By Drew Grant 5/04/12 4:28pm

Racism

Phil Mushnick, big racist (Getty Images)

Phil Mushnick Uses N-Word in New York Post Sports Column, Blames Jay-Z

Phil Mushnick is a man that once garnered the nickname “Mr. Grumpy” from his boss at Fox Sports. That was in 1998, when it was known even then that Mr. Mushnick was a relic. “He’s a throwback,” David Hill, president of Fox Sports told The New York Observer at the time. “He sees himself as a knight in shining armor protecting sports fans from the slings and arrows hurled at them by cretinous, unfeeling network sports chiefs.”

But cretinous is a term that applies more to Mr. Mushnick more than sports chiefs, especially after today’s rant about Brooklyn Nets, during which he refers to the players as N——, which is certainly a novel way to say the N-word without saying the N-word, but otherwise is a pretty indefensible position all around. Even better is that Mr. Mushnick then tried to defend his statements by blaming the Nets’ part-owner, Jay-Z. Read More

By Brian Thomas Gallagher 4/25/12 12:17pm

Oral History

Etan Patz's mother, Julie (holding her youngest son), and his father, Stan (far right), organizing a search effort in the days after the child's disappearance. (Photo by Allen Arpadi)

The Story of Etan Patz: Reporters Remember the Quest to Cover (and Find) Soho’s Missing Boy

On May 25, 1979—the first day his mother allowed him to walk to the bus stop alone—6-year-old Etan Patz went missing just blocks from his parents’ Soho loft. The case roused the fears of the nation and changed the way parents raised their children. In the days and months after, the full force of the New York press was trained on the family. The case became as much of a media phenomenon as a police investigation.

Despite thousands of man hours on the part of law enforcement, and the identification of at least one suspect in 1990—a convicted child molester named José Ramos, currently in prison in Pennsylvania on other charges—no arrests have been made in the Patz case. Last week, the FBI and NYPD excavated a basement on Prince Street, just one block from the Patzes’ apartment, and once again the media descended on the family. Law enforcement officials are analyzing a stain they found, but so far they have “nothing conclusive.”

On the slim chance that Etan would find his way home, the Patzes have never moved or changed their telephone number, and each time a possible development arises, a new onslaught of reporters arrives at their door. In the 33 years since the disappearance, the Patzes have lived with the media as a fact of their life. We talked to reporters and editors who covered the case in its first year. Read More

By Drew Grant 4/19/12 10:43am

Crategate

Man bites dog (NYPost.com)

New York Post Cartoon Has President Obama Eating Family Dog

Does President Barack Obama chow down on family pets in the Oval Office? That would be the implication in a new cartoon in the New York Post today, part of the paper’s claim that the POTUS’ stance against Republican candidate Mitt Romney leaving his dog tied to the roof of his car was hypocritical.

You see, President Barack Hussein Obama himself once ate dog 17 years ago, and then had the gall to gloat about it in his memoir, Dreams from My Father. Read More

By Foster Kamer 3/30/12 5:48pm

Media

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Jeanne MacIntosh of the New York Post: Anna Gristina Was My Source, ‘Never Heard’ Col Allan’s Name

New York Post scribe Jeanne MacIntosh reports today that she—and not her editor, Col Allan—is the paper’s connection with alleged Mommy Madam Anna Gristina. Her story contained a false assertion, namely that we claimed “that the editor in chief of the New York Post, Col Allan, had a close friendship with Gristina and suggested that he had allowed that relationship to interfere with his professional responsibilities as the paper’s top editor.”

In fact, our story said no such thing. We never claimed that Mr. Allan was friends with Ms. Gristina, only that she said he was on surveillance audio.  Read More

By Foster Kamer 3/30/12 1:23pm

tabloid wars

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Former NY Daily News Martin Dunn Slams Tabled Madam Story as an ‘Embarrassment’

Martin Dunn was the editor of the New York Daily News for about ten nonconsecutive years: Once in the early 90s, and again from 2003 to 2010. Now in his old stead is Colin Myler, the former News of the World editor thrown under the bus by the Murdoch family. Myler’s rise to the position was ostensibly going to reignite the longstanding rivalry between the New York Daily News and the Murdoch-owned New York Post. We learned that wasn’t the case after the revelation that Myler held onto a story about the ‘Soccer Mom Madam’ Anna Gristina, bragging about her “close, close friendship” with the editor of the New York Post, Col Allan.

Col Allan happens to be the former boss of current New York Daily News editor Colin Myler. Martin Dunn has some thoughts about this. Read More

By Foster Kamer 3/29/12 1:49pm

Exclusive

col allan

Mommy Madam Named New York Post Editor Col Allan on Surveillance Audio [Update]

There’s one intriguing scoop in the ongoing saga of the Soccer Mom Madam, Anna Gristina, that you’re not likely to read about in the New York Post.

According to multiple sources familiar with the situation—none of whom were willing to be identified, for fear of retribution—among the names of various powerful men found in transcripts of the surveillance audio from the five-year-long investigation is one prominent media figure: Col Allan, the editor of the New York Post. UPDATED. Read More

By Drew Grant 3/27/12 3:10pm

Media

Keepin it classy (New York Post)

New York Post’s Egregious Trayvon Martin Cover Photo is Even Worse on the Inside

Today’s front page of the New York Post is sure to whip the public into a frenzy: showing a photo of three of the six Democratic senators (Kevin Parker, Bill Perkins, and Eric Adams) who chose to wear hoodies in Albany yesterday in solidarity of the family of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was shot in Florida for wearing suspicious clothing.

Of course, the Post chose to leave out two other senators who wore hoodies that day, because they were Caucasian. Because the argument that the lawmakers were using Mr. Martin’s death to push their own agenda that racial profile should be outlawed (yeah, what a terrible idea) wouldn’t have that extra oomph in the headline. Read More