Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Rumors started swirling the moment news surfaced: the truck driver in an accident that left Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's wife dead was contracted by USAID. It was a hell of a twist to a terrible tale. The incident was already loaded with suspicion -- justifiable or not. Though Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change party said they did not suspect any foul play, they couldn't help noting, 'We are... alive to the fact that a lot of Robert Mugabe's opponents died in suspicious road accidents involving army trucks.' Now, rumors of assasination are flying in the opposite direction. Did 'the West' try to bring down Tsvangirai? One Zimbabwean MP seems to think so, and he's calling for an investigation to find out. 'Given the physical facts surrounding it, suspects in this tragic accident can only be those who have vigorously opposed the unity of Zimbabweans and who have responded to the formation of an inclusive government by extending their evil sanctions,' he said." (ForeignPolicy)



(image via voguesucks)

"HAS the high priestess of pelts entered an era of detente with her tormentors? PETA Vice President Dan Mathews, who for years has stalked Vogue editrix Anna Wintour with bloody carcasses while demanding she stop wearing fur, actually shook hands with her at the Stella McCartney show in Paris Monday morning. 'Is the ice queen melting?' one observer asked. Meanwhile, fur-lover Kanye West was seen asking McCartney to send him information on her non-animal-derived fabrics for his new fashion line." (PageSix)

"Steven Spielberg's struggle to raise $325 million of debt for his new studio, DreamWorks SKG, illustrates the troubles Hollywood is having as it tries to finance its movies during a credit crunch. After months of negotiations, DreamWorks and its financing partner, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., so far have raised about half of the $325 million in debt financing it needs to launch this spring, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. It is on track to raise the remainder within a month or two, according to several people close to the negotiations. The $325 million goal is already less than half of what the studio initially had hoped to raise in debt financing when it announced last summer it was forming a new partnership with India's Reliance ADA Group. The challenges that one of Hollywood's best-known directors has faced in assembling a group of backers doesn't bode well for other studios." (WSJ)



"Olivia Palermo was in attendance Tuesday night for The Cinema Society and Brooks Brothers special Tribeca screening of upcoming comedy The Great Buck Howard followed by an after party at the Soho Grand Hotel. Recently 'The City' reality starlet let the cat out of the bag about the show being staged…Like we didn’t already know that. Thankfully no cameras were present and the stars of the movie Emily Blunt, Colin Hanks, John Malcovich, and Tom Hanks were given the spotlight. Other guests included Beth Ostrosky who chatted with Cinema Society founder, Andrew Saffir, Palermo took time away from Johannes Huebl’s side to laugh it up with Andrew Bevan, and Parker Posey cozied up with Jason Schwartzman and Jonathan Ames." (GuestofaGuest)

"If you were allowed to perch inside the Situation Room at the White House and listen to a National Security Council meeting, you’d find the most centralized and controlled operation, well, ever. It is an Obama-centric system. The president sets the schedule of meetings, runs the discussions with an iron hand, actually calls on attendees to talk, and usually ends the session by making decisions at the table. And either because of his command personality and style or the moderate consensus of the participants or both, they are getting along with each other better than any group of NSC officials in memory. The principal participants in these meetings, besides the president, are: Vice President Joe Biden; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Defense Secretary Bob Gates; National Security Adviser Jim Jones; his deputy, Tom Donilon; another deputy, Denis McDonough (known as Obama’s enforcer); and intelligence chiefs Dennis Blair and Leon Panetta. Key aides from the departments and NSC staff also attend, depending on the subject." (Leslie Gelb/TheDailyBeast)



(image via JH/NYSocialDiary)

"Last night at the Museum of the City of New York the Director’s Council held its annual Winter Ball. This is one of the annual New York galas that gets better every year. The Director’s Council is a group who were once the Junior Group administered/presided over by Mark Gilbertson .. After the dinner, menu by Abigail Kirsch, there was dancing with DJ David Chang, the same guy who had them boogeying over at the School of American Ballet Winter Ball at Lincoln Center till alal hours on Monday night. There was a contingent of the same crowd from Monday night – the 20 thru 40-somethings; they were all ready for David Chang by the time dessert was being served. Director’s Council Chairs were: Mark Gilbertson, Phoebe Gubelmann, Cynthia Lufkin, Heather Mnuchin, Calvert Moore, Allison Rockefeller, Andrew Roosevelt, Burwell Schorr." (NYSocialDiary)

"Mexico’s illegal drug trade used to be relatively civilized, made up of small-time traffickers who smuggled marijuana and heroin into the United States and the corrupt officials who accepted their bribes to look the other way. Both sides followed certain unwritten rules: The officials forbade the traffickers from selling their wares inside Mexico and from arming themselves too extravagantly. Kidnapping was out of bounds. If a drug trafficker felt compelled to eliminate a rival, Mexican officials encouraged him to do so discreetly — preferably north of the border, where the investigation would be a problem for law enforcement in the United States, not Mexico. Such conditions seem almost quaint compared with the violence that wracks the country today. Mexico’s drug gangs have added South American cocaine and methamphetamine to their exports, and they earn as much as $39 billion a year from sales in the United States. They also peddle plenty of the drugs to Mexicans. To protect their profits, the cartels have taken advantage of openings in U.S. gun-control laws to stock up on military-grade assault rifles, grenade launchers, bazookas and even heavy machine guns, smuggling them back into Mexico for fire-fights with government forces and rival gangs. The cartels also operate helicopters, jet planes and small submarines for use in smuggling." (CQPolitics)



(image via nymag)

"Citing 'financial considerations,' the 8th Tribeca fest will be a leaner event. 'We did have financial considerations with the economy being what it is,' explained festival executive director Nancy Schafer, in a conversation with indieWIRE yesterday. She noted that the festival relies on sponsorship for its annual budget and with the loss of support from financially embattled GM and Target, organizers decided to tighten up the event. Planners did bring on new sponsors AMC TV, DIRECTV, and Heineken for this year’s event, alongside lead sponsor American Express. The drop in the roster follows a trend in recent years for Tribeca. The fest was at 174 features in 2006, dropping its size to 159 feature films in 2007 before getting to 122 last year. Organizers were quick to clarify that offering a range of international work will remain the core of the festival." (Indiewire)

"NBC Universal dreamed up New York Nonstop in an all-out effort to attract the kind of audience that no longer seems particularly interested in traditional local TV news. In short, young people. For a veteran broadcaster like Mr. Scarborough, who survived the excruciating process, a spot on the new network is supposed to make him feel pretty lucky. The upheaval began calmly in the spring of 2008, when NBC executives announced that facing declining ratings and revenue, they were dismantling the newsroom at their flagship station in New York, WNBC-4. In its place, they would be creating a newfangled 'content center,' capable of feeding a range of multiple platforms, including broadcast TV, the Internet, taxi cab screens and, eventually, a 24-hour hyper-local newslike cable channel. Along the way, a new crew of 'content producers' and 'platform managers' gradually replaced many of the station’s experienced reporters, editors, anchors, photographers and editors." (Observer)



"There was ample reason to celebrate at 31 rue Cambon last night. The space—Coco Chanel's storied apartment—was the destination for Karl Lagerfeld fans after that morning's Chanel show, but virgin copies of Another Fashion Book, the first of three glossy tomes from Another Magazine founder Jefferson Hack to be published by Lagerfeld's Edition 7L, were also on hand to be fêted. As Mark Ronson deejayed, Coco's prized artifacts—from quilted pillows to the designer's thick-as-bottles glasses—were admired by guests like Charlotte Casiraghi and Dasha Zhukova. By the middle of the party, a more contemporary article of fascination joined the display: Kate Moss, who had earlier made her sole front-row appearance of the season at Chanel. 'Chanel would very often have the most important people in her life to this apartment until the late hours of the night,' Lagerfeld said from the sitting room, where Stefano Pilati and Lily Allen were taking it all in. 'But she would never sleep here.' As Moss did on this night, Coco would cross the street to the Ritz and retire to her suite there." (Style)