pic of the day
A
Grand Theft Auto obsessive has matched up vistas from the hit Rockstar videogame with the real New York City. Here's the
Conde Nast skyscraper in
Times Square (at left) compared with the equivalent tower in Liberty City's 'Star Junction' (at right). Any
GTA fans want to create mayhem in the magazine group's lobby, mow down a few
Vogue interns, and send us a videograb of the results? [
Matthew Johnston's Flickr page]
new york times
Better start brown-bagging it if you're a
New York Times employee; starting February 4, the
cost-cutting newspaper will increase cafeteria prices by 3.9%, according to an email announcement to staffers today. But don't worry! Management would like you to know that
coffee prices won't change—hungry employees hopped up on caffeine are both prettier and more industrious! Wonder if those
catered lunches for masthead-occupiers are going to get a price-jump? Oh wait, they're already free! To be fair, prices will still be "8% to 10% below the average for the neighborhood," according to the memo. The
Times cafeteria is run by Restaurant Associates, which also manages the eateries at
Conde Nast, Hearst and Google—anyone know if those companies are also bumping up their prices?
Let us know. Memo after the jump.
More »
rumormonger
We're hearing that Condé Nast Media Group senior vice president
Amy Churgin, who was in charge of new media, left the publishing company in a bit of a hurry last week. She's bounced around there a bit this year, spending just seven weeks last winter as the publisher of the group's
Gourmet after a seven-year stint at
Architectural Digest. Know anything else?
Let us know.
graydon carter
Graydon Carter's diatribes against the Bush administration have passed through the full arc of a great journalistic campaign. When it began, five years ago, the president was the still the victor of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the
Vanity Fair editor an aging liberal prophet in the wilderness, irritating, and mocked. Then Graydon Carter because simply a prophet, vindicated by the collapse of the Bush presidency. And now? The obsession continues (
the latest editor's letter even compares George Bush to the awful mid-level manager of the Office) — but it feels dated. As we've been told by the pundits, the results of the Iowa caucuses show that the electorate has moved beyond the war in Iraq, Bush and the Clintons. Graydon Carter has not.
in the family
Everyone in the magazine world is
getting very excited about the new year's massacre at
Conde Nast, the publisher of titles such as Vanity Fair and Vogue. Conde is tightly controlled by the Newhouse family, and its office politics have all the transparency of the Brezhnev-era Politburo. But we're told by one insider that Lou Cona, formerly the publisher of the New Yorker, is stepping up by moving to group ad sales, even if the role sounds less glamorous. Anyway, business: boring! There's one amusing tidbit. Gina Sanders, promoted to publisher of Lucky magazine, presided over the huge success of Teen Vogue. We're sure her continued ascension has nothing to do with her marriage to (pictured left) Steve Newhouse, heir-apparent to the Conde Nast empire.
"Questions are being raised around the halls of 4 Times Square about Flip.com, Condé Nast's new teen networking site. Pointing to small traffic numbers and a whispered lack of enthusiasm from higher ups about the project, despite a heavy financial investment in the site's technology, naysayers believe Flip has so far been a bit of a flop. 'Thank God it wasn't my idea,' said one insider." Shockingly, publisher Jane Grenier claims not to be worried: "Our determination of whether this site is successful is not based on a panic check of [unique visitors]." Good luck with that! [
WWD]
Keith Kelly: "CONDÉ Nast Chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. sat down Wednesday with Portfolio Editor-in-Chief
Joanne Lipman to take a very serious look at every page in the upcoming November issue of Portfolio, his $100 million pet project. When the meeting was over, a flurry of Newhouse-dictated changes ensued, and that had some staffers concluding that Si was not happy with the original incarnation of Portfolio issue No. 4." Shockingly, Condé spokesfolk deny it. [
NYP]
Portfolio managing editor Blaise Zerega takes the deputy editor slip vacated by the firing of
Jim Impoco. Zeraga will work out of San Francisco, leading a source to tell
the Post's Keith Kelly, "He's being called deputy but it doesn't look like he will have any serious management responsibilities. Have you ever heard of a deputy 3,000 miles away?" Zeraga will be replaced by
New Yorker managing editor Jacob Lewis. Is this some kind of signal from
Conde Nast about their continued confidence in
Portfolio? Last week, we were told that Lipman wasn't really going to fill Impoco's position—writers expected that she would now take this opportunity to mess with people's copy more than ever, and that this was a sign of her complete inability to delegate and her inability to recognize, you know, actual writing. [
NYO]
Dan Golden has announced he would rather work for
Joanne Lipman at
Portfolio (as a senior editor) than
Rupert Murdoch at the
Wall Street Journal. (Well, he was in the Boston bureau, and we'd work for Bonnie Fuller or Satan to get out of Boston, so.) Two related things: First, we heard a big editor at the
WSJ quit right after the Murdoch and
Col Allan visit last week. Second, wow, isn't
Portfolio on a major lockdown right now? Not a
PEEP out of that place in weeks! [
Romenesko]
From the mailbag: "You may or may not care to know that [
New York Times reporter]
David Carr was the guest speaker at NYU's J-school orientation today. He was charming in an old-guy-who-references-Clap-Your-Hands-Say-Yeah sort of way and delivered an optimistic spiel about sticking it to the old guard and shaping the future of media. Needless to say,
the kids ate it up. As for me, I began to rethink grad school entirely. I thought I was here so that I could eventually get paid a ridiculous sum to write mindless blurbs for
Conde Nast mags. Everyone else was so damn earnest. What the hell? For a moment I wondered if maybe my priorities weren't in order, but then I squashed it and started to think about which one of my classmates I'm going to sleep with this semester." Maybe the kids
are alright!
media
Nike uses the Don Imus controversy for an ad campaign it hopes "will spark continued conversation about race in America." And sell sneakers. [AdAge]
Anderson Cooper scurries back to the U.S. from Afghanistan to cover the Virginia Tech shootings. [TVNewser]
The New York Observer invokes Henry James to review Portfolio. The verdict? "Expensive and vapid, glossy, superficial, stale and, above all, safe." [NYO]
In Touch treads on People's turf with a cover story on the shootings at Virginia Tech. But will a real-life human interest story play well on its fluffy celeb-driven pages? [WWD]
Some of Barry Diller's best friends are black. His new friends, on the Internet. [WSJ]
More »
media
Are Ron Burkle & Eli Broad back in the Tribune game? How will Sam Zell's bid work? When will this fucking story ever end? [LAT]
Conrad Black takes time off from being tried for fraud to attend a book party in Toronto. Lady Black, on the reporters she called "vermin" and "slut": "They know who they are and what they did." [Toronto Sun]
Brian Williams burps "Battle Hymn of the Republic," press corps and President Bush share a good laugh as nation continues its downward spiral. [B&C]
More »
media
Read all about Hassan Elmasry, the Morgan Stanley portfolio manager who's trying to take the Times out of Sulzberger family hands, and the man responsible for tearing Pinch Sulzberger a new one at the late February board meeting. (In PowerPoint, no less!) [WSJ]
The Times' February numbers give him some great new ammunition. [BW]
Amanda Congdon: "I am not subject to the "rules" traditional journalists have to follow." Not with a set like that, sure. [Amanda Congdon]
Portfolio: secretive start-up will feature the many ellipses of Tom Wolfe, who is apparently part of a Take Your Father To Work Day program. [NYO]
More »
-thumb.jpg)
media
Someone sent us this picture of what they describe as a "wild bird" outside the
Conde Nast building this morning, which is apparently freaking people out as much or more than the homeless woman who was peeing in the lobby of 4 Times Square on Friday. The bird will be served in the cafeteria around noon. Anna Wintour's gonna put a napkin over her head and eat it ortolan-style. And now, the news.
More »
Gawker
