25 most recent entries:
The Cult of Tina Fey [Pop Culture] (Oct 06 2008 22:34 GMT)
Tina Fey—nerd-girl hero, Saturday Night Live alum, 30 Rock writer/actor—just signed a book deal. It was "reportedly pitched as a book of humorous essays in the style of Nora Ephron," said the Observer. (Hopefully it'll be funnier than that.
Palin: Vote Ponies/Do You Think Todd Likes Me '08! [Sarah Palin] (Oct 06 2008 22:16 GMT)
Ok, surely you've seen this somewhere today, right? Sarah Palin doodled on some paper back in 1996 when she was deciding to run for mayor and basically she is a 10-year-old girl. Or was still a 10-year-old girl in 1996. Now, adjusting for her slow development, she's clearly in her "bitchy teenager" stage which is why she keeps telling John McCain she wants to go to Michigan and disobeying his strict order not to bring up Jerimiah Wright all the time. [TNR/The Plank]
What Have We Learned From That Fake Steve Jobs Rumor? [Lessons] (Oct 06 2008 21:48 GMT)
Last Friday a rumor went up on CNN's "Citizen journalism" site saying that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had had a heart attack. Apple stock plunged momentarily, but the posting was debunked within the hour. The suspicion now is that the rumor was planted by a short seller looking to capitalize on the skittish reaction of the market. So that means don't trust crazy internet rumors because the internet is lies! Right?
A Little More on Pigs... [Politics] (Oct 06 2008 21:39 GMT)
"The New York Times has an article about me calling columnist Heather Mallick a pig," blogs Greta van Susteren via Foxnews.com. "Yes, I called a columnist—in a calm, cool voice—a pig for saying that the nominee for Vice President looks like a porn star.
McCain: Obama is "Touchy" and "Angry" [Projection] (Oct 06 2008 21:31 GMT)
The cornerstone of so-called Rovian politics is "attack your opponent on his strengths." At its most basic, perfect level, it means attack war hero John Kerry for being a spineless anti-American coward. McCain tried it early this season: Obama is popular and energizing, just like a dumb blonde celebrity. Everyone cooed and said "oh good one Mr.
Lehman Bros. CEO Totally Got Knocked Out! [Oh Shit] (Oct 06 2008 21:25 GMT)
Since we don't condone violence around here, we are not going to call this the most awesome story of the day. We'll just tell you this: CNBC has confirmed earlier rumors that Dick Fuld—the CEO who ran Lehman Bros. into the ground—
Jack Flack To Dealbook [Public Relations] (Oct 06 2008 20:41 GMT)
Portfolio PR blogger Paul Pendergrass, a.k.a. Jack Flack, one of the media's sharpest translators of corporate bullshit, is leaving the mag and joining the NYT's Dealbook blog. Where his bullshit-translating skills will doubtless be put to good use.
Quotes Of the Day, October 6th [What They Said] (Oct 06 2008 20:39 GMT)
?Jackson, Lincoln, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton were born to ordinary families, but they spent their lives doing extraordinary things, demonstrating an interest in, and a curiosity about, the world around them. This is much less evident in Palin?s case.? — Newsweek via Caroline McCarthy "Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market.
CNN Will Now Broadcast Your Twitters and Text Messages [VideUhOh] (Oct 06 2008 20:25 GMT)
newVideoPlayer("/Doodoo.flv", 506, 423,""); A tipster writes to us: "Holy crap... Are you watching CNN *right now*?
KFC Demands Candidates Mention That Chicken Defeats Hunger [Advertising] (Oct 06 2008 20:09 GMT)
KFC is terribly concerned about starving third world children's lack of access to Original Recipe® buckets and Crispy Twisters®! So the chicken chain is offering a cool $20,000 to solve world hunger—if one of the presidential candidates mentions the issue at the debates tomorrow. 1.
A Defense Of Wall Street Villains [The Panic Of '08] (Oct 06 2008 19:53 GMT)
newVideoPlayer("/60_Minutes_Ey flv", 506, 423,""); God knows why Robert Pickel, head of the association of derivatives traders, would want to go on 60 Minutes yesterday to explain credit default swaps. These complex financial instruments?at the center of the credit crisis?are now about as impossible to defend on television as child pornography.
Hey Barry, Don't Make McCain's Mistake [Horse Race] (Oct 06 2008 19:28 GMT)
So this weekend, the McCain camp called up all the reporters they're still speaking to to be like, "fuck it, we're going negative." The reporters were like, "going?" And McCain's people were all, "no, like super negative!" Then Sarah Palin showed up saying nonsense and the press backlash was immediate. You don't call up the press corps to announce that you're finally utterly trashing your Honorable Brand, for good, when they're in the middle of tearing you apart for abandoning your Honorable Brand to begin with, guys.
The Gawker Guide To A Journalism Career [Field Guide] (Oct 06 2008 19:13 GMT)
So, you want to be a journalist? Ha ha ha. Jeez. Your timing sucks. But hey, it's a perfectly semi-honorable profession;
Little Girl Attends Funeral In 1883 [Open Caption] (Oct 06 2008 18:12 GMT)
[Actress Kirsten Dunst at Paris Fashion Week; image via Splash]
Why We Love Candace Bushnell, Working-Class Hero [Rants] (Oct 06 2008 18:08 GMT)
Last week I was killing time—which means I was reading Elle by myself at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge while waiting for a phone call—when I became completely captivated by their Candace Bushnell profile. I forgot about this until I saw this Q&A with the Sex and the City author in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "What do you think about the commentary about you on Gawker [and other snark-sites]?
Can We Blame the Media? [The Panic Of '08] (Oct 06 2008 17:36 GMT)
Well yes, sure, of course we can. But how? It's easiest to just blame greedy bankers or something, because Wall Street assholes act the same way in good times and in bad, and we lionize them in good and castigate them in bad (also we deregulate them in good and bail them out in bad, but whatevs). But now we have our media-blaming excuse: Howard Kurtz, media "critic" for the Washington Post, has weighed in on the financial crisis and is appointing blame in equal measure to everyone!
Bear On Wall Street [The Panic Of '08] (Oct 06 2008 17:22 GMT)
In lower Manhattan's financial district a few minutes ago, a man in a bear outfit wandering the streets. iPhone photo from David Galbraith.
Details' Gayness Increases Tenfold With Gossip Girl Cover [This Thing Looks Like That Thing] (Oct 06 2008 17:18 GMT)
This here website (among many others) has been asking the same question for years. Is Details magazine gay? I mean, yeah, they pretty much are with all their fancy fashion ads and fancy men who are always gracing the cover. This month's bois are the dudes from teen soap Gossip Girl, and look! The cover is eerily similar to the fellas' Out cover appearance from back in March.
Searching For New Gawker Video Interns [Jobs] (Oct 06 2008 17:02 GMT)
Hello layabout, TV-watching young people! Gawker is looking for a television-obsessed intern to sit around and watch TV to find newsworthy clips for social commentary. The job requires a good eye and the ability to sit. The schedule is flexible but requires a minimum of 15 hours a week over the course of 3 months. College internship credit available to those who qualify.
Jim Cramer Begs America To Abandon Hope [Television] (Oct 06 2008 17:01 GMT)
newVideoPlayer("/Cramer_didnt_ flv", 506, 423,""); Whoa, Jim Cramer has fully turned around as much as a man can possibly turn around! The shouty CNBC (poor) stock picker—who as recently as last November was trumpeting "10 Reasons to Be Bullish" ("1. The stock market is cheap")—
How To Become A Millionaire By 'Helping' Reporters [Public Relations] (Oct 06 2008 16:41 GMT)
Consider Peter Shankman: skydiving flack, taser lover, and the founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO), the free (!) service that connects reporters with a world of flacks dying to appear in their stories. HARO is a lot like Profnet, except Profnet costs flacks thousands of dollars a year. We wondered why Shankman went to all the trouble of running HARO, and now we know:
Beauty Tricks Of The Candidates [Listicle] (Oct 06 2008 16:35 GMT)
Remember when John Edwards got a couple of $400 haircuts and everyone made fun of him and called him a spendthrift pretty boy? Rush Limbaugh said he might be the "first woman president"! Har har! (And, remember, when Edwards slept with that lady and maybe had a love child and how the hair didn't seem like such a big deal after all?) Well, Edwards, in truth, isn't the only of the recent candidates to undergo special, fancy, or expensive cosmetic treatment.
The Downsized Employee [Goodbyes] (Oct 06 2008 16:25 GMT)
The Downsized Employee woke up the first business day after the downsizing somewhat disappointed to be angry at no one. The Downsized Employee stayed in bed a full fourteen minutes longer than she really wanted to while considering the emotional fuel that might sustain a final task. On Sunday the Downsized Employee had woken up angry at the middle manager whose idea of a heads-up was not replying to two email requests she'd sent a couple weeks earlier asking for a key fob to the office. On Saturday the Downsized Employee had risen at 7 a.m.
College Kids Horrified by Dorks at New Yorker's Dance Party [Nightlife] (Oct 06 2008 16:08 GMT)
The New Yorker festival culminated in a rockin' dance party. (Our publisher offered us his spare tickets, which we sniffily rejected. "The New Yorker dance party?" snorted a friend.) IvyGate went, though, and they were scared for their future social life.
Toby Young Cheerfully Admits to Sort-of Plagiarism [This Thing Looks Like That Thing] (Oct 06 2008 15:31 GMT)
It took years and years and the attention of a new movie, but someone finally uncovered a smidge of plagiarism in the fired Vanity Fair Brit's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Daily Intel found near-identical passages from the book and a New York Times article by John Tierney. Young was unruffled, saying it wasn't plagiarism but loose English journalistic standards at work: Upon being shown the evidence, Tierney, who had never read the book, concluded it was plagiarism. More bemused than angry, he remarked, "It's at the very least unattributed lifting...
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