Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

Photo: Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

"On Monday evening New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. continued his effort to reclaim the narrative following Jill Abramson's abrupt firing last week, offering his first public comments on the debacle (aside from statements issued by the paper). Sulzberger said little about Abramson's contributions to the paper last week, but while speaking at a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press dinner, he praised her for being 'a powerful and outspoken advocate for a free press.' He added that Abramson, 'has been one of the most forceful voices in challenging the secrecy of the Obama White House and the initiation of criminal leak investigations. I will always admire Jill’s commitment to this issue and be grateful to her many contributions to the journalism of the New York Times.' Just a few hours later, Vanity Fair published an interview in which Sulzberger bashed Abramson's management style, and reports that suggested sexism played a role in her dismissal. 'I’m not going to let lies like this lie,'  he said. In his interview with Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison, which was conducted on Sunday afternoon, Sulzberger emphasized that 'a lot of what's out there is untrue' – particularly the sexism allegations. Sulzberger said he found it 'weird' that Abramson hired a lawyer to press the issue of pay disparity, but it was not a factor in her firing. He also argued, once again, that Abramson's overall compensation was on par with that of her male predecessors." (NyMag)























"I went down to Michael’s to lunch with Linda Fairstein who is publishing her sixteenth (!!!) Alex Cooper detective novel, 'Terminal City.' Alex being Alexandra, if you’ve never read one of them.Linda is a New Yorker. She grew up in Mount Vernon just north of the city. Her father was a doctor. He was very verbal about his work, so the girl growing up was being unconsciously tutored in the ways of life and the human condition. She was a big reader as a kid and she dreamed of being a writer. When it came time to think about taking care of herself as a grownup, her father suggested she get herself a profession first so she could be sure of supporting herself. I don’t know if he suggested it although it sounds as though he was a strong influence in her thinking early on. She decided to study law. After Vassar, she went to the University of Virginia Law School. And after that is was back in New York and in the early 70s and DA Frank Hogan’s office, she got a start on something new. There were 7 women attorneys in his office when she was first there. Now, she told me yesterday, half the office is women.But I’m telling you all this to lead up to Linda’s 'today’s story' which is partly that her sixteenth novel is being published on 17 June. But three and a half years ago, Linda lost her husband Justin Feldman. He was 92 when he died. Mr. Feldman also had a great career in law and in politics – he helped manage Robert Kennedy’s 1964 Senate run in New York – and was not only Linda’s husband but her mentor and editor/adviser. They had been married 25 years and it was a great loss for her. Cut to the chase. In the last year or so, Linda has been seeing an old friend whom she first knew as a student at UVA Law. Michael Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg and Linda were good friends back then, and the friendship continued over the years, as he too became a practicing New York lawyer and was also a friend and admirer of Justin Feldman. Mr. Goldberg had been married but was divorced a few years ago. And since Linda was now a single woman, and he was a single man, and they had always been good friends, they began to spend more time in each other’s company. They share many interests, many friends and are approximately the same age – late sixties. Familiarity breeds content (in this case)." (NYSD)













"'I need you to help me with something,' says Michael Alig, somewhat sheepishly. 'Can you show me how to make a new email account for, you know, sex stuff?' It’s midafternoon and I’m with Alig in his friend’s spacious three-bedroom apartment in the Bronx, where he’s staying in a spartan spare room until he gets back on his feet. He’s sitting on a white folding chair pawing at a laptop, and I’m on his unmade single bed, next to a pile of dirty laundry. On a bookshelf behind him sits a Michael Jackson figurine and a vase holding a single, wilting red rose. He’s been holing up here since his release from prison on May 5, trying to adjust to life after 17 years on the inside. One thing he’s struggling with is technology. The 48-year-old says he didn’t know how to turn on a computer at first, and he’s still coming to grips with texting. 'I can only handle learning about one new thing each day, otherwise it’s overwhelming.' But he’s a quick study, taking to Chatroulette and gay hookup sites after being introduced to them by his roommates, Ernie Glam and Glam’s husband, David. Now he wants a new email account so he can browse more discreetly. A friend is helping him manage his email and passwords, just until he can figure things out for himself. 'I need one that’s just for me,' he says. 'For private stuff.' Privacy is a relatively new concept to Alig. In December 1996, the former New York club kid was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter over the murder of his friend, Andre 'Angel' Melendez. The ordeal was chronicled by fellow nightlife fixture James St. James in the book Disco Bloodbath, which was adapted into the cult movie Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin as Alig.In March 1996, Melendez came over to Alig’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment and the pair began fighting over money. They started to scuffle and, as Alig tells it, Melendez pushed him through a china cabinet, a piece of glass piercing his back. It was then that another friend, Robert “Freeze” Riggs, hit Melendez on the back of the head with a hammer, causing him to fall over. Alig, Riggs and a rarely mentioned third party, Daniel Auster, then piled on top of him, and Alig smothered him with a sweatshirt. Once Melendez had stopped writhing they propped him up on the couch, assuming he was unconscious. They were high, Alig says, on a cocktail of Special K, crystal meth and Rohypnol, and conducted a series of crude tests to make sure he was still alive. 'We put a spoon to his nose and we thought we saw a breath. Maybe he was still alive then? Maybe he died on the couch? I’m not sure. We were watching his stomach and I swore I saw it go up and down. Freeze checked his pulse and we kept checking on him every so often in between our drug use,' he says, adding that about nine hours later it finally dawned on them that they’d killed their friend." (Vocativ)