For his first “Talk” column since returning, Mr. Goldman played it safe with Lemony Snicket creator Daniel Handler. But that wasn’t the only piece Mr. Goldman had in Sunday’s Magazine. He also wrote a six-page story about Oliver Stone, who is busy promoting Untold History, his new mini-series. In the piece, Mr. Goldman spends a lot of ink describing the director-cum-liberal historian’s propensity for putting his loafers in his mouth.And to illustrate this tendency, Mr. Goldman seemingly randomly inserts himself into the story.

“The day we met, I mentioned that my family would be leaving Brooklyn for Connecticut, where we don’t know a soul. ‘But, really, what’s the worst thing that could happen?’ I said, offering the kind of throwaway phrase used to move from one topic to the next,” Mr. Goldman wrote. But Mr. Stone didn’t seem to understand that some questions are rhetorical.

“Well, Stone postulated, quite earnestly, you could end up going through an acrimonious divorce and then be forced to wage an expensive battle over custody of your children.”

So, Mr. Goldman is moving to Connecticut, huh? It’s a long way from Brooklyn. While we are not quite sure how this exactly shows Mr. Stone’s social awkwardness, the director, to his credit, felt bad enough to (at least) pretend to like Connecticut when Mr. Goldman returned to the jab later in the piece. Although we are not totally clear on why this jab was worth returning to.

“A few weeks later, he looked genuinely pained when I needled him about the Connecticut divorce comment he made,” Mr. Goldman recounted, pages later. “When he met my wife, he took her hands in his and told her, apologetically, ‘I love Connecticut.’”

Sure he does. And JFK was killed by a lone gunman.

"In light of his recent comments on Twitter, Andrew will not be contributing the Talk column to the Magazine for four weeks, beginning Oct. 28. He'll be back with the column after that,‪‪" said Hugo Lindgren, editor of The New York Times Magazine through a spokesperson.

Mr. Goldman was criticized by, among other people, Times public editor Margaret Sullivan after he got into a highly publicized Twitter feud in response to novelist Jennifer Weiner taking issue with his “Talk” feature in the Sunday magazine where he asked Tippi Hedren,  the star of The Birds if she had ever been tempted to sleep with directors.

Mr. Lindgren has reversed his position from last week.

"I made it clear to him that kind of behavior he exhibited in this Twitter exchange would not be tolerated, and he was contrite and accepted that without argument," Mr. Lindgren said then, in answer to Ms. Sullivan's question about the freelancer's standing at the magazine. "My feeling is that he had an unfortunate outburst, and that he will learn from it. He works very hard on these interviews and does a good job. Readers are entitled to whatever opinions they have of his work, and he needs to be comfortable with that and engage thoughtfully when appropriate, or not at all."

Tweet, tweet.

Last week, newly appointed public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote about what she now calls "the insulting and profane Twitter messages" that Times freelancer Andrew Goldman tweeted at author Jennifer Weiner. Ms. Sullivan ended the post by calling for a clear social media policy at the paper of record.

Looks like they are now clearing it up. It is actually fairly simple: don't be a jerk to readers.

"Be thoughtful. Take care that nothing you say online will undercut your credibility as a journalist. Newsroom staff members should avoid editorializing or promoting political views. And we should be civil – even to critics – and avoid personal attacks and offensive remarks," Philip B. Corbett, the associate managing editor for standards, said in a memo. The memo was included in Ms. Sullivan's post today.

"When in doubt, ask yourself if a given action might damage The Times’s reputation. If so, it’s probably a bad idea," Mr. Corbett continued.

And just how does this policy apply to freelancers?

“It would be crazy to try to control freelancers’ behavior night and day,” Mr. Corbett told Ms. Sullivan. But, as the Times standard bearers pointed out readers often don't know the difference between staff writers and freelancers. “So we want them to have the same standards,” Mr. Corebett said.

But the policy isn't new. We heard something similar last week when we reached out to find out if the newspaper was going to change their social media policy.

“We expect New York Times journalists to act like New York Times journalists,” Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said.

“It has been communicated to Andrew Goldman that his comments on Twitter were not appropriate and not in keeping with The Times’s long-standing principle that we expect our journalists to behave as thoughtfully on social media as they do in other aspects of their jobs,”added Ms. Murphy, in an email last week.

But ultimately, it is all up to the Times, Ms. Sullivan points out.

"And unstated is the simple truth that The Times has the upper hand here. It decides, often on a case-by-case basis, which freelancers to assign. Assessing their judgment on social media is very likely to be a part of that decision-making."

"Particularly in the wake of Mr. Goldman’s display of poor judgment, it’s good to see the guidelines reinforced," the public editor writes.

The Tweets that started it all. (Screenshot from Galleycat).

Bestselling novelist Jennifer Weiner started a Twitter fight with New York Times writer Andrew Goldman after she read his "Talk" feature in the Sunday magazine. Mr. Goldman asked actress Tippi Hedren,  the star of The Birds and the subject of a new HBO movie about her relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, if she had ever been tempted to help her career along by having sex with directors. Ms. Weiner tweeted "Saturday am. Iced coffee. NYT mag. See which actress Andrew Goldman has accused of sleeping her way to the top. #traditionsicoulddowithout." 

Mr. Goldman tweeted in response "@jenniferweiner sensing pattern. Little Freud in me thinks you would have liked at least to have had opportunity to sleep way to top




." The fight escalated from there, with other writers weighing in.

Today, Margaret Sullivan, the Times' new public editor, wrote about it.

But before Mr. Goldman got in a twitter war with Ms. Weiner, before he interviewed Ms. Hedren, before he was taken to task by Ms. Sullivan, Mr. Goldman was asking all sorts of inappropriate questions in Elle. Mr. Goldman spent eight years interviewing male celebrities about their dating lives and attitudes towards women for his column "cherchez la femme."

Some of our favorites:

Sean “P Diddy” Combs
ELLE: Before he married Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher once suggested to me that some mindblowingly debauched sexual stuff went on while he was hanging with you—it seemed to involve having sex with women while in the same room. What's your rule of thumb about that?
Bret Michaels
ELLE: Do you think there's a relationship between a woman's looks and sexual skills?
Michael Keaton
ELLE: Imagine you had only 10 seconds to prepare a girlfriend to meet your late mother. What would you tell her?
Matthew McConaughey
ELLE: Did you have any odd misunderstandings about human sexuality as a kid?
Bill Maher
ELLE: Please speculate on the lovemaking styles of fellow broadcasters Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
Kyle MacLachlan
ELLE: In Sex and the City, you played a guy who was only able to perform sexually in public places, like cabs and coatrooms. Have you found that there are any odd places that make you amorous?

But of course, Mr. Goldman's mistake was not really asking the question. (About that, reasonable minds can disagree.) It was his Twitter reply to Ms. Weiner.

"We expect New York Times journalists to act like New York Times journalists," Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said when we inquired the social media policy at the newspaper.

"It has been communicated to Andrew Goldman that his comments on Twitter were not appropriate and not in keeping with The Times’s long-standing principle that we expect our journalists to behave as thoughtfully on social media as they do in other aspects of their jobs," Ms. Murphy added in an email.

"I'm so sorry but I really can't talk about it," Mr. Goldman said via email. He has, of course, deleted his Twitter profile.

New York Times Magazine

AG: After AOL purchased The Huffington Post last year, I interviewed Arianna Huffington. She hung up on me and complained to my editors. So I was pleasantly surprised that you agreed to this interview.

TA: I read the interview when it came out, and it looked like it was rough. We don’t hold grudges around here.

Back in April, Mr. Goldman and Ms. Huffington got into it over the alleged red shift that had struck the news site, once known as the liberal's Drudge Report, since its merger with AOL.

AG: You’ve been saying recently that The Huffington Post is not a lefty publication?
AH: Actually I’ve been saying that for three years. The tag line that we’ve used a lot is “Beyond left and right.”

Three years ago was 2008. I looked at The Huffington Post a great deal during the election. It felt like the Internet version of Keith Olbermann’s show, and if that’s not lefty. . . .
Why don’t you be more specific? What were the messages that you considered lefty?

It’s as if you’re trying to tell me that Smurfs aren’t blue.
I’m just telling you that it is very clear that we have progressive views, but to call everything we’re doing lefty — it misses the whole point that American policy needs to be redefined beyond left and right. It’s a completely obsolete view of politics.

Still, I’m amazed you’re trying to tell me that The Huffington Post wasn’t started as a lefty blog?
I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m telling you things. I’m not trying, O.K.?

Despite this attack on his so-called work wife, Mr. Armstrong is able to carry on a lighthearted but substantive conversation about the company. He denies that AOL's revenue is entirely made up of little old ladies who don't know they're still subscribed to it, promises he is not challenging Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and says, actually, under-30s have very positive brand associations with AOL because of our wasted youths on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).

It all appears to be very civilized but, considering the recent revelation about Ms. Huffington's interview, we would be naive to think we know what goes down between Mr. Goldman and his subjects. Who knows what curse words, personal insults and threats of physical violence wound up on the cutting room floor after this interview was, as they say, condensed and edited?

Ms. Muhlhahn claims that Mr. Goldman painted her as reckless, but New York has filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that writing about somebody's divergence from medical opinon can't be defamation.

“I’m not that comfortable with VBACs at home, but I know most can have them fine,” Ms. Muhlhahn told Mr. Goldman at one point in the piece. "Most VBAC mommies know they have less of a chance of giving birth vaginally in a hospital.”

The Observer reported earlier this summer on the increasing scarcity of libel cases — not to mention successful ones — against media organizations these days. We're not lawyers, but New York seems very safe here. Ms. Muhlhahn is being sued herself by two of her clients, who had a stillborn baby after three days of labor.

Earlier: The End of Libel?

You Nielsen idiots . You were watching The West Wing . Don't you get enough of that stuff from CNN?

After an initial skepticism, we'd started quietly shuffling social engagements to make it to the couch by 9 on Wednesdays. That was a cozy, familiar feeling. The $treet was fixing to be our new Melrose Place , with 90210 alumna Jennie Garth in the Heather Locklear "special guest star" role.

The pleasure wasn't all selfish–that show was going to make careers: Jennifer Connelly (as Catherine Miller) would at long last be remembered for more than just Labyrinth , the 1986 clunker with David Bowie. Tom Everett Scott (as Jack Kenderson)–a peculiar yet somehow sensible hybrid of Tom Hanks, Rupert Everett and Campbell Scott–would set himself apart from all those other young actors with strong jaws, three names and thick shocks of hair. The loopily cunning Bridgette Sampras-Wilson (named simply "Bridget" on the program) was poised to justify her tennis-champion husband Pete's recent losing streak. Now she's just another Brooke Shields!

Thanks a bunch, Fox. You cowards .

Maybe The $treet just possessed too much genuine New York color to succeed in the hinterlands. In real life, the premiere's after-party was held at Eugene, a nightclub on 24th $treet; meanwhile, on the show, chump intern Sherman had a birthday party held at a boîte called Eugene. The leading lady played by husky-voiced unknown Nina Garbiras was named Alexandra Brill ( Brill! ). Ethnic and class diversity abounded. Some of us had already taken the time to develop a crush on the sweet working-class trader Mark McConnell, played by Sean Maher. Time wasted.

If you watch a lot of TV, you might remember Mr. Maher from his role as Neve Campbell's abusive boyfriend on Party of Five . And indeed, part of the appeal of The $treet was its nods, obvious or otherwise, to shows or stars that were somehow sibling. That guy who played Sherman, Christian Campbell? He's actually Neve's little brother. The nebbishy intellectual Evan Mitchell bedded a woman because she fulfilled his Xena fantasies. (What's more, the actor who played Evan, Adam Goldberg, starred in another short-lived drama, Relativity, which also starred Kimberly Williams, a former flame of … Pete Sampras .) Even Molly Ringwald, our old friend from the 1980's, popped up for a few scenes in Episode 2.

Yet this combination of clever references, fresh young faces and frenetically buzzing electronic tickers was, alas, not enough for the fools who failed to flock to The $treet .

– Alexandra Jacobs

No Helen Hunt

The following current films do not feature a performance by Helen Hunt:

Rugrats in Paris; Vertical Limit; Dungeons & Dragons; Unbreakable; Dude, Where's My Car?; Meet the Parents; Billy Elliot; 102 Dalmatians; Charlie's Angels; Quills; Bounce .

–Jason Gay

The Perfect Portfolio

[Sebastian] Junger puts his net worth at about $1.5 million …. Through his accountant, Mr. Junger met Richard Wald, a financial consultant at Merrill Lynch who now manages his portfolio. Mr. Junger's mandate was simple. "I told my broker: 'Just don't lose it. Keep up with inflation,'" he said. "But even if I lost it, I could just write another book." Staying within those constraints, Mr. Wald said he had invested 35 percent of Mr. Junger's portfolio in tax-free municipal bonds. The balance is in

equities, weighted heavily toward brand-name stocks like Cisco Systems, Merck, Citigroup and America Online, he added.

–from a Sunday, Dec. 3, New York Times article, "Talking Money With Sebastian Junger; From 'The Perfect Storm,' A Passage to Financial Freedom."

The week of Dec. 3 through 9 was one of the tightest on record for Andrew Goldman, a 28-year-old journalist living and working in New York. Mr. Goldman had gotten paid on Dec. 1, and after a weekend of burritos, he didn't have any money left over. That fact did not concern him greatly. That's because Mr. Goldman–like a lot of young professional writers in similar circumstances–has developed creative strategies to deal with his cash shortfall.

"The deal I made with myself is that I just wouldn't open my mail for a while," a groggy Mr. Goldman said on a recent morning. "It's not such a big deal. The landlord's friendly. Con Ed's all about hollow threats."

Wishing to sleep in, Mr. Goldman referred specific questions about his personal finances to his accountant and investment adviser in Portland, Me., Carlene Goldman. Ms. Goldman, who is also Andrew Goldman's mother, has prepared her son's taxes for the last five years. Though Ms. Goldman said that Mr. Goldman was now in a "much higher" income bracket than the days when he was paid $3.75 an hour to wear a bear suit to advertise for a local Maine toy store, she did concede that her client's portfolio was "decidedly weak and underfinanced."

Mr. Goldman's long-term financial planning is particularly problematic. Mr. Goldman's lone investment, Ms. Goldman said, is an interest-bearing savings account at the People's Heritage Bank in Portland, Me. The balance of the account is $487.56, according to Ms. Goldman. "However," the financial counselor said, "you have to remember that the bank book hasn't been updated since May. I would estimate that since May, it could yield an additional $2.50, since the interest accrues at a monthly rate, anywhere from 31 to 34 cents." Ms. Goldman added that Mr. Goldman also possessed approximately eight dollars' worth of pennies in a glass jar in Maine.

Ms. Goldman was vague about Mr. Goldman's other assets. She did say that if her son were ever tight on cash, she was prepared to liquidate some of his rare book collection, the centerpiece of which is a near-complete set of Howard the Duck comic books, as well as what Ms. Goldman described as "some really despicable pornography."

In the meantime, Ms. Goldman has recommended that Mr. Goldman try his best to limit his expenditures–until, as he has promised, his first multimillion-dollar script is purchased by a major Hollywood studio. So unlike a lot of his fellow twentysomething writers, Mr. Goldman has declined to purchase a townhouse; instead, he pays $725 per month to share a narrow fifth-floor walkup in the Lower East Side with a subletter he's "pretty sure" is named Chris.

Later that afternoon, Mr. Goldman greeted a visitor at his apartment. It was 1:30 p.m., and the journalist was unclothed except for a Joe Camel towel jammed like a loin cloth between his legs.

"So you want the tour?" Mr. Goldman asked, spinning around in the submarine-tight front hallway. "Here you go. This here is the subletter's room, those are his piles of old magazines, that's the kitchen, that's the bathroom, and that's my room."

Mr. Goldman has taken a minimalist approach to furnishing his apartment. His white plastic love seat, for example, was left behind by a previous tenant. So was his television set–though, he added, the previous tenant has been asking for it back. Mr. Goldman's bed–which he had just vacated–also came with the apartment. "The trick was, taking off the old apartment sheets and putting my personal sheets on it," Mr. Goldman said. "After about nine months, it stopped smelling weird."

As for clothing, Mr. Goldman said he has not shopped for clothes in a year. He remembered a trip to Century 21 when he first arrived in New York, and an afternoon emergency in which he went to Bergdorf Goodman to use the men's room. Mr. Goldman then pointed proudly to the Joe Camel towel around his waist. "This!" he exclaimed. "I got this for 50 Camel Bucks!"

Dining in New York also presents some problems for Mr. Goldman. "You know, I went out to eat the other night, and when it came time to pay, I was like, 'How much money do you need?'" he recalled. "You know, I could have been the guy going around the table collecting the money– maybe, you know, I could come out of it three or four dollars richer. But when it comes down to it, the stress of, you know, figuring out who ordered the steak or who got dessert, it's just way too much for me. I'll leave it to the pros."

As he headed off to take a shower, Mr. Goldman said he couldn't say exactly what his net worth was. As for future investments, Mr. Goldman again mentioned those multi-million-dollar screenplay ideas, and also spoke wishfully of "getting hurt in an accident at work–not so bad that I couldn't still write, but bad enough so that I'd get worker's comp and wouldn't have to go into the office."

A few minutes later, Mr. Goldman thrust his hand out through the shower curtain to show a reporter a bottle of Olay shower gel.

"I think this stuff came in a gift bag from some movie premiere," he said. "It ' s great because it works as soap and as shampoo, and I didn't pay a dime for it."

–Andrew Goldman