A self-assurance only multiple Davos trips can buy. (Image via Getty.)

The issue of the New Yorker available online today contains staff writer Nick Paumgarten's Davos diary which, while not the juiciest, at least offers an honest explanation of why coverage of the World Economic Forum's annual boondoggle is always so dull:

In general, the W.E.F. greets the media with a warm, if wary, embrace. This has apparently been the strategy since the 1999 anti-globalization riots in Seattle and elsewhere turned Davos into a target of popular, and then journalistic, bile. The place is lousy with reporters. The catch is that most of what goes on is off the record. Most of the sessions and private events are governed by the so-called Chatham House rule. The bargain is generally acceptable to the insidious extent that the thrill of access outweighs the urge to reveal. Anyway, as the journalists all say, nothing newsworthy ever happens at Davos, even if the journalists must occasionally pretend that it does, in order to justify their presence there. For most of them, it’s an occasion for cultivating sources, ideas, and the short-lived delusion that they belong among the white badges of the world.

Some might say journalists have a vocational mandate to reveal, in addition to the normal-human social "urge," but, whatever, we hope everyone is feeling inspired and sourced-up and important.

Mr. Paumgarten relayed one fun anecdote from a private soiree in a small, snowbound chalet a funicular ride up the mountain from Davos, which had been rented by Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law, and Sigmund Freud's great-grandson, Matthew Freud. There Mr. Paumgarten encountered Mick Jagger ("Jagger sightings were conversational currency," he admitted) and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger's girlfriend Claudia Gonzalez ("a fixture in the international philanthropic and Big Ideas jetset," according to Capital NY).

I met the editor of a Turkish newspaper, the editor of a German newspaper, an Israeli hedge-fund manager, the founder of Wikipedia, and then a tall and elegant woman in a black dress named Claudia Gonzalez, who was the former P.R. boss for the W.E.F. She wanted to introduce me to Jagger, but first she needed to tell me something about my attempts to understand and convey the Davos scene. She fixed me with a fierce look and said, “Be humble. Do you understand? Be humble. Because this is your first Davos.”

He is the charismatic type. When I first met him, he was having a casual post-lunch drink at the Four Seasons Hotel with Carly Simon and John Forté, who was chatting about Hobbes. When I interviewed him later on the sunny Gramercy Hotel Park rooftop, he talked with kingly gesticulation about Vikram Pandit and Arthur Sulzberger, who will both be at the forum.

Mr. Attias wants there to be serious people doing serious thinking about not just what went so wrong with the business world, but what has to be done for Wall Street to heal itself. So his allure will be put to the test. "He knows a lot of people, and they love him, and they trust him," his wife, Cécilia, who left Nicolas Sarkozy for him, told me, "because he is the most adorable guy."

Here is what she means.

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Mr. Attias, who used to produce the World Economic Forum in Davos, was wearing a white button-down with Dunhill cuff links shaped like steering wheels. The enormously beautiful morning's huge sunlight streamed directly down onto his plate of sliced fruit and decaf cappuccino. "Come on, we are on earth for something. So we should be, what, useless? It is nonsense."

Next month, searching for a post-crisis model for how business chiefs will think, talk, create and lead, Mr. Attias is holding a 36-hour midtown gathering that he'll call the New York Forum. It will be Manhattan's own Davos, only smaller and obsessed with the future of the business world.

"This is an idea-an opportunity," a man wearing a blazer a few feet away said into his cell phone. He was talking about something else, and he didn't have Mr. Attias' momentous sparkle. The Moroccan-born, French-educated 50-year-old, whose wife, Cécilia, left President Nicolas Sarkozy to marry him, is the kind of man around whom important people seem to congregate. A few days earlier, he and his wife sat at a table at the Four Seasons Hotel with the musicians Carly Simon and John Forté. There was chamomile tea and talk about Hobbesian pathology.

"He has been thinking about how to revive economic dynamism in this country," Columbia professor Edmund Phelps, one his 13 advisory board members, and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics, said recently. "And his thought about that is very original and very good."

But besides the World Economic Forum, moneyed thinkers and doers already have the TED conference, Allen & Company's Sun Valley retreat, Michael Milken's Beverly Hills ball and the Clinton Global Initiative, which Mr. Attias helped launch. Those, he would point out, are focused on technology, dealmaking or social causes, and they're mostly far away. The New York Forum, on the other hand, will be about corporate reinvention. And it will be here.

"It's a call for action to restore credibility, to restore faith, a call for action to find solutions," Mr. Attias explained on the Gramercy roof. Serge Gainsbourg's "Aux Armes et Cætera" played softly in the background. Jane Birkin, he said, is a friend.

MR. ATTIAS WAS born in Fez in 1959. "Very humble family," he said. He went to a French engineering school, worked in sales for IBM and, in 1990, began the firm Global Event Management.

In the middle of the decade, he was back in Morocco working on a ceremony when he met a German economics scholar named Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum. He hired Mr. Attias to handle logistics for Davos, the forum's flagship annual gathering at the Swiss resort. "It was much, much less known," he said. "When we met, the deal was to reinvent the format." Even after the gargantuan French advertising conglomerate Publicis bought a stake in his company in 1998, it was still Mr. Attias' job to shape Davos, a Mecca of globalism, down to the menus and the hotel room distribution.

Soon after he and Mr. Sarkozy's wife met, in 2005, Paris Match ran a photo of them hunting for an apartment in Manhattan. "I met someone, I fell in love, I left," she said later. "I am someone who likes the shadows, serenity, tranquility." The first couple reconciled, but only briefly.

The Attiases were married in March 2008 at Rockefeller Center. On their wedding day, the groom was informed that he would no longer be organizing Davos, his wife told a European reporter afterward; the understanding was that Mr. Schwab didn't want to upset the French government. "It was a nice wedding present," she said. A spokesman for the World Economic Forum denied then that Mr. Attias was even fired, saying he had merely been a subcontractor.

On the other hand, Mr. Attias said this weekend that Publicis CEO Maurice Lévy had sent a very nice message about the New York Forum, the very first one he received after it was announced. Later he talked to his wife's ex-husband. "I met President Sarkozy in New York, and he told me face to face that this is a great initiative," he explained. "And that he would be very happy to assist me in any way he can."

He has not heard from Mr. Schwab. "I didn't talk to Klaus. Because I didn't think I should," he said, giggling slightly. Before changing the subject, his voice leveled. "I have no particular relationship anymore with Klaus," he said. "I think it's quite public: I didn't like the way he reacted after my wedding."

"Cécilia is not only my wonderful wife, she is an inspiring force," he said. On June 24, the day after the New York Forum, they are holding a daylong event, the Dialogue for Action, for her foundation for women. Both forums will be produced by the Experience Corp., the firm he started to put together what he calls laboratories of human capital. "He was always behind the scenes, and he liked it that way," Ms. Attias said this week. "And now he's ready to have his own story begin."

"He kick-starts his American life," said the financier Michael P. Schulhof, the former CEO of Sony America, and a New York Forum advisory board member. "I don't know how many American businessmen know Richard's behind-the-scenes career at Davos. This is a coming-out party for him personally-as well as doing something that's got a lot of benefit."

"He knows a lot of people, and they love him, and they trust him," Ms. Attias said, "because he is the most adorable guy."

THE FORUM BEGINS at 2 p.m. on June 22, when attendees will file into the Grand Hyatt Hotel. They will not be given printed schedules telling them where to go for the two special discussions with as-yet-unnamed political leaders, or for, say, the closing talk on rebuilding corporate credibility.

Instead, each attendee gets an iPad. "No, it's not decadent," Mr. Attias said.

The next day there are interactive sessions, on the usefulness of failure, for example, followed by task forces on topics like developing and empowering workforces.
Mr. Attias talks about business problems with an arsenal of gesticulation. When he says "ideas," he puts both pointer fingers to his temples. He points ahead for "holidays," clenches for "United We Stand" and holds hands out and upward for "Wall Street." He puts his thumb on top of his fist like Clinton for "trust," then sticks both thumbs out for "strong signal."

Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit is one of the forum's announced speakers, and so is New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, even though the News Corporation's new digital chief, Jonathan Miller, is one of the 13 advisory board members. Another advisor is Gary Winnick, who paid $30 million to settle a class action lawsuit after the collapse of his firm Global Crossing. "You know, we need to put together the new generation and what you call sometimes the old guard," Mr. Attias explained. "I am someone who learned that it is important to put around the table people who were living in this ideal world with, sometimes, easy money." He pronounces money like Monet.

He does not expect the forum's first year to be lucrative. "But I am building something that could be sustainable for the future." Out of the corporate leaders, policy makers and investors from sovereign wealth funds and private-equity funds and hedge funds who were invited, he said, 150 have signed up so far. He hopes that number will double.

"It takes time for people to realize an event is serious," the French economist Jacques Attali, another board member, said this week. "The first year will be just the beginning."

"I know that registrations are always coming at the last minute," Mr. Attias said, before standing up slowly in the sun. "It's quite amazing."

mabelson@observer.com

"Eyebrows were raised last week when Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman—not known for her modesty—not only insisted on attending the World Economic Forum in Davos but demanded to fly to Switzerland first class. 'It's just jaw-dropping,' an insider said. 'Not only is her magazine not profitable, but she just laid off almost the entire Web site and fired many others on the print side.'"— Richard Johnson, et. al., Porfolio's First-Class Folly, The New York Post, February 2, 2009.

On Feb. 14, New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. is scheduled to address his paper’s staff and tell them that, more or less. In an unguarded moment the previous week, in the thin air of Davos, Mr. Sulzberger let someone from Ha’aretz ask him the old future-of-print question—with a five-year time frame, yet—then was quoted saying that the answer was “I really don’t know,” followed by “I don’t care.”

According to an advance excerpt of his upcoming remarks, Mr. Sulzberger will be praising the Times Company’s “powerful and trusted print brands,” noting that “print continues to command high levels of reader engagement,” and predicting that the format will survive “for a long time.”

It’s Valentine’s Day. Kindergarteners will presumably still be putting blunt scissors to red construction paper to make hearts. Down at a certain level, the medium still counts.

More directly to the point, in Madison, Me., a paper mill that is 40 percent owned by the New York Times Company will be rolling out supercalendered stock to make the glossy pages—and the glossy ad pages—of Mr. Sulzberger’s ever-expanding list of T lifestyle magazines. In Quebec, another paper mill, 49 percent owned by the Times Company, will be making the newsprint that will be cut into newspapers that will be wrapped around the T magazines and delivered to readers.

“[W]e still make most of our money from print advertising and circulation revenue,” Mr. Sulzberger plans to say.

Under Mr. Sulzberger, there has always been a New York Times of Tomorrow on its way. A press release goes out, hailing the birth of a new multi-digi-media cross-platform branded initiative, and between the lines it turns out to be the obituary of the last one. (Was it the Discovery Times that did in New York Times Television, or the other way around?) It’s been a series of fanfares for kazoo.

Yet while his fellow Davos ruminators were softly chewing the cud of the future, Mr. Sulzberger blurted out something new: “I don’t care.”

It was a gaffe, but also an epiphany. The New York Times is the newspaper of today. As it happens, today is when people read the newspaper.

The publisher’s great-grandfather, Adolph Ochs, was not a futurist. When Ochs bought the failing Times in 1896, he made it into a 20th-century newspaper by simply rearranging existing conventions: He would sell broadsheet quality at a tabloid price. That strategy, it turned out, allowed The Times to survive the collapse of New York’s competitive broadsheet market—without anyone ever planning for the end of the broadsheet world.

And even as the American newspaper industry is preparing for the day the Internet kills it off, The Times has made itself into the dominant newspaper on the Web. It has gotten there by trial and error—and the trials and the errors are both ongoing—but the basic premise has held: It is the paper, only without paper.

Particularly, it’s the paper you would get if you didn’t have to wait for a new paper to be printed. Decades ago, some readers wouldn’t subscribe to newspapers because they preferred buying the fresher, final edition off the newsstand. Now the final—the newest final—comes up each time you click “reload.”

But The Times still looks and handles like The Times. There are headlines in Times diction, to tell you what the stories are, or at least what kind of stories they are (“Weeks after a death, twists in some 9/11 details”; “Grammy sweep by Dixie Chicks is seen as a vindication”). There are sections, compressed to little patches of screen, that you can put off till later or train yourself to look past. There are photos and captions. There is even, through the Most E-Mailed list, a rough equivalent of the stack of last week’s copies that you’re planning to leaf through before you finally take them down the hall to the recycling.

The concept has staying power. A copy of the Times Web site archived from 1996 looks not unlike the page of today, except for the line asking readers to “Please open your window to the width of this line of text.”

It’s easy, except it’s not. The Washington Post is a soup of cryptic links, bobbing in and out of view. Dailies in cities like Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco are still hidden behind “portals” (please resize your newspaper to fit this window).

It’s not that nytimes.com is immune to fads or bad ideas. There are tepid blogs and cornball videos and if-you-insist podcasts strewn around the site. They will likely go away, piece by piece, as the real experts in those media—following The Times’ example—claim their own share of the Web audience. In the meantime, you can ignore them, and read the paper.

On Feb. 8, the newspaper Ha'aretz quoted Mr. Sulzberger thusly, responding to a question about whether the Times will still be printed on paper in five years:

On Wednesday, in a speech to Times employees, Mr. Sulzberger plans to clarify the message attributed to him in Ha'aretz. The Times supplied the Observer with a portion of his text in advance:

"We are continuing to invest in our newspapers, for we believe that they will be around for a very long time. This point of view is not about nostalgia or a love of newsprint. Instead, it is rooted in fundamental business realities: Our powerful and trusted print brands continue to draw educated and affluent audiences.

"Traditional print newspaper audiences are still significantly larger than their Web counterparts. Print continues to command high levels of reader engagement. And, of course, we still make most of our money from print advertising and circulation revenue. And yes, I remember what I said here last year and what I was supposed to have said last month at Davos about not having a printed product in five years time.

"So let me clear the air on this issue. It is my heartfelt view that newspapers will be around--in print--for a long time. But I also believe that we must be prepared for that judgment to be wrong. My five-year timeframe is about being ready to support our news, advertising and other critical operations on digital revenue alone ...whenever that time comes."

--Michael Calderone

“I believe that for as long as you and I are going be alive, there will be old media and new media,” Ms. Huffington said. “The more we incorporate the right accuracy standards, and they adopt the new media passion of speaking truth to power, the better the world will be.”

“We” was the digital media—“they” are the ink-stained wretches of newspaper-land. And this week, those groups will collide. On Jan. 24, the inaugural session of the International Media Council at the World Economic Forum begins, and it is a who’s who of the world’s editors, columnists, media executives and bloggers.

But is there an old way to quaff a martini, or a new way to eat a mini-quiche? Such questions must be answered up on the magic mountain.

Back in Nov. 2006, a W.E.F. spokesperson told The Observer that the media council was “just an idea.” More recently, the same W.E.F. spokesperson didn’t return calls and e-mails seeking comment about the group.

But according to a forum agenda obtained by The Observer, as well as information provided by I.M.C. members, the group has, stunningly, moved from theory to practice in under two months.

Perennial Davos attendee Tom Friedman will be there, along with his colleague on the New York Times Op-Ed page, Nicholas Kristof. Daily newspaper rival Paul Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, will be on hand, too.

Over at 4 Times Square, Si Newhouse must be cracking the whip, because both of Condé Nast’s I.M.C. invitees—Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter and The New Yorker’s David Remnick—will not be making the trek. Time managing editor Richard Stengel is skipping out of the inaugural meeting: With nearly 300 Time Inc. staffers facing layoffs, it’s probably not a wise move to be caught schussing on the slopes.

Slate editor Jacob Weisberg was also invited to join the I.M.C. and will be making his first trip to Davos out of “curiosity,” he told The Observer. In the early-morning hours of Jan. 24, amidst the alpine splendor, Mr. Weisberg said that he will be writing a piece on Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. (9 p.m. E.S.T. is 3 a.m. in Davos.)

Poor Mr. Weisberg will only get a few hours of sleep before the I.M.C.’s noon networking buffet on Jan. 24, held at the Post Hotel. Shortly thereafter, W.E.F. founder Klaus Schwab will give his introductory greeting before the main event of media machers, a three-hour session entitled “Old Questions, New Answers.” Michael Oreskes, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, will chair the event.

Social networking is a big topic this year at Davos, suggesting that any 13-year-old American suburbanite, chosen at random, certainly has lots to teach the world’s powerbrokers.

Beginning at 2:10 p.m., the first I.M.C. panel features Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr; Chris DeWolfe, C.E.O. of MySpace; and Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube. Blogging will take up the second half of the session, with a panel that includes Ms. Huffington; Oh Yeon Ho, founder of OhmyNews; and Stephen Gan, co-founder and editor of Malaysiakini.

Throughout the five-day event, Davos organizers have asked all attendees—there are more than 2,400—to post a blog entry on the forum’s site. Ms. Huffington will be blogging regularly, as well BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis, who has also solicited videotaped questions—uploaded via YouTube, natch!—for global leaders.

Some of the proposed questions for the I.M.C. session are “What space is there for journalism in this new media world?” and “What does journalism mean now?”

After chewing on the state of their craft, both old and new alike, the I.M.C. gang will head for dinner at La Terrasse, in the Hotel Victoria. Despite the restaurant’s winter garden and idyllic mountain views, conversation might not prove to be so whimsical. The scheduled dinner theme is “Fanning the Flames—Is the Media Fueling the Clash of Civilizations?” One divisive topic: “Is the Western Media Anti-Islamic? Or: “Is the Arab Media Anti-Western?” Bon appétit!

(For I.M.C. members looking to skip the Samuel Huntington–esque banter, steel juggernaut Arcelor Mittal will be hosting a “winter wonderland” cocktail party at the Paulaner Bar, in the Hotel Seehof.)

On Jan. 25, the I.M.C. crowd is scheduled to meet again, for a 7 p.m. networking cocktail party at the Hotel Fluela. That’s followed by a two-and-a-half-hour session titled “Whose Space Is It Anyway?” (Is the answer “My”?) Members will address whether traditional media companies can “stay relevant, vital, and profitable,” and if social communities are just “a passing fad.” (Blasphemy!) Then it’s onto the private bus for a nightcap at the Paulaner Bar Seehof, which according to the I.M.C. agenda will feature the presence of “sports personalities.”

The I.M.C. panels will be over by Friday, but the parties continue.

Only a select few big shots will get into the private lunch hosted by billionaire Ukrainian steel magnate Victor Pinchuk and fellow billionaire financier George Soros. But there’s always Google’s “After Hours” party, held at the Hotel Belvèdére. The late-night soirée features live entertainment, drinks, canapés and desserts.

On Saturday, after shaking off that dot-com-sized hangover, Reuters is sponsoring a mountain retreat, with a private lunch for about 100 of the “top people from the business and media worlds,” according to a company spokesperson. Advertising titan Martin Sorrell, for one, is expected to attend the afternoon event, which includes a run down a mountain, followed by food and drinks at the Parsenn Hotel.

Sadly, all good economic forums in the Alps must come to an end. While many attendees will head to the farewell dinner at the Hotel Central, a select few might attend an unofficial gala at the Morosani Post Hotel, hosted by Davos veterans Sandy Climan, a former C.A.A. executive, and Michael Wolf, the recently resigned president and C.O.O. of MTV Networks. “It’s a very plugged-in group,” said one I.M.C. member, who added that last year the crowd included a number of senior journalists and those kings of the hill, the founders of Google.

While Time Chopping Block Bloodies, Big Names MoDo and Friedman, Lizza and Liptak Rebuff Honcho Stengel's Come-ons.

When Time managing editor Richard Stengel walked into a packed editorial meeting in the magazine’s midtown offices on Jan. 18, he said, according to a staffer present, “I wonder where the best place for me to stand is?”

Massive layoffs had just been announced a couple of hours before, so a suggestion was offered from the floor: “Chicago?”

Despite efficiency consultants McKinsey & Company prowling around the Time-Life Building over the past few months, and with layoffs in the air, Mr. Stengel has continued with his magazine makeover. For Mr. Stengel, that process has required trading an antiquated editorial apparatus—dreamed up in the days of founder Henry Luce—for a sleeker stable of big-name writers.

Mr. Stengel, according to several sources, has approached four New York Times staffers: columnists Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd, national legal correspondent Adam Liptak and reporter Sarah Lyall, who is currently in the London bureau.

While Mr. Friedman was asked to become a columnist—like recent Time hires William Kristol and Michael Kinsley—Ms. Dowd, who cut her teeth at Time in the early 80’s, would have been writing features. Both columnists didn’t return calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Mr. Stengel also reached out to Matt Labash, a senior writer at The Weekly Standard, and Ryan Lizza, senior editor at The New Republic. Mr. Stengel shouldn’t take the latter rejection too hard: Mr. Lizza also recently turned down two other venerable suitors, The Times and The Washington Post.

Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick, science writer Jim Holt and New Yorker staff writer Peter Boyer were also on Mr. Stengel’s wish list. Mr. Boyer, according to multiple sources, was offered a deal with Time and came very close to accepting. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

“Rick’s been talking to a lot of people since Day 1 in this job,” said a spokesperson for Mr. Stengel. “He talks to his friends who are reporters and writers.”

So Mr. Stengel’s friends happen to be among the most established journalists in the country, unlike some of the lesser-known Time staffers packing up their belongings. In the writers’ category alone at Time—which includes senior writers, staff writers and writer-reporters—five out of 18 staffers will have to go in the next two weeks.

While the aforementioned big-name writers could help move newsstand sales, or possibly lead to a more highbrow subscriber base, there’s an obvious downside: Those on the all-star team may not be such team players.

Andrew Sullivan signed a one-year deal with Time to move his popular blog to the magazine’s Web site. He made his new home at Time.com in January 2006. He was fêted in the Upper West Side apartment of former managing editor Jim Kelly—who’s since moved upstairs to become managing editor of Time Inc. (It was well documented in The New York Times’ defunct gossip column, Boldface Names, on March 10, 2006.)

But a contract’s a contract. On Jan. 19, 2007, in a blog entry entitled “Of No Party or Clique,” Mr. Sullivan announced that he was off to The Atlantic. Mr. Sullivan—who less than two weeks earlier was featured prominently on the redesigned Time.com—concluded his post with an entreaty to his readers: “Come along, will you?”

—M.C.

Art Buchwald Beyond the Grave—Who's Next to Die Online for Times Digital? Jimmy Carter, Mike Wallace—and Bill Clinton?

On Jan. 18, Art Buchwald’s video obituary appeared on the New York Times Web site, just minutes after the announcement of his death—the first in a new online series, the Last Word.

As is so often the case for the selfish living, the question is: Who among us will be next?

An internal Times memo sent that day divulged potential answers. It read: “More to follow, including Mike Wallace, Jimmy Carter, John Morris, Bud [sic] Schulberg …. ”

“It sounded a little macabre, in a way,” said Bill McDonald, the obituaries editor, who declined to confirm if the memo was accurate. “We’re not wishing for anyone to leave us.”

“Those are people that we are thinking about filming,” said Ann Derry, who manages The Times’ television and video unit. Although Ms. Derry wrote the memo, she declined to discuss the contents in detail.

That same day, Editor & Publisher reported that “a former president” has already been interviewed for the Last Word project—and that 10 interviews had been “completed and edited.”

So if Mr. Carter has not yet been filmed, as per Ms. Derry’s memo, which former President is it—Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush?

“It’s under the seal, and there it shall it remain,” said Tim Weiner, the veteran Times reporter who conceived of the project.

Mr. Wallace, according to a spokesperson, has also not yet been filmed.

Mr. Weiner’s video obituary idea had to pass muster with members of the Times masthead: executive editor Bill Keller and managing editors Jill Abramson and John Geddes. He said: “We showed Bill, Jill and John Geddes a rough cut of Buchwald, and Bill said, ‘We can’t not do this.’”

Mr. Weiner is confident that more notable names will agree to be filmed.

“Unless they find the prospect of their own mortality unconscionable, or they have a particular animus against The New York Times,” he said, “I think they’ll say, ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea.’”

In the Buchwald video, the late humorist begins with an already-classic opening: “Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died.” Was that scripted?

“Feed a line to Art Buchwald?” said Mr. Weiner. “Are you kidding me? That’d be like teaching Willie Mays to catch a fly ball.”

—M.C.

The Transom goes to Sundance. (As Brad Pitt.)

Jared Paul Stern: Free at last.

It's Davos, baby! A thorough guide to this week's Swiss new media/old royalty confab.

As Time slashes forward, its editor tries and fails to poach big names.

Who's next on NYT video obits?

Alexis Swerdloff goes home again--to Brooklyn.

Start polishing up those crampons, David Remnick. The New Yorker editor joins Fareed Zakaria, Graydon Carter and other name-brand media figures on the draft, which runs to more than 100 names.

“It’s kind of like a list of who we think would be wonderful,” W.E.F. spokeswoman Claudia Gonzalez said.

Ms. Gonzalez described the International Media Council as “just an idea,” but she confirmed that the W.E.F. is planning to have a “media council of some sort.” The project should take a more definite shape within four to six weeks, she said.

The W.E.F. already has a few other separate “communities,” like the International Business Council (the C.E.O.’s of Mittal Steel and Chevron are members); the Arab Business Council; and the Young Global Leaders (which includes young university professors, elected officials and high-powered executives).

“They told me that they wanted to create something like it,” said Mr. Zakaria, the Newsweek International editor and multi-year Davos veteran, about the proposed council. “That’s the extent of my knowledge. They have had groups like that in the past. I think they used to have a group grandiosely called the Club of Media Leaders.”

Arianna Huffington—who knows from critical-mass assemblies of celebrity—is also on the wish list, though she said she did not help to write it and doesn’t know what other names are on it. The Huffington Post founder is already planning to show up at the regular Davos conference next year, to take part in a panel on new media.

“I know [W.E.F. head] Klaus Schwab,” Ms. Huffington said. “He and I see each other, and we have lunch.”

Other new-media representatives on the list include YouTube co-founder Chad Hurely, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson, BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis and Slate editor “Jacob Weissberg” [sic]. Don’t worry Mr. Weisberg! It’s just a draft!

But there’s still room at the top for the old media, too. Among the prospective council members are Time managing editor Richard Stengel and Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, along with plenty of famous bylines: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, New Yorker writers Ken Auletta and Seymour Hersh, and Washington Post (and Simon & Schuster) debriefer-of-the-mighty Bob Woodward.

Who's missing out so far? New Newsweek editor Jon Meecham is not on the list with his rival Mr. Stengel; Times pundits David Brooks, John Tierney, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert also apparently did not make the cut.

Ms. Dowd, through a spokesperson, said she wasn’t aware of this list, and only attended the W.E.F. when it was held in New York City, in 2002. Fellow Timesman Tom Friedman said through a representative that he hadn’t been contacted, either.

Representing television is CBS's Katie Couric, alone among current network news anchors (NBC's anchor emeritus, Tom Brokaw, is also on the wish list). Joining Ms. Couric are PBS's Charlie Rose, CNN's Christiane Amanpour and CNBC's "Money Honey," Maria Bartiromo. Behind the faces, TV executives included CNN International managing director Chris Cramer, Al-Arabiya general manager Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, and Al Jazeera managing director general Wadah Khanfar.

Among other big shots, New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., who made his Davos debut at the 2006 edition, is on the draft list, as is fellow newspaper scion Donald Graham of the Washington Post. Mortimer Zuckerman is on the list (in his capacity as U.S. News boss, not Daily News publisher), but Rupert Murdoch is not.

And is it really worth going to Switzerland to huddle up with the same people you can find in Tina Brown’s dining room, or at the Bombay Club?

“I’m always suspicious of clubs and councils,” Mr. Zakaria said. He added that he would be interested in participating in a media council “as long as the involvement was fairly minimal.”

“One of the reasons to go to Davos is to meet unusual people from all of the world,” Mr. Zakaria said. “To go to Davos and meet the editor of the L.A. Times is not that unusual.”

In fact, while Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie is on the list, Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet is not. Nor is New York Times editor Bill Keller.

Post Boasts, News Stews, as Cutthroat Tab Passes Foe; Next Step: Turn a Profit?

What’s the difference between the New York Post and most other daily newspapers?

“They are boring as bat shit,” said Post editor in chief Col Allan.

He’d like to attribute the Post’s recent milestone—according to a recent report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the tabloid saw the greatest increase in circulation over the past six months of any U.S. daily—to that fact.

The Post’s circulation—which is still subject to audit—climbed to a record 704,011.

With that 5.1 percent increase, the Post moved to the No. 5 spot among U.S. dailies, trailing behind USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times—all four of which witnessed drops.

But most importantly, for the first time, the Post edged out its tabloid rival, the Daily News.

Wasting no time, the headline “Post Beats News” appeared prominently on the newspaper’s Web site, and was later splashed across Times Square’s massive Panasonic screen.

News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch was also “delighted,” according to Mr. Allan, and placed a congratulatory call from London to his editor. “He told me that I needed to buy some people some cocktails this evening,” Mr. Allan said.

Around 10 p.m. that night, according to Post managing editor Steve Cuozzo, Mr. Allan was greeted by cheering employees upon his arrival at Langan’s Bar on West 47th Street. “It was amazing here yesterday,” said Mr. Cuozzo, a Post veteran since 1972. “Everybody who was here was in an absolutely ecstatic mood. It was like after the World Series or Super Bowl.”

Not surprisingly, the Daily News quickly countered that the Post’s circulation jump resulted from Mr. Murdoch’s willingness to pump money into a newspaper that is reportedly hemorrhaging millions annually.

“If you’d lost $300 million over the past five years, spent $200 million on new presses, carpet-bombed neighborhoods with free copies and lost fortunes to sell a few thousand papers in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, you’d be desperate to celebrate creeping a few copies ahead of us,” said Martin Dunn, the Daily News’ editor in chief and deputy publisher, via e-mail.

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Allan of his rival’s claims.

While Mr. Allan declined to comment on exactly how much money the Post loses each year, he confirmed that the newspaper remains financially in the red.

Bu Mr. Allan did make a bold prediction: The Post will soon turn a profit.

“Clearly, I think that it is a year or so away,” said Mr. Allan. “Our economic position has improved. I know that our market share, in terms of revenue, has improved against the Daily News pretty steadily.” Then, perhaps on second thought, Mr. Allan slightly altered his timetable for the number of years before profitability: “Two, maybe,” he said.

“I have no idea if it’s losing money or making money,” said media-industry analyst Edward Atorino of the Benchmark Company. “It doesn’t really matter. For Rupert Murdoch, the Post is a great success story, because it has become an exciting newspaper. As far as News Corp. goes, it’s a third decimal point.”

The Post is regularly criticized for giving away free issues—on busy street corners or outside subway stops. Typically featuring a different cover, these sponsor copies—known in circulation lingo as third-party sales—are included in circulation statistics. That is, as long as the sponsor has paid for at least 25 percent of the basic home-delivery price, according to a spokesperson for the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Post’s third-party sales are “half of both of those of The Times and the Daily News,” Mr. Allan said. He cited the A.B.C.’s figures, whereby third-party sales account for 43,864 copies of the Post versus 92,262 of the News. “I’d be happy to get rid of them tomorrow,” he said. “We do it less than any of them.”

In 2000, the Post—in an effort to boost circulation—dropped its cover price from 50 to 25 cents, half the price of the News. But Mr. Allan said that the price cut isn’t the only factor in the circulation jump: “If it were true that price was everything, then we would have gone up immediately.” And without missing a beat, he said that “the Post is half the price, and twice the value.”

In 2005, Lachlan Murdoch—then the Post’s publisher—told Business Week that he intended to increase the cover price to 50 cents again once the Post overtook the News in circulation. And now, Mr. Allan said he is unaware of any plan to increase the price.

On the other hand, the News maintains a sizeable lead in terms of Sunday sales: 780,196 to the Post’s 427, 264. And on Oct. 31, the News ran the headline “The #1 Newspaper in the City!” across the wood.

“The Daily News is STILL unequivocally the number one newspaper in the place that counts—New York,” said Mr. Dunn via e-mail. “Let’s see where we are next year.”

Mr. Allan, who took over as editor in 2001, said that he “brought to the paper some cultural changes, without losing the paper’s wit and humor.” Besides finding other newspapers boring, Mr. Allen has another problem with the competition: “I occasionally think that journalists spend too much time talking down to their audiences,” he said.

And which New York City papers is he referring to?

“All the rest,” he said.

Fortune's Wheel Turns: Pooley Makes Quick Exit; Serwer to Face Portfolio

About a week ago, Time Inc. editor in chief John Huey called Andy Serwer, then senior editor at large at Fortune magazine, to ask him to become the managing editor of the magazine.

“I was really thrilled,” said Mr. Serwer. “John Huey is someone I’ve worked with for over a decade.

“He is the man. He is the maestro.”

Mr. Serwer said that he thought his experience in both Internet and television were part of the reason he was hired.

“It is so important for a magazine to be an excellent magazine,” he said, “but also to be distributed online and on TV as well.”

What about future competition in the business-journalism world, specifically from the spring 2007 launch of Condé Nast Portfolio?

“Condé Nast is having a huge rollout, [and] we welcome the competition,” said Mr. Serwer. “We are going to be competing vigorously in this space. I don’t think we’ll be partying like it’s 1999, but I look at this as a strong category going into next year.”

Since 1985—and minus two brief leaves of absence to co-produce a bluegrass music documentary—Mr. Serwer has worked at Fortune in various capacities.

“These are people I’ve worked with for over two decades,” said Mr. Serwer, “and they are the best of the breed.”

On the morning of Oct. 31, those people received an e-mail calling them to a mandatory meeting, beginning 20 minutes later in the second-floor conference room.

One Fortune staffer said that the brief meeting was “along the lines of ‘Everybody’s doing a great job and meet your new managing editor.’” Another staffer was “very surprised” by the abrupt announcement.

Abrupt because Eric Pooley, who preceded Mr. Serwer as managing editor, had only held the post for 18 months. He didn’t attend the meeting.

“Eric has real strength in investigative journalism and digging deep into a subject,” said Time Inc. managing editor Jim Kelly.

A Time Inc. press release said that Mr. Pooley would assume a new role in the company, working on “investigative projects” upstairs with Messrs. Huey and Kelly.

“There may be another component to this job,” Mr. Kelly said. “That’s why it’s as vague as it is.”

Although Mr. Serwer begins immediately, Mr. Pooley will not start upstairs until around Thanksgiving, according to Mr. Kelly.

Murdoch will be there too, of course. And the main underwriter, again, is Tom Golisano, incongruously seated front and center between his wife and Democratic partisan warrior John Podesta.