Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

The Daily Mail has since removed this story.

"OPERATING ON that thought — avoiding the mistakes that caused an apology — can we really expect London’s Daily Mail to: A. Mend its loosey-goosey gossipy ways? B. Extend another apology to George Clooney, in the matter of that story about his future mother-in-law objecting to her daughter, Amal Alamuddin marrying Clooney on 'religious' grounds? Maybe throw in a nice contribution to one of George’s many charities? C. Keep on keeping on, writing whatever the hell they please. Come on, does anybody take their apology seriously? As you probably know, George wrote an op-ed piece in USA Today about the dangers of such irresponsible gossip: 'The idea that someone would inflame any part of that world for the sole reason of selling papers should be criminal ... the irresponsibility in this day and age, to exploit religious difference where none exist is in the very least negligent and, more appropriately, dangerous.' (The piece included 'joking' references to Amal being killed because of her marriage to Clooney.) George ended his piece with 'They must be so very proud.' Unfortunately, and I’m sure George knows it — they are proud. They goaded one of the most famous movie stars in the world into a reaction. The Daily Mail is 'trending' high right now. Even if Clooney should sue, it’s a win-win for the tabloid. They will indeed keep on keeping on.P.S. Closer magazine, which seems to be a more benign version of the hyper-sensational glossy newsstand magazines, says that Clooney has pushed up the date of his wedding, from September to August. It’s all “sources close to Clooney” who reveal this. If he has decided to change the date, it’s more likely he wants to jump from the frying pan into the fire and get it over with. What? Wanna bet the moment he and Amal wed, the first magazine story will be 'he Honeymoon Disaster of George Clooney.'" (LizSmith)

"Norman Pearlstine is chief content officer of Time Inc., having returned to the company last year after serving as editor in chief between 1995 and 2005. He has also been executive editor of Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, as well as chief content officer of Bloomberg L.P. Last month Time Inc. was spun off from its longtime parent, Time Warner, leaving its more than 90 magazines and 45 websites to operate independently, an existence described in the headline of a widely read New York Times article as 'lonely.' hat does the spinoff mean for Time Inc.? We were very much defined as the print subsidiary of Time Warner, so much so that three of our major websites—Sports Illustrated, Money and Fortune— were folded in CNN and were not even directly attached to their print component. As a consequence of the spinoff we have the opportunity to be great storytellers across multiple platforms. How has the media landscape changed and what do you see as Time’s role?If you stand at a checkout counter, you’ll see people on their tablets, on their cellphones. Traditional media has to respond to that. We know there is a very large audience that wants more information than has ever been available before. The worry, of course, is that none of us have yet created the business model that you’re confident is going to work for a long time to come. Given the pace of change, it’s going to take a little bit of time. But this is an exciting time if you are willing to embrace the future. It’s not an exciting time if your only comfort is with what currently exists or used to exist.

Have readers become more comfortable with the changes to the divide between church and state? If I look at the front page of the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, even The New York Times, I see ads on the front page. But I don’t think any reader of those publications is confused about what’s news and what’s advertising. If you read news online, you can’t get to a story on a major news site without going through a banner ad and a slide show." (Observer)

"My iPhone autocorrected 'Emmys" to "enemies" this morning. It was a sign. The Emmys, the Oscars, the Grammys, and other awards groups are all guilty of overlooking great new or newish work in favor of known quantities; call it the Institutional Tendency, maybe. Hand-in-hand with that are some oversights that seem strange, because the Emmys snubbed shows or performers that you would think the Institutional Tendency would have favored. There were so many head-on-desk-worthy omissions this year that it's probably impossible to list them all.But what the heck, let's try.Along the way, we'll say nice things and mean things about shows and artists that did get nominated for Emmys, and we might work in a comment or two on the state of the industry, too. But let's not kid each other: This column is mainly about the snubs. The snubs, people. THE SNUBS." (NYMag)