Matt Haber

It's been a busy week for Sean Penn. In theaters, the actor is generating Oscar buzz for his starring role in Milk and on the newsstand, he wrote the cover story for The Nation. If the Mr. Penn has his way, he just might bring an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

In the December 15th issue of the magazine, Mr. Penn interviews Hugo Chávez and Raúl Castro, an assignment that seems designed to infuriate his critics on the right who despise the actor for his 2004 and 2005 fact-finding trips to Iraq and Iran, his attention-grabbing attempts to save survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and his friendship with Cindy Sheehan.  read more »

What else do you call a day when the comedic actress and writer is seemingly everywhere all at once?

First up, Vanity Fair, which enlisted The Times' Maureen Dowd to profile Ms. Fey, whom the magazine's cover trumpets as "A New American Sweetheart!" (Punctuation theirs.) The magazine's Web site also features one of those behind-the-scenes videos of Ms. Fey's photo shoot that all magazines' Web Editors are convinced Internet users love. (In an example of too-weird-to -ignore/too-geeky-to -explicate life imitating art, a very Maureen Dowd-like character played by Christine Lahti once wrote a profile of the protagonists' of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a show, like Ms. Fey's 30 Rock, set behind the scenes of a sketch comedy show very much like Ms. Dowd's launchpad, Saturday Night Live.)

Ms. Dowd's story was dutifully picked up by The Daily News, The New York Post (whose Page Six also had an item about Ms. Fey today), and The Associated Press, and TMZ. (Apparently a lot of people have been wondering why Ms. Fey has a scar on her face.)  read more »

On the eve of Thanksgiving, The New York Times' Glenn Collins sat down with Gael Greene, New York Magazine's dismissed "Insatiable Critic."

Mr. Collins called Ms. Greene, "The priestess of radicchio, beurre blanc and arugula," but also noted that the critic had "become an attenuating natural resource at New York since giving up her weekly chief reviewer’s role eight years ago."

It wasn't always so. Ms. Greene was once so closely associated with the magazine that she appeared in a 1986 television commercial touting New York.

Ms. Greene appeared in the above commercial with theater critic John Simon (himself let go by New York's editor Adam Moss in 2005) film critic David Denby (who left the magazine in 1998 to become a critic at The New Yorker), and Dan Dorfman (who left the magazine in 1986 and went on to become a commentator for CNBC and a controversial writer for Money, followed by a stint at The New York Sun).  read more »

The New York Times Book Review released its 100 Notable Books of 2008.

Notably, there are a lot of New York Times writers on the list, among them:

- The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by Jonathan Mahler.

- Condoleezza Rice: An American Life by Elisabeth Bumiller.

- The Forever War by Dexter Filkins.

- Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman.

- The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper.

- The Night of the Gun by David Carr.

Yesterday, The Guardian's Alison Flood reported on the winners of this year's 'Bad Sex Awards,' which included John Updike for "Lifetime Achievement."

According to Ms. Flood, the award, which are given out by The Literary Review, was bestowed on Mr. Updike "after the American author realised the 'unique achievement' of four consecutive nominations for the award."

Ms. Flood writes:

Updike, famous for his close attention to sex, was shortlisted this year for his novel The Widows of Eastwick, in which an abundance of sperm greets the performance of oral sex. 'She said nothing then, her lovely mouth otherwise engaged, until he came, all over her face.  read more »

What should media organizations do to survive? "We should embrace change,” Jeff Jarvis tells John Koblin. “Instead, too often we fight change. That’s the nature of organizations and institutions that hold power. Change might mean losing power. The great and magnificent irony of online—this would really send [Ron] Rosenbaum’s spine up—is that in my blog, in what I call Jarvis’ Law, is that I say if you give people control, we will use it. If you don’t, you lose us. The counterintuitive way of the Internet age is when you give up control, you win. The old way was to maintain control to win."

Speaking of change, which current and former journalists want to become flacks for Dan Abrams' new venture? According to Felix Gillette, "Less than a week after he announced he was launching a 'global strategy firm' that would assemble a network of thousands of working journalists, bloggers, authors and ex-journalists, he was drowning in applications."

And yet more change. Leon Neyfakh writes, "Though prayers this week should undoubtedly be with the editors of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who were told a few days ago by their CEO that they can no longer afford to acquire new books, it should not go unremarked that editors at other houses are being forced to give up something almost as essential: lunch!"

Plus: It's Living Room 2.0... Vegetables Are the New Meat... Mark Bittman

Rolling Stone's Web site is offering a sneak peak of its next cover, which features a cleaned up, seemingly elated Britney Spears with the hopeful, Obama era slogan, "Yes She Can!" (Best to ignore the smaller coverline for "Skanky Brits.")

As you can see, the last time Ms. Spears was on the cover (February 21, 2008), the magazine referred to her as "An American Tragedy" (though still airbrushed her within an inch of recognizability). The accompanying story, by Vanessa Grigoriadis, was unflinching in its depiction of a star in complete free-fall. The new issue has a more upbeat profile by Jenny Eliscu in which the pop star is described as "silly, sweet, humble. She has never been very articulate, but she always tries to be accommodating."  read more »

It's no blue dress, but Matt Drudge has himself a little scoop today. The title—and the strikingly familiar—cover of Ann Coulter's latest book. Sites like Pandagon and Gawker were intrigued by Random House's title-less touting of Ms. Coulter's next book ("Controversial. Confidential. Coulter," was all the publisher would say), but leave it to Mr. Drudge to get the scoop:

Bestselling author and controversialist Ann Coulter plans to crash Obama's inauguration party with her new work, GUILTY.

Set for release first week of January, the book exposes and mocks, in graphic detail, the media's love affair with all things Democrat and Obama.

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Journalism really is in the dumps. The Washington Post's Jacqueline Trescott is reporting that Washington DC's Newseum is letting go 10% of its staff. (This comes via Jim Romenesko.)

Writes Ms. Trescott:

Museum administrators offered voluntary buyouts and 19 people accepted. In addition, two officers retired—including Jack Hurley, the senior vice president of broadcasting—and four vacant positions won't be filled, the Newseum said.

In May, The New York Times' Katharine Q. Seelye called the $435 million Newseum possibly "one of the world’s most expensive museums now under construction."

Ms. Trescott points out that it might not be the sorry state of the journalism business that's hurting the Newseum, but rather banking:

The Newseum is intertwined with some of the major players in the Wall Street downturn.  read more »

In today's New York Times 'Business' section, Douglas Quenqua offers a report about how people are using typos to find big savings on eBay.

Writes Mr. Quenqua:

A handful of new Web sites with names like Typo Bay and Typo Buddy are out to help shoppers save money by searching eBay for misspelled brand names.

Two paragraphs later, though, the writer reveals just how "new" these sites are: "Typo Buddy started about six months ago and already has up to 80,000 visitors on a good day, said its president, Jonathan Lieberman, an Internet entrepreneur in San Diego"; "Joseph Mantha, the 19-year-old co-creator of Typo Bay, which started in 2007, said October was the site’s busiest month yet."  read more »

In this weekend's 'Arts & Leisure' section of The New York Times, film critic A.O. Scott offers a treatise on Hollywood's continued interest in Holocaust films headlined Never Forget. You're Reminded.

Buried in Mr. Scott's take on what some people wryly call "Shoah Business" is an intriguing aside:

Why do opportunistic, clever young novelists — I won’t name any names — gravitate toward magic-realist depictions of the decidedly unmagical reality of the Shoah? For the same reason that actors shave their heads and starve themselves, or preen and leer in jackboots and epaulets. For the same reason that filmmakers commission concrete barracks and instruct their cinematographers and lab technicians to filter out bright, saturated colors.  read more »

- "If [Axl] Rose ever had a moment's doubt or repentance over what Chinese Democracy has cost him in time (13 years), money (14 studios are listed in the credits) and body count — including the exit of every other founding member of the band — he left no room for it in these 14 songs," David Fricke, Rolling Stone, November 10, 2008.

- "The album credits list 14 studios," Jon Pareles, The New York Times, November 20, 2008.

- "Chinese Democracy's album credits reflect the epic slog that brought it into existence, listing 14 recording studios, five guitarists, and multiple 'digital editors'," Jody Rosen Slate, November 21, 2008.  read more »

This Sunday, The New York Times' Sharon Otterman introduced readers to slow-blogging, an approach to Web writing "inspired by the slow food movement, which says that fast food is destroying local traditions and healthy eating habits... slow bloggers believe that news-driven blogs like TechCrunch and Gawker are the equivalent of fast food restaurants — great for occasional consumption, but not enough to guarantee human sustenance over the longer haul."

And while we're sure they don't like to be referred to as "slow bloggers," they probably have a fan in... Dana Perino?

Ms. Perino, still-President Bush's Press Secretary, was profiled by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz this weekend as well. Mr. Kurtz writes:

From her vantage point, the rise of the blogging culture has damaged journalism. With mainstream reporters posting blog items throughout the day, 'it's snappy, sarcastic. It doesn't necessarily engender trust between the reporter and the press people.'

It's been a month since Radar went out of business and its Web site became an asset of AMI. While some of the staff have spent time posing for photos in bars or talking to reporters, Charles Kaiser, who wrote the 'Full Court Press' column for the site, has moved on.

Mr. Kaiser just sent out a release touting his new column on CJR.com:

In the wake of the sale of radaronline.com to the National Enquirer, Charles Kaiser has moved Full Court Press to cjr.org, where 'Above the Fold' and 'Winners & Sinners' will appear every week. Kaiser said, 'It feels like I've found the perfect new home. I'm thrilled to be working with managing Web editor Justin Peters and CJR executive editor Mike Hoyt, who asked me to join them as soon as Radar died.'

Mr. Kaiser has written for The Observer and The New York Times.

Today, The New York Times' Brooks Barnes offered a hard-hitting A1 investigative report on how Angelina Jolie manipulates the press, especially how she uses access to her family to further her own agenda.

Writes Mr. Barnes:

Shifting the focus is one of Ms. Jolie’s best maneuvers, magazine editors and publicity executives say. When she became romantically involved with Mr. Pitt, for instance, she faced a public relations crisis — being portrayed in the tabloid press as a predator who stole Mr. Pitt from his wife, Jennifer Aniston.

This time, it was Ms. Jolie’s charity work that helped turn the story. Long interested in international humanitarian work, Ms. Jolie appeared in Pakistan, where she visited camps housing Afghan refugees, and even met with President Pervez Musharraf. Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt made a subsequent trip to Kashmir to bring attention to earthquake victims.

In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and you go step by step...  read more »

Shall we play a game?

It's Friday. Yes, we shall.

Let's call this one "MSM or Amateur?" We'll supply a quote and you guess if it comes from a professional journalism organization—you know, the kind of place that wins Pulitzer Prizes and whatnot—or some amateur on the Internet with no editor, no oversight, and no idea what he or she is saying.

Got it? Here we go: MSM or Amateur?:

Note to Al Qaeda: If you insist on trying to insult Barack Obama, the United States' first African American president-elect, falling back on the tropes of an America that no longer exists simply is not going to work. 'Field Negroes' and 'house Negroes'? Come out of the caves, blink in the sunlight of a new era and get it right—that's 'White House Negro.'

Answer after the jump:

   read more »

Writing on Editor & Publisher's blog, 'The E&P Pub,' Greg Mitchell directs us to the trailer for Rod Lurie's Nothing But the Truth.

As you may already know, the movie offers a fictionalized retelling of the Judith Miller-Valerie Plame scandal, and stars Kate Beckinsale as a journalist sent to jail for protecting her source in the outing of a C.I.A. operative played by Vera Farmiga. The film features Matt Dillon, Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, and David Schwimmer.

Also appearing in the trailer: MSNBC anchor turned flack Dan Abrams in the role of a journalist.

Gawker's Hamilton Nolan is reporting that Fairchild Publications—a part of Condé Nast—is folding DNR, its mens fashion trade magazine.

Mr. Nolan is saying that the magazine's Web site, DNRNews.com, will also be closing. The site calls itself "the industry standard for news, fashion trends and business strategies... the first read and last word for top-level executives. Every week, DNR unites retailers, manufacturers, the media and financial community with an insider perspective that defines men's fashion and fuels the momentum of the industry."

The FeedBag's Josh Ozersky is reporting that Gael Greene has been let go by New York Magazine. Ms. Greene, a fixture at the magazine since its founding—she contributed a story to the magazine's 40th anniversary issue that chronicled her quest for The Single Best Meal I Ever Had In 18,814 tries and the magazine ran an excerpt from her memoir in 2006—sent out a release in which said, "I describe it as cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Mr. Ozersky writes

From our point of view, there’s no shame in any of this for either Gael or New York. Greene had a long and unforgettable run at the magazine, but Adam Platt is the chief restaurant critic now, and there’s no sense in trying to have two critics.

Ms. Greene continues to blog about food at Insatiable Critic.

Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke directs us to this great Funny Or Die video that purports to show Variety Writers Sling The Slanguage.

The video is a satire of Variety's semi-impenetrable Slanguage, including new definitions for Geek Meat (n., "a movie that's based on a video game") and Ben Silvermandering (v., "when a studio executive doesn't show up for work because he's too busy partying"). Watch the whole thing to see how they rename the Oxygen Network. (Warning: Language NSFW.)

Of course, most of the satire's bite is mitigated by the fact that Variety is proudly hosting the video on its own site. Allowing one's targets to feel like they're in on the joke out of a spirit of generosity and/or fear? Call that SNLing.

The New York Times' William Grimes is reporting that dance critic Clive Barnes has died. He was 81-years-old.

Per Mr. Grimes:

Mr. Barnes, an energetic Londoner who once described himself as 'your typical working-class overachiever,' made his mark by waging a sustained assault on British dance criticism as it was then practiced just after World War II. It was, he argued, provincial and ill-informed scribbling usually written by music critics. Writing for several publications simultaneously, chief among them The Spectator and The Times of London, which hired him as its first full-time dance critic in 1961, he exposed his readers to foreign dance companies and choreographers, like George Balanchine and Martha Graham, that most British critics had dismissed.

Mr. Barnes also worked for The New York Times from 1965 to 1977 and wrote the books Inside the American Ballet Theatre, Nureyev, and co-authored, edited, or contributed to several others.

Last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the host did a segment about President-elect Obama's Lincoln-esque 'Team of Rivals' (good topic!), in which he stitched together footage of pundits commenting on the prospect of a Hillary Clinton cabinet appointment.

One of the clips was of ABC News' Sam Donaldson saying, "It's better to have them inside the tent peeing out, then outside the tent peeing in."

This line got a huge laugh from Mr. Stewart's presumably 20- and 30-something studio audience. The host then pretended to call his assistant and say, "Yeah, Carol? It's Mr. S. Cancel this weekend's camping trip Sam Donaldson."  read more »

Felix Gillette looks at CNN, which might want to rename itself The Corpulent News Network.

How did the story of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State appointee begin? John Koblin traces the story as it made its way from NBC's Andrea Mitchell to every other media outlet imaginable. "It has unspooled in a confusing way," Politico reporter Ben Smith says.

Leon Neyfakh meets Carrie Kania, the publisher at Harper Perennial, "the small but proud paperback unit of HarperCollins that she has lovingly presided over since the fall of 2005."

Plus: Candy Pratts Price... Big Shake-Up at New York Tech Meetup... Malcolm Gladwell.

It's Wednesday, and yet already this has been a long week for some people in the media business. Sure, it's not as bad as the last week of October, which saw the closure of Radar and 02138, a 10 percent cut in The Los Angeles Times' newsroom, across the board cuts at Condé Nast, and—oh, yeah—the announcement of 600 jobs being eliminated at Time, Inc., but it was pretty bad. (Warning: If you're the person who told The Atlantic's Megan McArdle that this paper needs to be renamed "The Daily Layoff," stop reading now...)  read more »

Earlier today, William Kristol was sitting alone by the entrance of Michael's checking his Blackberry. Mr. Kristol was there at the behest of the Independent Film Channel to participate in a panel discussion moderated by Arianna Huffington (and featuring Pete Hamill, Chrisopher Buckley, and Mr. Kristol) to help promote The IFC Media Project, a show which aims to take viewers "behind the news," hosted by former MTV Newsman Gideon Yago.

The room was quickly filling up with eager young journalists, spiral notepads blank and at the ready, digital recorders checked once, twice, and stomachs empty and open. (The invitation called for noon-2:30 p.  read more »

Last night, purple-pushing internet company Yahoo! announced that co-founder and C.E.O. Jerry Yang would be stepping down from his management role, which he's had since June 2007. Mr. Yang will continue to sit on the company's board and take back his old title (we kid you not): Chief Yahoo!.

Jessica E. Vascellaro of The Wall Street Journal framed it as follows:

Yahoo Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang will step down after the company finds a replacement, closing a tumultuous and short tenure during which Yahoo rejected an offer from Microsoft Corp.'s to buy it.  read more »

- "Gladwell is pale skinned but famously Afro-haired."—Tim Adams, The Guardian, November 16, 2008.

- "Gladwell, who is slight of build, with an exuberance of hair and an oddly diffident manner..." Jerry Adler, Newsweek, November 15, 2008.

- "Slender, with elfin cheekbones and a distinctive bloom of spirally brown hair, Gladwell is one of those clever people who actually looks clever."— Lev Grossman, Time Magazine, November 13, 2008.

- "Gladwell was a soft-spoken guy with a cafe-au-lait complexion and a halo of frizzy hair."— Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times, November 13, 2008.

- "Gladwell is a poufy-haired showman with a knack for explaining anything to everybody, from dog whispering and fads to disposable diapers and snap judgments."—Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly, November 12, 2008.

- "Beneath the crazy hair, the slobby-chic clothes, and the buzzword-filled vocabulary is an old-fashioned guy who grew up among Mennonites in rural Ontario, didn’t have a TV until he was 23, and still prefers to do most of his research at the NYU library."—Jason Zengerle, New York Magazine, November 9, 2008.  read more »

Last week, Vanity Fair's Matt Pressman interviewed Lee Eisenberg, a writer for NBC's The Office for the magazine's Culture and Celebrity blog.

Here's a snippet:

How did you [and writing partner Gene Stupinsky] end up writing for The Office?

Lee Eisenberg: Gene and I sold a pilot called Lonnie and Gordo, and [The Office executive producer] Greg Daniels got his hands on that.

What was that show about?

It was about two co-dependent magicians who live and work together. We were really happy with how the script turned out, but it didn’t move forward. But Greg read it and liked it enough to meet with us.

Mr. Eisenberg went on to explain, "I think the characters were incredibly heightened versions of us. We were living together at the time and, obviously, struggling with a creative endeavor. We started talking about a show about two guys who were living together. As it started forming, we decided that writing is much less visual than magic, so we decided to go with magic."

It's not the worst idea in the world—who didn't love Arrested Development's Tony Wonder arc?—but maybe what Messrs. Eisenberg and Stupinsky needed was a big-time Magic Celebrity, or at the very least, Criss "Mindreak" Angel, to push the project through.  read more »

Stop us if you've heard this one before... According to Page Six The Magazine, some Manhattan parents are so desperate to give their children a leg-up on their peers, they're sending them to Mandarin classes! (And Hindi! And French! And German!)

Page Six's Jennifer Rose quotes a parent named Brett Hauser, who pays $395 for his 6-month-old son to take 10 sessions at The Language Workshop for Children saying, "Mandarin is the language of our future. With China poised to become the world's leading economy sometime this century, I'm doing the only responsible thing. It's like reading to your kid or making sure he gets all the right foods. I'm helping him prepare for his future. Thirty years from now these kids are going to be translating for all of us."

The magazine calls this phenomenon "NYC's New Baby Talkers."

Talkers, yes; new, no.  read more »

Kara Scannell of The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges on insider trading against Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and founder of HDNet, which is home to Dan Rather.

According to Ms. Scannell's report:

The SEC alleges in a civil action that Mr. Cuban sold his entire 6% ownership stake on June 28, 2004, after learning that Mamma.com was raising money through a private investment in a public entity, or PIPE. The next day, on June 29, the company announced the PIPE financing and shares of the company dropped by more than 10%.  read more »

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If you think every single episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live was exactly the same (Another Digital Short about Laser Cats? Really?), you're not alone: So does Justin Timberlake, who offered an Evolution of Dance-esque two minute run-through of an entire episode of the 34-year-old comedy-variety show during 'Weekend Update.'

Call it celebrity lifehacking: Mr. Timberlake, who was scheduled to appear on next week's show but had to cancel, saved viewers 90 minutes (or 30 minutes with DVR) by revealing all, from the host's repetitive monologue to the groan-inducing recurring characters.

Judging by this week's show, which featured guys French kissing, painting each other nude, gay cartoon characters, a cellphone in a man's butt, and three male dancers in high heels, it'll also save you an ass-load of gay-panic jokes.

Since at least the mid-90s, Oprah Winfrey has been credited with reigniting the publishing industry with her Oprah's Book Club. More recently, she's done her best to boost sales of Amazon's Kindle. But can the most powerful woman in media save daily newspapers? (Please.)

The Chicago Sun-Times' Mark Bieganski sure hopes so. In a blog post on his paper's Oprah blog, Mr. Bieganski does a little victory dance over Ms. Winfrey's endorsement of... The Chicago Sun-Times. (This link comes via Jim Romenesko.)

Writes Mr. Bieganski:

For the third time in two weeks, Oprah Winfrey showed a little love for the Sun-Times.  read more »

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The New York Times has posted a preview of the Book Review's lead review from this week: Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter on Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr.'s George Plimpton oral biography, George, Being George: George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals — and a Few Unappreciative Observers. (An oral biography of George Plimpton: Capital idea!)

It's hard finding just one thing to quote from the long, admiring review, which takes into account a man with a long, admirable life, but here's one little nugget.

Per Mr. Carter:

I remember getting a call some years ago from a television casting agent looking for a patrician type to play an editor who liked to go shooting rats in Central Park. I asked the agent if she had approached anyone else. As it happened, she had. Lewis Lapham said it was beneath him. George Plimpton agreed to do it, but he had a scheduling conflict. So she ended up with me. And the show went off the air within the year.  read more »

AdWeek's AdFreak blogger, David Giantasio brings word—and image!—of this 30 Rock promotional stunt from The Netherlands that's so strange, it has to be real.

Behold, Oscar-nominated actor and recent New Yorker profile subject Alec Baldwin's face on toilet paper. (This comes via TVTattle.)

Someone should probably send a case of this stuff to the staff of the New York Post's Page Six' and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, each of whom has elevated hating the outspoken Mr. Baldwin to a life mission.

Writing on The Big Money yesterday, Lesley M. M. Blume took a look at Condé Nast's Web layoffs and asked:

What is behind Condé Nast's bellicose approach to the Web? Other traditional media outlets properly regard the Internet as both destroyer and savior and have gone into overdrive to translate themselves into online brands. By axing its online properties, Condé Nast is revealing its apparent online strategy: looking the other way while Jaws devours the back of your boat.

It's a neat metaphor—you can almost hear John Williams' theme from Jaws in your head as you read it—but it doesn't have the staying power of the one proffered by an expert Ms. Blume consulted for the piece: "Right now we're still in the Wild West."

That particular truism is as worn in as an old saddle and hits the mark like a rusty pistol. See examples after the jump:  read more »