The NY Tabloid Gossip Wars

Brandusa Niro's Fashionweekdaily has been aggressively covering what may rightly be called "The Gossip Wars," as they increasingly involve many of the major media players as well as stars like Howard Stern and nonentities like Douglas Dechert and New York Press editor-in-sleep, Jeff Koyen. Today, The Daily Spy's war reporting notes:

"New York magazine scribe Vanessa Grigoriadis is making progress on her chronicle of the Ian Spiegelman saga, which has evolved into a story about New York's gossip wars, specifically the NY Post vs. the NY Daily News."

This War, by the way, which makes the World War I look puny in comparison, has, at various times, snagged such media luminaries as Abigail Vona, Billy Bush of Access Hollywood (2nd item, link via Gawker), Vanity Fair's Frank DiGiacomo (3rd item), Howard Stern and Beth Ostrowsky, AJ Benza, and, of course, Page Six and Lloyd Grove.

Like World War I, it was caused, in large part, by arms escalation as well as a breaking of Bismarkian-like treaties. The competition between the Daily News gossip columnist (from back in the day) and Page Six is a New York tradition (remember Mitchell Fink?). Usually the feud ends with the Sixers being magnanimous. When Lloyd Grove got Ian Spiegelman fired, though, things escalated. And now Girgoriades, DiGiacomo, et al are being called in:

"Grigoriadis, who is being assisted in her duties by New Yorks loose cannon/Intelligencer helper Jacob Bernstein, has had in-depth talks with the major players both in the Spiegelman set-to and the New York gossip world in general. Though cooperation has been forthcoming, the subjects should beware: New York magazine editor Adam Moss is no fan of gossip and has all but eradicated it from his own publication, so he may have little compunction about making everyone involved look like sleazy dirt merchants. In any case, New York will scoop Vanity Fairs Frank DiGiacomo, who has been working on a gossip piece of his own. We hear Spiegelmans newfound free-time has improved his work habits; hes said to have lined up a gig with music mag Blender and is also making headway on the manuscript of his second book, which has a bit of a roman a clef element, were told, including scenes set at his former workplace."

To borrow from the guy in the hockey mask from Mad Max, "... just walk away ..."