To: NYT
Subject: MESSAGE FROM BILL KELLER
09/30/2005 02:20 PM
Judy Miller is deeply grateful to all the people on the staff for their support during her time in jail. She's eager to come in and say so personally — but we've ordered her to take the weekend off.
We expect her to come into the newsroom on Monday afternoon to give her personal thanks.
Bill
At 3:55 p.m. yesterday afternoon, Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has spent nearly three months in prison for refusing to testify in the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, was released from prison. Miller was released because she has agreed to testify.
We were reading the New Yorker the other night, trying our damnedest to get through the Talk of the Town (we're of the firm belief that so long as one reads at least that much of the magazine every week, one shant be doomed to literary hell), when we got to an item on an effort that managed to belittle an arrogant lawyer and raise money for Katrina victims at the very same time. It wasn't the story itself that caught our attention, however. It was the fact that one of the story's subjects is a woman who writes for Fox's heavenly cracktard drama The O.C.
• Nikki Finke profiles new LAT opinions editor Andres Martinez, who defected from our Times to theirs, and shockingly, doesn't tear him a new one. [LA Weekly]
• Fired ABC London correspondent says Peter Jennings wielded "hugely disproportionate" influence, without clarifying what exactly would be "proportionate" for the man with his name on the show. [Guardian]
• Slutty sis Wonkette comes to New York for a panel on — what else? — blogs and journalism, and she doesn't so much as say hello. [WWD]
• The Times wouldn't hire Slatester Tim Noah because they don't like white people. We thought it was because they don't like Jews. [Slate]
• FCC indecency complaints dropped by factor of 20 from first quarter to second. The copier must have broken at the Parents Television Council. [B&C]
Perhaps as a goodwill gesture towards its shrinking newsroom, the Gray Lady is tackling the omnipresent tension in staffers' necks:
The first step: Get a life.
• Confessions of a (granted, emergency-landing-surviving) media whore. [NYO]
• Bossman Denton cruises the Jersey Turnpike on a bathwater-powered scooter, apparently. Also, he has a large head. [NYO]
• Nonfamous writer Matt Haber's past was pillaged by adorable and now-famous writer Benjamin Kunkel, and Haber'll be damned if you don't know about it. [NYO]
• Dan Rather wants to revisit Bush National Guard story; CBS brass won't let him. We await Public Eye's take, presumably that spirited debate is a good thing. [NYP]
• A day in the life of Us editor Janice Min — in which no one cares about Britney's baby. [asap/AP]
• Geraldo won't sue Times, but his feelings are still hurt. [NYP]
• Washington Blade launches a "gay Romenesko" site. We always thought that was us. [E&P]
• Turns out, SCOTUS nominee Roberts might not hate the press as much as the Times thought. Which still doesn't mean he likes it. [NYT]
• Sly gets up off the mat. [WWD]
First, we had no idea kugel was changing. Second, we had no idea Brooklyn is the kugel capital of the United States. (Why has Marty Markowitz not told us this?) And, third, we really had no idea there were 1,200 words to be written on the topic.
This article, we'd like to note, was not written by Alessandra Stanley. In fact, it's an AP item — it's comforting to know the Times just throws that shit up there without giving it a once-over first.
Whereas Times-reading cosmopolitan white-collar folks are never so declasse and sentimental. Oh, silly, hurricane-ravaged middle classes.
Tucked down at the bottom of today's Times corrections, Geraldo finally gets his day:
From its inception, we've mocked CBS News's non-opinionated, non-bloggy, non-ombudsman new ombudsman blog. But maybe we were too harsh on the Public Eye crew, joking that they'd be unveiling the behind-the-scenes workings of the CBS News programs no one watches in the first place. It turns out that they'll take a look at major media issues occurring in other outlets, too, and yesterday they weighed in on the raging did-Geraldo-nudge-someone? debate at the Times.
• Stories like the Katrina aftermath are much better in print, so long as print's still around to tell them, says print reporter David Carr. [NYT]
• Moss's mistake wasn't doing the blow. It was getting into a fight with a London tab in the first place. [IHT]
• More Dumenican yuks about the fall media offerings. Such as: In wake of TimesSelect, "the Times starts a program offering to pay online readers $49.95 a year to skim 'Metropolitan Diary items about the adorable stuff that Manhattan tots say and do on city buses to amuse the elderly and infirm. (Anticipated revenue stream: Google AdSense ads for Depends and Ensure.)" [Ad Age]
• Forthcoming Dylan documentary by Martin Scorsese shows, sadly but unsurprisingly, that reporters can be humorless nitwits. [E&P]
• Even NYT ombudsman Barney Calame says Geraldo's right and Alessandra's wrong. Big surprise. [NYT]
• It's odd, jack, to see meathead brother Oddjack in a Q&A that does not involve him insulting anyone. [PR Week]
Radar fashion spread, September/October issue:
Yesterday's Times weddings pages announced the nuptials of Clara Lora-Ospina, a clinical psychologist, and Kevin McCrea, a Boston city-council candidate. And how did the loving couple first meet?
• Kate Moss continues her downward spiral after being outed as a very pretty cokewhore. We'll always let you bang a couple lines off of our tummies, Katie darling.
• We lost our minds a bit more than usual and opened up a fancypants comments club. Shockingly, not everyone loves it.
• Times scribe Alessandra Stanley has had some accuracy problems before. But now, things seem to be getting worse much, much worse.
• The Observer suggested Daily News gossipite Lloyd Grove was on his way out, but the man issued a firm, but loving denial.
• A chunk of the Times newsroom dies a bloody death; editor Keller responds with his usual, war-torn rhetoric.
• The Wall Street Journal gave birth to a big weekend baby, which may or may not have a developmental disability.
• Speaking of the developmentally disabled, the TimesSelect premium content was one giant bumblefuck at first. We should note, however, that a kindly NYTimes.com product manager took pity on us — without us asking — and finally made ours work. Turns out we had some weird, funkly problem, but his general advice is: Log out then log back in. We hear that really fixes things.
• Bill Keller only learned of impending staff cutbacks on Friday. [E&P]
• Staff cuts, TimesSelect hiccups, Alessandra Stanley, and now this: S&P downgrades Times Co.'s debt. [NYP]
• Time Warner, like a battered wife stuck in an abusive relationship, now insists it likes AOL again. [NYT]
• Conde brass swears that editor Ariel Foxman isn't about to be canned from Cargo. [WWD]
• Denton tells Adam Penenberg there isn't much profit potential in blogs. Then he lights a fresh cigar with a $100 bill. [Wired News]
A Times correction, referring, natch, to a Alessandra Stanley TV review:
