losing its best defender, prompting some to wonder if it the company’s “essence,” the ineffable lustre that long captivated advertisers and readers, will survive its 2015 move downtown to 1 World Trade.</p>
<p>Some signs of drift are more apparent than others. Employees have become accustomed to the sight of busted banquettes in the once-gleaming Frank Gehry cafeteria, for instance. “That was the symbol of the luxury of the place,” noted a long-time staffer, adding that the food has also become less appealing. “I think they just stopped caring,” the staffer said. “I think something happened where they were like, ‘I’m not spending any more money.’”</p>
<p>And according to some male editorial employees, even the elevator eye candy isn’t what it used to be. As one put it, “You do sense that maybe one of the weird by-products of the ‘Death of Print’ is that girls in sundresses don’t all flock here quite as much.”</p>
<p>The result seems to be a corporate culture that has lost its edge. “You sense a little bit the loss of that swagger, the feeling that ‘I’m working in some special place,’” the employee added with a sigh.</p>
<p>At this rate, how long will it be before the aroma of garlic—which Mr. Newhouse views with such vampiric scorn that it has been banned from the lunchroom—is wafting through the hallways?</p>
<p><!--nextpage-->THE ELDEST SON of self-made newspaper mogul Samuel Irving Newhouse, Samuel Irving Jr., aka “Si,” knew a thing or two about aspiration. Born rich but chronically unstylish (surrounded by clotheshorses, he favors a sweatshirt), he left something to be desired as an heir apparent. As a student at Horace Mann and Syracuse, he was ambivalent about journalism, introverted and angsty, according to Carol Felsenthal’s biography, <em>Citizen Newhouse</em>. Living in New York after dropping out of college during his junior year, Mr. Newhouse earned a reputation as the family’s “crowned prince,” racking up bills at 21 and the Stork Club while his younger brother, Donald, demonstrated an affinity for the family business at papers like the Newark Star-Ledger.</p>
<p>Condé Nast was an afterthought investment that Newhouse Sr. snapped up as birthday gift for wife Mitzi in 1959, and therefore not considered a suitable perch for junior. But it was there—under the influence of elegant and brilliant editorial advisers like Leo Lerman, the man of letters whose epic house parties earned him a spot on the Mademoiselle masthead, and Alexander Liberman, the Russian-born artist whose judgment even the most headstrong editors trusted—that Mr. Newhouse found his calling. Lerman and Liberman gave Mr. Newhouse access to the kind of artistic high society from which he’d previously felt excluded. Enthralled, Mr. Newhouse threw himself into the work, serving in positions at <em>Glamour</em> and <em>Vogue</em>, reading every line of the magazines, and to the chagrin of his colleagues, showing up before dawn.</p>
<p>When Liberman wasn’t tearing up his editors’ pages, he was teaching Mr. Newhouse what contemporary art to hang on his walls; the collection eventually earned Mr. Newhouse a spot on the board of MoMA. Liberman also imparted one of his signature managerial gifts: identifying talent. Mr. Newhouse watched Mr. Liberman lure Vreeland from rival <em>Harper’s Bazaar</em> with the promise of a bottomless expense account, then made a name for himself poaching Tina Brown, the young editor of <em>Tatler</em> for his revived <em>Vanity Fair</em>.</p>
<p>Mr. Newhouse learned to spot gifted editors practically in utero. “It was often at such an early stage that other people didn’t even realize it was talent,” Mr. Florio said, recalling the days before Tina was Tina. “She was not all fancy and fashionable but she was wickedly irreverent, super brilliant and funny.”</p>
<p>He then kept that talent on its toes by being selective and unpredictable with his attention.</p>
<p>“I always admired that in a board roomful of talking executives that he would quietly listen to what was not being said and then provide the most meaningful comment of the meeting,” former Details publisher Steve DeLuca, now the publisher of <em>Departures</em>, told <em>The Observer</em>.</p>
<p>But while Mr. Newhouse’s shifting affections made Condé Nast a hotbed of competition, where alpha salesmen (and tabloid regulars) like the late Steve Florio (Tom’s older brother), Ron Galotti and Richard Beckman thrived, a series of appointments and hires over the past two years have dramatically altered the character of the company’s leadership.</p>
<p>At the top, there’s Chuck Townsend. An operations-minded backslapper whom sources say earned major brownie points when he streamlined the company by moving its back offices to Delaware, Mr. Townsend ascended to CEO and president in 2004 when Florio, who suffered from heart problems, stepped down. (He died from a heart attack four years later.)</p>
<p>Two years ago, Mr. Townsend relieved himself of the president half of his job title, handing it off to Bob Sauerberg, Condé Nast’s top consumer marketer (thank him for the subscription cards all over your apartment floor), with whom Mr. Townsend had worked at <em>The New York Times Magazine</em> group in the ’90s. Mr. Sauerberg was tapped just as David Carey, a brainy publisher credited with turning <em>The New Yorker</em> around, departed for rival Hearst and dynamic personalities like Mr. Florio (Steve’s brother) and Mr. Beckman fled in search of CEO gigs.</p>
<p>According to insiders, Mr. Sauerberg promised the Newhouse family board that controls the company that he would bring in millions in non-advertising revenue, while magazine publishers would continue to report to Mr. Townsend. Mr. Sauerberg’s appointment signaled a sea change. In a 2010 internal memo, he foretold “a consumer-centric business model, a holistic brand management approach and the establishment of a multi-platform, integrated sales and marketing organization.”</p>
<p><!--nextpage-->In the two years since Mr. Sauerberg took over, he’s significantly reconfigured the top of the company to look less like a magazine publisher, and more like a sales and marketing organization, inventing at least three new positions and eliminating dozens more. First, parent company Advance Publications hired a Yahoo! mergers-and-acquisitions executive, Andrew Siegel, to serve as “senior VP, strategy and corporate development,” i.e., “Find us the next Pinterest, please.” Next, it invested heavily in a brand-new entertainment division to translate so-called “premium magazine content” into television and movies. Almost a decade after <em>Vogue</em> sniffed at Bravo when asked to participate in <em>Project Runway</em> (<em>Elle</em> and <em>Marie Claire</em> happily took part, garnering immeasurable publicity for their efforts), Mr. Sauerberg tapped Dawn Ostroff, the woman behind <em>America’s Next Top Model</em>, to run the new division. In the spring, Condé Nast poached a Lancôme executive, Gillian Gorman Round, to be the first-ever VP of brand development, meaning “e-commerce, membership programs, video, product and sampling.”</p>
<p>The new management structure crowds out the once-crucial editorial director. Liberman hand-picked his replacement: James Truman, the natty, British-born editor who successfully reinvented <em>Details</em> as a proto-lad-mag for marketing-averse Gen Xers. Projecting an aura of millennial cool, he carried the torch for editorial ambition—and its handmaiden, expenditure—up to the brink of the print downturn (and he oversaw the design of that cafeteria). But after Mr. Newhouse used his “no” on Mr. Truman’s proposed art magazine, he left. The position still exists, but it is held by Tom Wallace, a veteran newspaperman and the former editor-in-chief of <em>Condé Nast Traveler</em>. Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Wallace is said to have a mind for budget-conscious as opposed to “visionary” editorial content. Meanwhile, as Condé Nast searches for new revenue streams, it seems to be performing triage internally, siccing Bill Wackermann, an old-school charismatic publisher, on Condé Nast cash cow <em>Glamour</em>, for example.</p>
<p>Critics note that Mr. Sauerberg’s slew of new divisions have yet to yield anything lucrative, and the new team’s mandates are only growing more urgent as Condé Nast’s core businesses fade. Earlier this month, CMO Lou Cona laid off much of the company’s print corporate sales team, including the leader of its brand management service, Ideactive. September issues came in light this year, with the exception of <em>Vogue</em>, and publishers were asked to trim their budgets by 10 percent, according to WWD. Like any Condé Nast insider to climb to the top of the heap, Mr. Sauerberg has quickly become the subject of ouster rumors, but it’s early yet. More important, it’s hard to discern who will be judging his efficacy. The changing business model of Condé Nast combined with dramatic shifts at other arms of Advance Publications have renewed a decades-old media parlor game: speculating about Mr. Newhouse’s succession.</p>
<p>According to Thomas Maier’s <em>Newhouse</em>, a long-standing tax loophole (the subject of a failed $1 billion IRS lawsuit in the 1980s) will expire with the passing of Sam Newhouse’s sons, leaving the third Newhouse generation with an unprecedented tax burden, which it will have to “rally to overcome.” Mr. Newhouse has said that his first cousin Jonathan, who runs Condé Nast’s lucrative international business, will replace him, but Jonathan is said to be happily stationed in Europe. At Advance Publication newspapers in Michigan, Louisiana and New Jersey, Steven Newhouse (Si’s nephew, long identified as the third-gen Newhouse to watch) has proven himself a savvy businessman who little relishes underwriting a failing business model. He has reduced the frequency of the family’s print newspapers, focusing their pared-down staffs on digital platforms instead. Steven’s wife, Gina Sanders, is the CEO of Condé sister Fairchild and well-liked by top Condé Nast editors, making her a favorite internal candidate to replace Si.</p>
<p>While the next generation seems equipped to face Condé Nast’s new economic realities, however, it may no longer have the motive. As Condé Nast diversifies its business, distancing itself from the glamorous magazine company that became an improbable home for the family’s misfit patriarch, a once-unthinkable sale may be far less painful.</p>
<p>“Elegance is refusal,” Diana Vreeland pronounced, back when she was in Si’s good graces. Then again, acquiescence does have its advantages.</p>
<p><em>editorial@observer.com</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The Real Reason Women &#8216;Can&#8217;t Have It All&#8217;</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/06/the-real-reason-women-cant-have-it-all/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:00:13 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/06/the-real-reason-women-cant-have-it-all/</link>
			<dc:creator>Drew Grant</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://observer.com/?p=247785</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_247791" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 235px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/06/the-real-reason-women-cant-have-it-all/7415678578_ae38e6ee34_n/" rel="attachment wp-att-247791"><img class="size-medium wp-image-247791" title="7415678578_ae38e6ee34_n" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/7415678578_ae38e6ee34_n.jpg?w=225" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Bring your baby to work day (The Atlantic)</p></div></p>
<p><em>The Atlantic</em>, your home for ladies complaining about how hard it is being ladies (We kid! Sort of!) had a polarizing essay this week by Anne-Marie Slaughter, entitled "<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/?single_page">Why Women Still Can’t Have It All</a>." Only seven months after Kate Bolick taught <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/">all us females that we didn't have to settle for second best in the marriage department</a>, we're now getting the flip side of the coin: apparently it doesn't matter how great our significant others are, because if you try to have a career and a kid in <em>this</em> economy, you'll find yourself miserably torn between the two. And then you'll chose your kids. Obviously.</p>
<p>Originally, we thought the simple solution would be to wait until your career goals are met until procreating, but <a href="http://observer.com/2012/05/new-york-pregnant-over-50-wins-best-cover/">as that <em>New York</em> cover story taught us</a>, this  is probably an unhealthy excuse for desperate old people. (It also makes for way grosser images than <a href="http://observer.com/2012/05/times-blogger-breastfeeder-on-today-it-did-create-such-a-media-craze/">a hot MILF breastfeeding her overgrown son</a>.)</p>
<p><!--more-->While Ms. Slaughter's article has <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/06/21/the_atlantic_s_women_can_t_have_it_all_cover_isn_t_that_called_compromise_.html">some  critics bristling</a> at the assumption that "having it all" automatically include wet-naps and progeny<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/anne-marie-slaughter-in-the-atlantic-feminist-magazine-women-work-life-balance-children-career">, or that men don't face the exact same issues when they spawn</a> (or even the implied white privilege that comes from the phrase "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/06/21/can_modern_women_have_it_all/">having it all</a>"), the significance of the article goes much deeper than "work vs. children." Women still have to claw their way up to the same level of respect as men in the workplace, and gGd forbid they show any weakness or stop raising their hands in meetings, as Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg cautions against expectant mothers. Eventually, all women will have to quit their jobs at the White House to take care of their children and write a book about it, a la Mary Matalin, whose <em>Midlife Crisis at 30</em>  is quoted in <em>The Atlantic</em> article:</p>
<blockquote><p>I finally asked myself, “Who needs me more?” And that’s when I realized, it’s somebody else’s turn to do this job. I’m indispensable to my kids, but I’m not close to indispensable to the White House.</p></blockquote>
<p>As Ms. Matalin's job title included "President Bush’s assistant and Vice President Cheney’s counselor," we are inclined to agree with her decision. But besides our slight qualms with the piece (i.e. Why do most of the women quoted work in government, as if that was the only territory a woman can really make her mark? Just look at how <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2012/06/21/on-having-it-all/">Katie Rosman is balancing her life</a>!), perhaps the best illustration of Ms. Slaughter's 12320-word uphill battle comes courtesy of <em>The Atlantic</em>'s comment section.</p>
<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/06/the-real-reason-women-cant-have-it-all/atlantic-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-247788"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-247788" title="atlantic" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/atlantic.jpg?w=600" alt="" width="577" height="398" /></a></p>
<p>Yes, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/?single_page=true#comment-563252505">this is the very first comment on the piece</a>, which now has generated over 50k Facebook "Likes" in under 24 hours.</p>
<p>Women will never have it all, it appears, until they learn how to copy-edit their own damn work. Go back to filing school, Joan! You'll never make partner!</p>
<p>Might as well just give up now and start having babies...at least that way we can cash in on our book deal.</p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_247791" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 235px"><a href="http://observer.com/2012/06/the-real-reason-women-cant-have-it-all/7415678578_ae38e6ee34_n/" rel="attachment wp-att-247791"><img class="size-medium wp-image-247791" title="7415678578_ae38e6ee34_n" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/7415678578_ae38e6ee34_n.jpg?w=225" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Bring your baby to work day (The Atlantic)</p></div></p>
<p><em>The Atlantic</em>, your home for ladies complaining about how hard it is being ladies (We kid! Sort of!) had a polarizing essay this week by Anne-Marie Slaughter, entitled "<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/?single_page">Why Women Still Can’t Have It All</a>." Only seven months after Kate Bolick taught <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/">all us females that we didn't have to settle for second best in the marriage department</a>, we're now getting the flip side of the coin: apparently it doesn't matter how great our significant others are, because if you try to have a career and a kid in <em>this</em> economy, you'll find yourself miserably torn between the two. And then you'll chose your kids. Obviously.</p>
<p>Originally, we thought the simple solution would be to wait until your career goals are met until procreating, but <a href="http://observer.com/2012/05/new-york-pregnant-over-50-wins-best-cover/">as that <em>New York</em> cover story taught us</a>, this  is probably an unhealthy excuse for desperate old people. (It also makes for way grosser images than <a href="http://observer.com/2012/05/times-blogger-breastfeeder-on-today-it-did-create-such-a-media-craze/">a hot MILF breastfeeding her overgrown son</a>.)</p>
<p><!--more-->While Ms. Slaughter's article has <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/06/21/the_atlantic_s_women_can_t_have_it_all_cover_isn_t_that_called_compromise_.html">some  critics bristling</a> at the assumption that "having it all" automatically include wet-naps and progeny<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/anne-marie-slaughter-in-the-atlantic-feminist-magazine-women-work-life-balance-children-career">, or that men don't face the exact same issues when they spawn</a> (or even the implied white privilege that comes from the phrase "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/06/21/can_modern_women_have_it_all/">having it all</a>"), the significance of the article goes much deeper than "work vs. children." Women still have to claw their way up to the same level of respect as men in the workplace, and gGd forbid they show any weakness or stop raising their hands in meetings, as Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg cautions against expectant mothers. Eventually, all women will have to quit their jobs at the White House to take care of their children and write a book about it, a la Mary Matalin, whose <em>Midlife Crisis at 30</em>  is quoted in <em>The Atlantic</em> article:</p>
<blockquote><p>I finally asked myself, “Who needs me more?” And that’s when I realized, it’s somebody else’s turn to do this job. I’m indispensable to my kids, but I’m not close to indispensable to the White House.</p></blockquote>
<p>As Ms. Matalin's job title included "President Bush’s assistant and Vice President Cheney’s counselor," we are inclined to agree with her decision. But besides our slight qualms with the piece (i.e. Why do most of the women quoted work in government, as if that was the only territory a woman can really make her mark? Just look at how <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2012/06/21/on-having-it-all/">Katie Rosman is balancing her life</a>!), perhaps the best illustration of Ms. Slaughter's 12320-word uphill battle comes courtesy of <em>The Atlantic</em>'s comment section.</p>
<p><a href="http://observer.com/2012/06/the-real-reason-women-cant-have-it-all/atlantic-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-247788"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-247788" title="atlantic" src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/atlantic.jpg?w=600" alt="" width="577" height="398" /></a></p>
<p>Yes, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/?single_page=true#comment-563252505">this is the very first comment on the piece</a>, which now has generated over 50k Facebook "Likes" in under 24 hours.</p>
<p>Women will never have it all, it appears, until they learn how to copy-edit their own damn work. Go back to filing school, Joan! You'll never make partner!</p>
<p>Might as well just give up now and start having babies...at least that way we can cash in on our book deal.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Morning Feed: Mediaite&#8217;s New Editor, The Daily&#8217;s Webby Campaign, ProPublica Swag</title>

		<comments>http://observer.com/2012/04/morning-feed-mediaites-new-editor-the-dailys-webby-campaign-propublica-swag-04192012/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:22:15 -0400</pubDate>
					<link>http://observer.com/2012/04/morning-feed-mediaites-new-editor-the-dailys-webby-campaign-propublica-swag-04192012/</link>
			<dc:creator>Foster Kamer</dc:creator>
				
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.observer.com/?p=233377</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.observer.com/2012/04/morning-feed-mediaites-new-editor-the-dailys-webby-campaign-propublica-swag-04192012/newgirl_wallpaper2_zooey_1024x768/" rel="attachment wp-att-233870"><img src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/newgirl_wallpaper2_zooey_1024x768-e1334848716271.jpg?w=150&h=150" alt="" title="newgirl_wallpaper2_zooey_1024x768" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-233870" /></a>Mediaite has a new editor, but he isn't the Fox Mole. The Daily wants your votes, but they already have their fathers' blessings. T-Shirts are the new Tote-Bags, silenced commenters are the new site-running commenters, more fantastic-if-true potentially embarrassing stories about well-regarded <em>Times</em>men, "restructurings" as the hot new media euphemism, and something about Zooey Deschanel. These are your Thursday morning media items:<!--more-->  </p>
<p><strong>Fox Hole</strong>: Want to know why somebody wouldn't become the Fox Mole? Via Mediaite, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/why-i-never-became-mediaites-fox-news-mole/" target="_blank">here you go</a>. Then again, this is the same site for whom a former editor was sent off with a video starring <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/your-moment-of-the-glenn-and-glynn-show-glenn-beck-says-goodbye/" target="_blank">none other than Glenn Beck</a>. In the likely event you didn't make it to the end of that "confessional": "Editor’s Note: <strong>Andrew Kirell</strong> will begin as a full time editor at Mediaite on April 25." Confidential to Joe Muto: <em>That's</em> where you go after Fox News!</p>
<p><strong>For Your Consideration?</strong> <strong>The Daily</strong> is running a campaign for a Webby Award, and they're using their mailing lists to do it. We'll spare you the text, but the amusingly twee illustration looks like this:</p>
<p><center><a href="http://www.observer.com/2012/04/morning-feed-mediaites-new-editor-the-dailys-webby-campaign-propublica-swag-04192012/041612-eblast-webby-14-v2_13/" rel="attachment wp-att-233389"><img src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/041612-eblast-webby-14-v2_13.png" alt="" title="041612-eblast-webby-14-v2_13" width="469" height="457" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233389" /></a></center></p>
<p>Now you know </p>
<p>(<strong>A</strong>) What readers of The Daily look like.<br />
(<strong>B</strong>) That The Webbys have a 'Tablet' category.<br />
(<strong>C</strong>) That people—or people running companies—actually care about Webbys.<br />
(<strong>D</strong>) That The Daily—a product that is fundamentally, arrogantly insistent on not having any sort of substantial web presence by design—can be nominated for a Webby. Which serves well to illustrate the extent to which one should care about The Webbys.</p>
<p><strong>Media Power Mazel Tovs</strong>: Also from inside The Daily, we hear Media Power Couple (Class of '11) <a href="http://www.observer.com/2011/07/new-yorks-media-power-couples-the-addendum-23-list/#slide5" target="_blank"><strong>Mike Nizza and Claire Howorth</strong></a> are engaged! Matrimony fever appears to be spreading: Another Media Power Couple (Class of '11) from The Daily—their Fearless Leader/Murdoch Dream-to-Reality Manifester <a href="http://www.observer.com/2011/07/new-york-media-power-couples-the-varsity-lineup-and-the-incoming-class/#slide21" target="_blank"><strong>Jesse Angelo and Rebecca Dana</strong></a> of The Daily Beast are also, we hear, now engaged and set to marry in the coming months. Boy, to be a fly on a caterer's tray at <em>that</em> wedding. Also, we had something about destination weddings being the norm here vis-a-vis the whole "you can only read it on an iPad" mandate but it didn't make it through the subway ride this morning.</p>
<p><strong>Media Power Apparel</strong>: T-Shirts are the new Tote Bags! Just ask <strong>ProPublica</strong>, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/selfless-tee-offers-propublica-t-shirts " target="_blank">who are now selling them</a> with the tagline "JOURNALISM WITH MORAL FORCE" emblazoned on the front. Can't say we didn't predict this trend, <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/07/the_media_t-shi.php" target="_blank">because we did</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Adios, Nomigos</strong>: Here's a not-at-all-fond adieu to the absurdity that are entitled commenters, who Gawker Media <a href="http://gawker.com/5902688/greetings-todays-the-day-all-starred-commenters-will-die" target="_blank">killed en masse</a> at 6AM yesterday morning. Somehow, the simple point of "THEY ARE COMMENTERS" escapes most <a href="http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP100127" target="_blank">high-falutin' discussions</a> about their nature. To briefly editorialize, it is this writer's opinion that comment sections should be treated like cow dung: disregarded and overlooked as a rule, except when in search of psychoactive fungi growth. This is the first time comments have been offline on all Gawker posts since <a href="http://gawker.com/126997/gawker-comments-were-so-tired-of-being-alone-so-tired-of-on-our-own?tag=newsgawker" target="_blank">September of 2005</a>, when they first introduced them. Silence is golden.</p>
<p><strong>Tale of the Steak</strong>: Except when it isn't. Here's a <a href="http://www.observer.com/2012/04/kurt-luedtke-william-schmidt-new-york-times-04162012/#comment-499312740" target="_blank">hilarious comment</a> about <strong>Mark Bittman</strong> left on our post about a famous <em>New York Times</em> commenter:</p>
<blockquote><p>When do you do a piece on how Bittman used to steal steaks from the Stop & Shop in New Haven and boast about it in the newsroom of the New Haven Register?</p></blockquote>
<p>When people mourn the olden days of journalism and dread the future, it should be noted that stories like these are actually what's at—ahem—steak, here.</p>
<p><strong>Selective Restructurings are the New Layoffs</strong>: <em>Out</em> Magazine <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2012/04/5727847/out-lays-its-entire-editorial-staff-editor-aaron-hicklin-wants-hire-mo" target="_blank">lays off their entire staff</a> just as <strong>Aaron Hicklin</strong> decides to open up a consulting shop and pick a few people up on contracts for their first client, <em>Out</em> Magazine. This means that they won't have to pay benefits and salaries and certain taxes that come with having an actual payroll, while cleaning house as well, and dispensing cash-flow responsibilities to staffers (or "contractors," as they are now) which is pretty crafty. Interesting? Yes, because according to <strong>Paula Froelich</strong>'s Twitter, happenings at Punch Magazine—the iPad project <strong>Maer Roshan</strong> <em>was</em> handling until he "stepped down" from day-to-day responsibilities and <a href="http://www.betabeat.com/2012/04/18/ipad-culture-mag-punch-names-jim-windolf-as-editor-in-chief/" target="_blank">Jim Windolf took his place</a>—sound the same: "<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/Pfro/status/192728123631079424" target="_blank">Everyone else fired</a>," P-Fro noted.  </p>
<p><strong>The Zooey Mole</strong>: One <strong>Zooey Deschanel</strong> has <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/ZooeyDeschanel/status/192691576508649472 " target="_blank">offered</a> to be Gawker's Zooey Deschanel mole. This may be someone's <a href="http://gawker.com/5903202/zooey-deschanel-tweets-at-gawker-writer " target="_blank">high-water mark</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Confidence People</strong>: People trust journalists <a href="http://pressthink.org/2012/04/rosens-trust-puzzler-what-explains-falling-confidence-in-the-press/" target="_blank">way less today</a> than they did when Watergate broke. People who question and/or are surprised by this assertion or why it is are like climate change "opponents" in that it is stunning they actually exist. </p>
<p><strong>All Bourbons Are Whiskey, But Not All Whiskeys Are Bourbon</strong>: Slate wants to know <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/04/the_huffington_post_won_a_pulitzer_does_that_mean_it_s_a_newspaper_.html" target="_blank">if The Huffington Post is a newspaper</a> because it won a Pulitzer. We've got nothing for that one. By the way, people who are surprised a website can win a Pulitzer would be well advised to note that the NoLa Times-Picayune won one in 2006 <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7072" target="_blank">for their news blog's post-Katrina coverage</a> (via <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2012/04/18/huffpo-not-the-first-blog-to-win-a-pulitzer/" target="_blank">Romenesko</a>).</p>
<p><strong>Brief Housekeeping Note</strong>: The Observer's media "desk," Kat Stoeffel, is out for the week on what may be the single most-deserved vacation from this newspaper since Peter Kaplan left. With apologies to her, this writer will be taking her place for the next seven days. Please send any tips, gossip, or malice-lacking-and-well-outside-the-legal-definition-of-slanderous journalism id to <a href="mailto:fkamer@observer.com" target="_blank">fkamer@observer.com</a>. </p>
<p><em>fkamer@observer.com</em> | <a href="http://twitter.com/weareyourfek" target="_blank">@weareyourfek</a></p>
]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.observer.com/2012/04/morning-feed-mediaites-new-editor-the-dailys-webby-campaign-propublica-swag-04192012/newgirl_wallpaper2_zooey_1024x768/" rel="attachment wp-att-233870"><img src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/newgirl_wallpaper2_zooey_1024x768-e1334848716271.jpg?w=150&h=150" alt="" title="newgirl_wallpaper2_zooey_1024x768" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-233870" /></a>Mediaite has a new editor, but he isn't the Fox Mole. The Daily wants your votes, but they already have their fathers' blessings. T-Shirts are the new Tote-Bags, silenced commenters are the new site-running commenters, more fantastic-if-true potentially embarrassing stories about well-regarded <em>Times</em>men, "restructurings" as the hot new media euphemism, and something about Zooey Deschanel. These are your Thursday morning media items:<!--more-->  </p>
<p><strong>Fox Hole</strong>: Want to know why somebody wouldn't become the Fox Mole? Via Mediaite, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/why-i-never-became-mediaites-fox-news-mole/" target="_blank">here you go</a>. Then again, this is the same site for whom a former editor was sent off with a video starring <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/your-moment-of-the-glenn-and-glynn-show-glenn-beck-says-goodbye/" target="_blank">none other than Glenn Beck</a>. In the likely event you didn't make it to the end of that "confessional": "Editor’s Note: <strong>Andrew Kirell</strong> will begin as a full time editor at Mediaite on April 25." Confidential to Joe Muto: <em>That's</em> where you go after Fox News!</p>
<p><strong>For Your Consideration?</strong> <strong>The Daily</strong> is running a campaign for a Webby Award, and they're using their mailing lists to do it. We'll spare you the text, but the amusingly twee illustration looks like this:</p>
<p><center><a href="http://www.observer.com/2012/04/morning-feed-mediaites-new-editor-the-dailys-webby-campaign-propublica-swag-04192012/041612-eblast-webby-14-v2_13/" rel="attachment wp-att-233389"><img src="http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/041612-eblast-webby-14-v2_13.png" alt="" title="041612-eblast-webby-14-v2_13" width="469" height="457" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233389" /></a></center></p>
<p>Now you know </p>
<p>(<strong>A</strong>) What readers of The Daily look like.<br />
(<strong>B</strong>) That The Webbys have a 'Tablet' category.<br />
(<strong>C</strong>) That people—or people running companies—actually care about Webbys.<br />
(<strong>D</strong>) That The Daily—a product that is fundamentally, arrogantly insistent on not having any sort of substantial web presence by design—can be nominated for a Webby. Which serves well to illustrate the extent to which one should care about The Webbys.</p>
<p><strong>Media Power Mazel Tovs</strong>: Also from inside The Daily, we hear Media Power Couple (Class of '11) <a href="http://www.observer.com/2011/07/new-yorks-media-power-couples-the-addendum-23-list/#slide5" target="_blank"><strong>Mike Nizza and Claire Howorth</strong></a> are engaged! Matrimony fever appears to be spreading: Another Media Power Couple (Class of '11) from The Daily—their Fearless Leader/Murdoch Dream-to-Reality Manifester <a href="http://www.observer.com/2011/07/new-york-media-power-couples-the-varsity-lineup-and-the-incoming-class/#slide21" target="_blank"><strong>Jesse Angelo and Rebecca Dana</strong></a> of The Daily Beast are also, we hear, now engaged and set to marry in the coming months. Boy, to be a fly on a caterer's tray at <em>that</em> wedding. Also, we had something about destination weddings being the norm here vis-a-vis the whole "you can only read it on an iPad" mandate but it didn't make it through the subway ride this morning.</p>
<p><strong>Media Power Apparel</strong>: T-Shirts are the new Tote Bags! Just ask <strong>ProPublica</strong>, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/selfless-tee-offers-propublica-t-shirts " target="_blank">who are now selling them</a> with the tagline "JOURNALISM WITH MORAL FORCE" emblazoned on the front. Can't say we didn't predict this trend, <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/07/the_media_t-shi.php" target="_blank">because we did</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Adios, Nomigos</strong>: Here's a not-at-all-fond adieu to the absurdity that are entitled commenters, who Gawker Media <a href="http://gawker.com/5902688/greetings-todays-the-day-all-starred-commenters-will-die" target="_blank">killed en masse</a> at 6AM yesterday morning. Somehow, the simple point of "THEY ARE COMMENTERS" escapes most <a href="http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP100127" target="_blank">high-falutin' discussions</a> about their nature. To briefly editorialize, it is this writer's opinion that comment sections should be treated like cow dung: disregarded and overlooked as a rule, except when in search of psychoactive fungi growth. This is the first time comments have been offline on all Gawker posts since <a href="http://gawker.com/126997/gawker-comments-were-so-tired-of-being-alone-so-tired-of-on-our-own?tag=newsgawker" target="_blank">September of 2005</a>, when they first introduced them. Silence is golden.</p>
<p><strong>Tale of the Steak</strong>: Except when it isn't. Here's a <a href="http://www.observer.com/2012/04/kurt-luedtke-william-schmidt-new-york-times-04162012/#comment-499312740" target="_blank">hilarious comment</a> about <strong>Mark Bittman</strong> left on our post about a famous <em>New York Times</em> commenter:</p>
<blockquote><p>When do you do a piece on how Bittman used to steal steaks from the Stop & Shop in New Haven and boast about it in the newsroom of the New Haven Register?</p></blockquote>
<p>When people mourn the olden days of journalism and dread the future, it should be noted that stories like these are actually what's at—ahem—steak, here.</p>
<p><strong>Selective Restructurings are the New Layoffs</strong>: <em>Out</em> Magazine <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2012/04/5727847/out-lays-its-entire-editorial-staff-editor-aaron-hicklin-wants-hire-mo" target="_blank">lays off their entire staff</a> just as <strong>Aaron Hicklin</strong> decides to open up a consulting shop and pick a few people up on contracts for their first client, <em>Out</em> Magazine. This means that they won't have to pay benefits and salaries and certain taxes that come with having an actual payroll, while cleaning house as well, and dispensing cash-flow responsibilities to staffers (or "contractors," as they are now) which is pretty crafty. Interesting? Yes, because according to <strong>Paula Froelich</strong>'s Twitter, happenings at Punch Magazine—the iPad project <strong>Maer Roshan</strong> <em>was</em> handling until he "stepped down" from day-to-day responsibilities and <a href="http://www.betabeat.com/2012/04/18/ipad-culture-mag-punch-names-jim-windolf-as-editor-in-chief/" target="_blank">Jim Windolf took his place</a>—sound the same: "<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/Pfro/status/192728123631079424" target="_blank">Everyone else fired</a>," P-Fro noted.  </p>
<p><strong>The Zooey Mole</strong>: One <strong>Zooey Deschanel</strong> has <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/ZooeyDeschanel/status/192691576508649472 " target="_blank">offered</a> to be Gawker's Zooey Deschanel mole. This may be someone's <a href="http://gawker.com/5903202/zooey-deschanel-tweets-at-gawker-writer " target="_blank">high-water mark</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Confidence People</strong>: People trust journalists <a href="http://pressthink.org/2012/04/rosens-trust-puzzler-what-explains-falling-confidence-in-the-press/" target="_blank">way less today</a> than they did when Watergate broke. People who question and/or are surprised by this assertion or why it is are like climate change "opponents" in that it is stunning they actually exist. </p>
<p><strong>All Bourbons Are Whiskey, But Not All Whiskeys Are Bourbon</strong>: Slate wants to know <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/04/the_huffington_post_won_a_pulitzer_does_that_mean_it_s_a_newspaper_.html" target="_blank">if The Huffington Post is a newspaper</a> because it won a Pulitzer. We've got nothing for that one. By the way, people who are surprised a website can win a Pulitzer would be well advised to note that the NoLa Times-Picayune won one in 2006 <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7072" target="_blank">for their news blog's post-Katrina coverage</a> (via <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2012/04/18/huffpo-not-the-first-blog-to-win-a-pulitzer/" target="_blank">Romenesko</a>).</p>
<p><strong>Brief Housekeeping Note</strong>: The Observer's media "desk," Kat Stoeffel, is out for the week on what may be the single most-deserved vacation from this newspaper since Peter Kaplan left. With apologies to her, this writer will be taking her place for the next seven days. Please send any tips, gossip, or malice-lacking-and-well-outside-the-legal-definition-of-slanderous journalism id to <a href="mailto:fkamer@observer.com" target="_blank">fkamer@observer.com</a>. </p>
<p><em>fkamer@observer.com</em> | <a href="http://twitter.com/weareyourfek" target="_blank">@weareyourfek</a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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