If there is one hire that signifies the changing of the guard moment we're witnessing in the New York media scene, I'd argue it's the Village Voice's hiring of Harry Siegel, which they announced yesterday afternoon.

Siegel will be their new city columnist and is taking over the space filled, admirably, by Tom Robbins, who is now teaching the next generation of reporters over that the CUNY graduate center. (Robbin worked alongside investigative reporter Wayne Barrett who left in January, after more than three decades at the paper, for a job at the Daily Beast and The Nation Institute.) 

But don't let Siegel's age -- 33 -- fool you.

Siegel, a Brooklyn native, combines the historical perspective of a much older veteran (ask him what he was doing in the early and mid 1990s!) with the intelligent irreverence of an annoying hipster (he once demanded the New York Times write a correction after they reported that the New York Press endorsed Fernando Ferrer in the 2005 mayor's race. Even a casual reading of the endorsement -- written by Siegel -- would see he was kidding).

I probably would still be saying this even if Siegel wasn't an old friend and colleague of mine from the New York Press days.

And, in a Gchat interview yesterday (what should we call that kind of thing?), Siegel said he's eager to write a weekly column and, somewhat less reliant on using the blogging format as a way to make his mark on the scene.

Harry Siegel: Hey man

Azi Paybarah: yo. congratulations

Harry: Thanks

Azi Paybarah: all right, first things first. 

what's the name of the column going to be and the name of the blog?

Harry Siegel: Funny, but b/c of Voice style, the name of the column will be 

Harry Siegel and for blogging.

I'll be contributing to Runnin' Scared.

Azi Paybarah: you had more creative names back in the NY Press Days

Harry Siegel: Azimandias!

Azi Paybarah: ssshhhh about that.

So, will this be a reprisal of the NY Press you were building not too long ago, 

or are you picturing something different for this

- what do we call it? - column / blogging operation you're doing?

Harry Siegel: This is going to be a straight column, so 

I think comparing it to what I was doing as an editor at the Press is apples and oranges. 

And while I'll be blogging some, I'm really excited about the weekly column part --

-- it's a form that still packs a real punch when done right, and I is under-represented these days as the blog/instant news cycle model has ascended.

Excited to have a chance to hold and develop thoughts and stories, and to give them context

Azi Paybarah: despite your youthful age (33 is still young, right?), 

you've been around for a while.

what's your take on the NY media and how it's been covering Bloomberg? Because, you know, sadly, we don't have columns from Joyce Purnick, or Clyde Haberman, or even the ideologically consistent New York Sun, or, needless to say, Village Voice veterans Wayne Barrett and Tom Robbins.

Harry: there is big hole to fill in institutional knowledge. DC has gained at NY's expense --

so just looking at the New Yorkers at Politico: Ben Smith, and Gregg Birnbaum, and Glenn Thrush, and Maggie Haberman, and Edward-Isaac Dovere, and Allison Silver (formerly Nia, who is now at the Post) and Reid Epstein of Newsday. And, until recently, me.  

I'm sure I'm missing a few people, but you get the idea. 

So yes I think there's space here, especially for columnists.  

I'm not sure who writes long form about New York who really captures the city and its voice these days.

And yes, I am 33.

Azi Paybarah: think you'll score a Bloomberg interview?

Harry Siegel: Lol  

I hope so, we'll see

But I also think there's a lot to be said for looking at fundamentals, rather than personalities.

And being sure what access you do have pays off in terms of information, which ain't always the case

Azi Paybarah: any advice for blogging junkies like me, who, in some ways, are now sharing turf with you?

Harry Siegel: Hmm -- gimmie 1 sec to think about that

Azi Paybarah: in the meantime, let me try another way into the question!

what are the strengths of writing a weekly column, rather than, say, a constantly updated blog?

Harry Siegel: Dangerous to say before actually doing the column - but hopefully, I'm going to find out.

Thinking about it beforehand, I hope it's a chance to have things whole cloth, rather than in ever smaller news bits that can create proportional tricks, and defy contextualization.

Like DH Lawrence said about Joyce and Wolfe, as best I remember: It's like they're taking consciousness and ripping it up into finer and finer bits until they can only be distinguished by smell.

Mostly I hope that having access to Runnin Scared means I can blog a good deal when there's news,

but avoid the churnolism regular blogging tends to encourage

Azi Paybarah: aaaand end scene.

 

It's video just posted online from an April 22, 2009 panel discussion at the New School, entitled "Michael Bloomberg's Transformation." It's hosted by Dominic Carter of NY1, and the panel includes Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice (whose article on Bloomberg inspired the panel), Errol Louis of the Daily News and WWRL, Joyce Purnick of the New York Times and Robert George of the New York Post.

At the 21:36 mark, Purnick says the city is getting used to the mysterious billionaire they elected mayor.

“Mike Bloomberg came in out of nowhere, we thought,” she said. She added, “To the average New Yorker, if he was a name, that was it. We knew he was wealthy. We have focus groups and polls to show this. The average New Yorker knew his name, sort of.”

She goes on to say, “The man that took the office on January 1, 2002 was relatively unknown and then he kind of had to learn to be a public figure. So, has he changed? I suspect not. Have our perceptions of and our understanding of him changed? Absolutely. And that is a function of the unusual way in which he became mayor. It was a fluke, in my view.”

Purnick adds, “So, we elected this guy in 2001 not really knowing who he was. And we’re learning.”

An email from the organizers previewing the event asks, “Are the news media revising their views on Mayor Bloomberg in this election year?”

(Yes?)

Here are the details:

The Media and the Mayor:

Michael Bloomberg’s Transformation

Wednesday April 22, 2009, 8:30 to 10am

Theresa Lang Community & Student Center 55 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th avenues), 2nd floor

Once he was described as an antidote to the old urban politics. Today he’s become an institution whose work could define a generation in government much like two other three-term mayors, Ed Koch and Robert Wagner. Are the news media revising their views on Mayor Bloomberg in this election year? Can he hold on to the winning image of an independent, effective reformer three times in a row?

WITH:

Wayne Barrett, Senior Editor, The Village Voice

Robert George, Associate Editorial Page Editor, New York Post

Errol Louis, Columnist and Editorial Board Member, New York Daily News

Joyce Purnick, veteran political columnist and reporter, The New York Times

Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, Executive Editor, El Diario/La Prensa

MODERATOR:

Dominic Carter, Anchor, "Road to City Hall," NY1 News

Admission is free but you must RSVP. Call 212.229.5418 or email centernyc@newschool.edu.

UPDATE: Relatedly, Purnick's publisher has an excerpt of the book online now. In it, she describes a scene at a private event in Idaho in 2008 where Bloomberg goes to Rupert Murdoch to ask for help.

New York Times editor and writer Joyce Purnick has been researching a biography on the mayor, called Michael Bloomberg: Mayor, Mogul, Philanthropist: The Art of Running Anything. It was previously slated to come out before Bloomberg left office on January 1, 2010.

In an email exchange last night, Purnick told me that because of this latest bend in Bloomberg’s career path, the book will come out earlier.

“Well, this development has moved up the publication date. It’s now slated to come out a little less than a year from now--a couple of months earlier than originally planned,” she wrote in an email. “So, I have to write faster!”

An election-year biography (not written by a member of Bloomberg's news organization) may help re-imagine Bloomberg's well-crafted public image.

His first book was written with Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. Bloomberg's second book was to be written with Margaret Carlson, a columnist for Bloomberg News.

It's not the first time that Bloomberg, who normally holds reporters in something like amused contempt, will have worked closely with a journalist from his company. On his first book, he worked with Matthew Winkler, a founder and editor in chief of Bloomberg News.

Meanwhile, Joyce Purnick, a non-Bloomberg writer, is scrambling to get a Bloomberg biography of the unauthorized variety on bookstore shelves before the mayor leaves office.

But New York Times editor and writer Joyce Purnick, who knows how to read Bloomberg, says it's actually just the opposite.

“Immigration is the third rail of American politics, right?" she said yesterday during an appearance on NY1’s NY-Close Up. "If he were really serious about running for President, there’s no way he could say what he said about immigration.

"I mean, that’s going to appeal to two states, and only some people, in New York and California," she went on. "But there’s no way you can run for President in this country and be so over-poweringly pro-immigrant. You can run for, maybe, governor of New York, maybe, which I don’t think he is.”

She said later, "He talked about immigration the way Rudy used to talk about immigration. He talked about immigration the way New Yorkers feel about immigration. Not even New Yorkers, say, on Long Island, or in parts of Westchester.”

“I actually think that was a more local, more parochial approach than I’ve heard from him in a long time,” she finished.

Around 8 p.m. last night, the Senator delivered half an hour of a not entirely committed speech, one which was marked by his usual mistake of being unwilling to arrange his text with places for an audience to applaud.

This time, he forewent his Martin Luther King, Jr., references for a story about Bobby Kennedy in Mississippi. The Senator, for all his talk about the death of baby boomer politics, only refers to the highlights of the 60's as a moral.

At the end he trailed off, and the press horded into a back room to briefly grill him.

"I was supposed to be here all day and have a bunch of meetings,"
Senator Obama said after--but they'd been cancelled, or at least postponed. "I circled and circled around Manhattan for a while," he said. How much longer will the Senator's vow to only fly commercial last?

According to his spokesfella, Tommy Vietor, he was departing immediately afterwards. This would turn out to be not exactly true.

Peyser, in the front row, got off the first question in the hastily assembled presser in the hotel's Lotus room. Imagine the most sarcastic tone of voice possible: "Have you met with Hillary Clinton while you're in town?" He had not. Shortly thereafter, the lights, overloaded by camera drain, went out. "It's Hillary," Peyser told the Senator. "She's got her finger on the switch."

-- Choire Sicha

At times, that card did get shown, but no one remembers.

Last June in the Daily News, just before the official unveiling, T.J. Quinn, citing unnamed sources, reported:

Two weeks later, the News reported that the new station, along with the subway improvements, would cost $90 million. (Another archive fee.) Now, Yankee fan Adolfo Carrion is saying the Metro-North station would cost but $30-40 million. Ah, thank goodness for deflation.

-Matthew Schuerman

UPDATE: The Metro-North station was actually part of the Borough President's plan for the area. The final environmental impact statement for the stadium indicates the Mayor supported the idea back in February when it came out :

Cuite probably didn't think he'd be remembered three decades later for opposing a gay rights bill. But it turns out that it's the only thing he's remembered for, here, here, and here, and indirectly in a walled-off Joyce Purnick column. About half the "Tom Cuite" hits on Google focus on the bill.

It's a case study in being on the historically "wrong" side of a civil rights issue. And while impossible to predict, it's not inconceivable that, say, Chuck Schumer's vote for the Defense of Marriage Act will be one of very few things people know about him in 50 years.

Correction: Cuite wasn't the elected council president, the equivalent of public advocate. He was the legislative leader.

"This is Al Sharpton's town, and you're either with him or against him," he said. "You can't have it both ways. That's what Mark Green learned in 2001, and what Freddy's learning now."

Also today, Joyce Purnick dares to suggest that racial politics might be rather complicated. She thinks black politicians are shying away from Freddy because Billy Thompson is their horse. We don't entirely disagree, but think that less calculated factors -- longstanding enmities, the usual competition between groups -- are also relevant.