Michael Wolff (Photo credit: Peter Sterne)

Michael Wolff—the Vanity Fair columnist, entrepreneur, and curmudgeonly media provocateur—trekked uptown last night to explain to a crowd of Columbia Journalism School students why they were wasting their money.

In a recent column in USA Today, Mr. Wolff argued that Columbia’s J-School was a racket and Steve Coll, newly named dean of the school, was the wrong person to run it. He was dismissive of the school’s nascent digital journalism program, noting that the school “curiously hir[ed] a Web editor from London to run it.”

The  web editor in question, Emily Bell, invited Mr. Wolff to the J-School to answer for his op-ed. Upset Columbia students and alums came to see what outrageous things Mr. Wolff would say. One student, no doubt demonstrating his digital journalism skills, even made a tumblr to commemorate the occasion.

“You may not have learned this in Journalism School,” Mr. Wolff told the crowd of Columbia Journalism School students last night, but the best way to write a newspaper column “is to find an interest group and alienate them.”

Mr. Wolff seems to have found that interest group, but then again, alienating aspiring journalists is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, even if it does make for decent enough copy.

“Starting a journalism business has nothing to do with journalism,” he declared. “The most important skill in the journalism business is figuring out how to fire journalists.”

“That’s not hard,” Ms. Bell said. “You don’t need a course to learn that.”

Judging from the recent round of layoffs sweeping the industry, we would tend to agree with Ms. Bell.

If there has to be a J-School, Mr. Wolff did not think it should be run by Mr. Coll, a former president of the New America Foundation and staff writer for The New Yorker, the holy grail for wannabe writers everywhere, “where no one of you will go to work,” Mr. Wolff said. Ouch!

Ms. Bell added that Mr. Coll had also edited The Washington Post, which only increased Mr. Wolff’s ire. “One of the greatest failures of our time is The Washington Post,” he said. We can think of other failures of greater proportion, but whatever. “[Mr. Coll] killed the Washington Post.”

If not Mr. Coll, then who? “Bill,” he said. “I like Bill.” Mr. Wolff was referring to Bill Grueskin, the dean of academic affairs, who was rumored to be the insider favorite to succeed Mr. Lemann. For the only time that night, the room burst into applause.

Toward the end of the discussion, the students got the opportunity to ask their ersatz professor questions. Many tried to defend—or perhaps rationalize—their decision to go to J-School.

One young man explained to Mr. Wolff that he appreciated the opportunity to write a 10,000 word thesis with the assistance of a dedicated editor, something he could not find outside J-School. We hope that the young man enjoys the experience. It sure will cost him.

Van Wolff with her children in 1958. (Photo: NYMag)

Michael Wolff’s mother, Van, died Tuesday morning after a two and half year illness, the Observer has learned.

Mr. Wolff wrote about his mother’s declining health and worsening dementia in a moving and controversial story for New York Magazine in May that questioned the modern approach to end-of-life care. The story appeared on the magazine's cover with the headline, “Mom, I love you, but I also wish you were dead. And I expect you do, too."

“And yet, I will tell you, what I feel most intensely when I sit by my mother’s bed is a crushing sense of guilt for keeping her alive. Who can accept such suffering—who can so conscientiously facilitate it?” Mr. Wolff wrote.

A funeral service will be held this Saturday in New Jersey.

(Updated 1:45 p.m. to note the correct date of Ms. Wolff's death)

Beckman at a THR Oscars party in 2010.

There's nothing like a pre-holiday Friday afternoon news dump. While just about everyone is off drinking on a patio somewhere, we imagine, toasting to Katie Holmes's freedom and Adele's spawn, Adweek confirms WWD's report that Prometheus Media CEO Richard Beckman is stepping down.

Adweek says it was by "mutual consent," but Mr. Beckman's exit has been rumored in the New York Post for just about forever. A former Conde Nast and Fairchild executive, he was hired to breathe some life into trade publications The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek and Billboard. For example, brought in Us Weekly's Janice Min, who turned THR into a glossy magazine and must-read website for breaking news. But about a year ago, Mr. Beckman abdicated some of the daily oversight of the company to spearhead international brand development, prompting reports that he'd been demoted after clashing with Prometheus Global Media chairman Jimmy Finkelstein. (Mr. Beckman denied this.) Speculation escalated after Michael Wolff, Mr. Beckman's hire for the top of Adweek, was pushed out in October.

Click through to Adweek for quotes in which Mr. Beckman and Mr. Finkelstein wish each other the best.

Amid a media merger whirlwind at the end of his tenure (AOL + HuffPo! Daily Beast + Newsweek!), Mr. Gingras was looking for a buyer for the early adopter online magazine (est. 1995), but took it off the market after talks with Michael Wolff-founded news aggregator Newser disintegrated. With Ms. Jeffers at the helm, Mr. Talbot will stay on in an advisory role.

"Our goal is not only to continue publishing some of the best news and entertainment journalism on the Web, but to reemerge as a technological leader of online media by experimenting with emerging platforms, new data sets and new ways of interacting with stories," communications director Liam O'Donoghue wrote.

The company has also grabbed Wenner Media's Matthew Sussberg to serve as vice president of Salon's advertising.

A few minutes later, fellow news editor Brian Braiker announced he would be leaving for the same post at the US office of the Guardian.

Mr. Koppelman and Mr. Braiker make four editorial departures since Adweek's ambitious and combative editor in chief Michael Wolff was ousted last month. Managing editor Hillary Frey left for Yahoo, and reporter Dylan Byers left for Politico. Mr. Wolff was succeeded by executive editor Jim Cooper.

Executive editor Jim Cooper will oversee day to day operations of Adweek.

“We are grateful for Michael’s contribution to Adweek,” said Jimmy Finkelstein, Prometheus chairman. “His vision and guidance were essential during our monumental transformation.”

The New York Post

"Separately, [Adweek parent company] Prometheus bosses have been apologetic about some of the public stances taken by the outspoken Wolff in his columns on the media business," the article notes.

The Post doesn't go into any more detail about the "stances," but they don't need to. Since taking over Adweek, Mr. Wolff has really just expounded on one--that Post parent company News Corp. is rotten to the Murdoch nuclear family core.

The Post's doesn't mention that Mr. Wolff wrote an unauthorized, aggressive Rupert Murdoch biography—The Man Who Owns The News—instead choosing to identify him as "a former Vanity Fair contributing editor."

The Post did not return request for comment and Mr. Wolff, reportedly also on vacation (Why does anyone even bother reporting in August?), tweeted this:

By way of disclosure—or something—there's a quote from an April interview with Observer editor Elizabeth Spiers in the Post piece too.

Mr. Wolff, who is known for getting into small battles, will no doubt bring a scrappier sensibility to the group of trade publications that includes Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek. Mr. Wolff will suspend his Vanity Fair column, but continue writing longer stories for the magazine.

The news isn't a complete surprise after Jeff Bercovici reported in August that Mr. Wolff had been spotted several times taking the elevator up to e5's offices.

In his post about Mr. Wolff's new job, Mr. Arango wrote that Mr. Wolff's "most visible feud these days is with Rupert Murdoch." He also wrote that Mr. Wolff spoke with Keith Kelly at Mr. Murdoch's New York Post about his new job last week, but no story ever ran.

Earlier this year, Mr. Beckman installed Janice Min at The Hollywood Reporter. Mr. Beckman and Ms. Min announced in September that the trade will be relaunching as a weekly with emphasis on its web presence. That is to say that anything is possible with the Adweek Group.

Now it seems that Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff may be up for a job as editorial director of E5's Adweek, Mediaweek and Billboard. At least Jeff Bercovici thinks so after catching wind that Mr. Wolff has been inMr. Beckman's office building (which happens to be Mr. Bercovici's office building) on Ninth Street and Broadway three times in the last month. Yesterday, Mr. Wolff was seen getting off on the seventh floor, where the E5 offices are.

Mr. Bercovici called Mr. Wolff to ask if he was up for the job. "Let's not have this conversation," Mr. Wolff said. He hung up shortly after. So, who knows, but sure.

We read the whole thing on a browser, as most people probably did. Anderson and Wolff each take up one half of the screen with their respective takes. Anderson's approach blames consumers for the web's perceived over-ness, citing our need for specialized apps as opposed to browsers. "You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service. You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone." Wolff hinges his piece on the idea that Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs resemble old-style media moguls in the way they control their content, separating themselves from the Google approach and, in turn, from the web in general. "While Google may have controlled traffic and sales, Apple controls the content itself," Wolff writes. "Indeed, it retains absolute approval rights over all third-party applications. Apple controls the look and feel and experience. And, what’s more, it controls both the content-delivery system (iTunes) and the devices (iPods, iPhones, and iPads) through which that content is consumed."

Elsewhere in the "Web is Dead" package, O'Reilly emails Anderson about the "great dance" between an open web and the closed web. "Openness is where innovation happens; closedness is where value is captured," he writes, explaining the value of each version of the Internet. Battelle, however, is not buying Wired's death knell. In fact, he's "particularly unhappy" that everyone is proclaiming the browser-based web to be a thing of the past. "I for one think the 'open, searchable, common platform' is not dead, and no one should be planning a party on its presumed grave," he writes. "It’s simply the most elegant approach to creating the most good in the world, and heralding its end strikes me as not only premature, but also shortsighted. Is that grumpy enough for ya?"

The pundits mostly agree that the way we've browsed in the past is on its way out and there's no doubt that the entire issue will look great on Wired's Scott Dadich-designed iPad app. Anderson even sneaks a plug for his magazine's new platform into the story—"check out Wired's cool new iPad app!" he says parenthetically. Yes, we get it — apps over browsers, the web is dead, etcetera. But another reminder of your prized app? Perhaps a bit much, Chris. It's not free, you know.