Is Journalistic Objectivity "Bullshit"?

What is a journalist? That is the question. Are bloggers? Clearly some of the best bloggers are. One of the main characteristics of what a being a journalist was entailed something nebulously called "journalistic objectivity." Then there was the whole Dan Rather episode. Dan Rather, the weakest of the evening network anchors, became the whipping boy of the right during the thick of the 2000 Presidential campaign for insinuating -- ! -- that there may be questions about George Bush's national guard service. In retrospect Rather was the perfect target.

Viacom, fearful perhaps of the blowback, did not support Rather. And CBS News moved on. In 2008, John McCain, to brilliant political effect, attacked the New York Times on the grounds that they were a left-leaning enterprise. It earned him the cache with conservatives that he had been looking for. As much as McCain's moderate philosophy was the bete noir of true-blooded right wingers, they could all agree to love to hate the left-of-center slant of the New York Times. Point: McCain.

Dan Rather has since gone on to become something of a leftish journalism legend -- as a friend of The Nation and appearances delivering his awkward Texas Rather-isms on the Chris Matthews Show -- but the question remains: is "journalistic objectivity" possible? Or is it simply a conceit of the 20th century. Did the right attack cultural institutions like CBS and the New York Times out of political opportunism or did they actually expose real bias? Let's go to TechCrunch:

Jeff Jarvis is the creator of Entertainment Weekly, a San Francisco Examiner columnist, the Associate Publisher of The Daily News, and a consultant to new media companies — in other words, a veteran of the old school and a proponent of the new. Jarvis took to the stage today at Disrupt NYC for some banter with TechCrunch Big Kahuna Mike Arrington .... To kick things off, Jarvis flatly asked Arrington (full disclosure: Mike is my boss) about whether he would consider himself a journalist. Mike replied by saying that he does not consider himself a journalist, likening the current identity of journalist’s to that of priests. “When I think of journalists”, he said, “I think of people who are biased, hiding their bias between theoretically objective text”. That is to say, journalists misappropriate words like “objectivity”, and sometimes tend to be self-righteous about their role as objective observers (my words), when in fact, all reporting is advocation. And, inherently subjective. (Again, my words.)

"To elucidate, Arrington then cited the example of a particular journalist telling him that he would not share his political leanings, or how he voted, because it would negate the objectivity in his reporting and how people viewed his content. Both writers were in agreement that this is a common misrepresentation among journalists today — that true objectivity is 'bullshit'."

I found this and most anything that Jeff Jarvis -- a very transparent journalist and a fellow Stern fan --  has to say on media as worth seriously considering. Five years ago, if someone of Jeff's calibre said this there would be an argument and a debate on multiple platforms. But we appear to be at a cultural tipping point. More and more journalists like NPR On the Media host Brooke Gladstone are pretty much arriving at this same conclusion. From NPR:

"Illustrated by Josh Neufeld, Gladstone's The Influencing Machine is a comic book about the media: Who are they? What do they do? How do they affect us? Is there even a media anymore, now that anyone with a cellphone can potentially reach millions? Is objectivity even possible?


"Gladstone answers that last question with a resolute "No."

"'Reporters can be fair,' she tells NPR's Scott Simon. 'But there's no way that we can divorce ourselves from the experience gleaned over a lifetime that forces us to come to certain conclusions.'

From Gladstone we get "fairness" and from Jarvis we get "transparency" as the new virtues of the journalist in the digital age. But the idea of reporters serving up a daily helping of objective truth is a project that appears to have been largely abandoned by the new new journalism, which is a significant cultural event. What does this say about how journalism was practiced in the post Cold War 20th Century?

Hmm.

Who Will The Bushes Back?

Will Jebby run?

I speculated earlier that Jebby Bush might run. But it is looking increasingly unlikely that that event will ever occur, no matter how great it would be for writers. Which leads us to the pressing question: who will the Bushes support in the GOP primary? Jim Huntsman just lunched with Bush, 41 and Tim Pawlenty kissed his ring a few weeks ago. Clearly the Bush family are still the 800-pound gorillas in the GOP.

Presidents used to never make favorites before the party had a clear winner in the primary. And, to a degree, they still don't. But behind the scenes they definitely do. It is sort of a Boomer break with the previous American political tradition of letting the combattants solve the nomination on their own. It was seen back in the day as somehow sullying the office of the President -- or former President -- to descend into the gladiatorial fundament of primary contests. Then came the "Me" generation.

Bill Clinton, of course, supported his wife in the 2008 primary (a break with tradition; though he eventually supported and campaigned with Obama when he got the nod). And behind the scenes in 2008, the Bush family "supported" Mitt Romney (it was really quite bromantic), but eventually supported John McCain when he got the nod.

It is no secret that the Bushes had been supporting -- behind the scenes, of course -- Governor Mitch Daniels. Daniels, as Page Six told us (second item), had been "agonizing" over whether or not he wanted to subject his wife to withering press criticism for her leaving him and the kids before re-marrying him. He ultimately decided not to run. So -- who do the Bushes support now? It is, after all, a matter of their legacy -- the legacy of the most successful (and oil drenched) political family since the Adamses of Braintee, Massachusetts.

There is some reason to think Jebby might run. For one, it is no secret that he has always wanted to run for President and it was always assumed that he -- the smarter Bush -- would be the one to succeed the father. Two, Mitt Romney is a very very weak front-runner, so weak in fact that the big money has yet to fall in line (rare for a hierarchical party like the Republican party). From ABC News:

"Jeb probably has a better chance to unite the establishment and Tea Party wings of the GOP than anyone else, certainly a better chance than Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney," National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote earlier this year.

In a poll of likely Florida voters last month, Bush held a nearly 20 point lead over President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 presidential matchup.

Still, Bush has repeatedly insisted he will not run in 2012 and believes the party has plenty of candidates who could defeat Obama.

Then again, does America have Bush fatigue? When Hillary Clinton ran in the primary, Clinton fatigue -- a theme brlliantly encapsulated within Obama's catch phrase "Change" -- was a major factor in her defeat. Could the same thing happen if Jebby, who would be, if he ran, the third Bush to run for President in a little over two decades? Is America to fatigued with the Bush family values of oil, wealth and war?

Then again, we could take him at his word. Maybe Jeb's time has passed and he won't run -- or wait until 2016. The Bushes could very well go back to their "jump off," Mitt Romney.

Time will tell.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Nicolas Sarkozy warned Dominique Strauss-Kahn of his behaviour with women when he was sent to the U.S. as head of the International Monetary Fund, it has emerged. The concerned French president told the under-fire IMF chief in 2007 before he went to Washington D.C. that his life ‘will be passed under a magnifying glass’ in America. And when he heard Strauss-Kahn was arrested last weekend after allegedly sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid, he rolled his eyes and said: ‘We did warn him’ ... Over there they don't joke about this sort of thing,’ Mr Sarkozy was quoted as saying. ‘Your life will be passed under a magnifying glass. Avoid taking the lift alone with interns. France cannot permit a scandal.’" (DailyMail)

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, cognizant of the impending diplomatic defeat, has been casting about for a response, but realistic ideas are not presenting themselves. The Palestinian reunification declaration partially plays into Netanyahu's hands. How can Israel negotiate with a unified Palestinian Authority, when Hamas is avowed to its destruction? It is a legitimate argument which finds resonance in Washington and some Western capitals, but which would have gained far greater support had Netanyahu not already squandered his international credibility. Painted into a corner by his own recalcitrance, domestic coalition politics, and Palestinian rejectionism, Netanyahu's options were unenviably few. The important but belated steps he presented last week in the Knesset -- stating that Israel will retain the settlement blocs, thereby implicitly indicating that it will forego most of the West Bank -- were insufficient. The prime minister will follow up on his recent initiatives with a highly anticipated speech to Congress on Tuesday, but truth be told, there is probably no Israeli initiative that would be sufficient to solve the problem at this point. Sensing the tide having turned in their favor, the Palestinians appear unwilling to negotiate, let alone compromise." (ForeignPolicy)

"Metro UK: Why did you want to do a programme about jails in Miami? Louis Theroux: I’m fascinated by criminality and life in institutions where life is reduced to its most primal. America, despite being one of the richest nations in the world, also has some of the most brutal jails. The jails for people who haven’t been to trial yet are often more volatile and unstable. The more we looked, the more strange it was. Metro UK: What were the strangest bits? Louis Theroux: One was how pervasive the culture of fighting is. There are up to 24 people in a cell. They’re relatively big cells but inmates don’t leave them more than twice a week for yard time. They pass the time by fighting. If you’re weak, you get stuff taken from you. I asked if you could be a geeky guy and sit in the corner but they said: ‘Not really, you’d have to fight,’. The other thing was the phenomenon of inmates masturbating at female prison guards. It’s against the rules but very common. They were very unembarrassed when they did it. Metro UK: Didn’t some of the inmates threaten you? Louis Theroux: There was a bit which wasn’t on camera where I was talking to an inmate and had my hands on a chain link fence. He squeezed my fingers against it just to make me squeal." (MetroUK)

"Texas stormed the Croisette Sunday night, and the 2011 Cannes Film Festival ended with the Big Bang, literally. The star-studded jury headed by film godfather Robert De Niro awarded Cannes’s highest prize, the Palme d’Or, to American director Terrence Malick’s existential mega-memoir The Tree of Life. The film had provoked a uniquely Cannes reaction at its press screening, between those who booed its elliptical style and those who embraced its artistic ambition (see our own mind-blown, steam-of-consciousness take.) The infamously shy auteur was not on hand to accept the award, although he apparently made a stopover in Cannes earlier in the week, turning the festival into a glamorous backdrop for the international entertainment press to play Where’s Waldo: Auteur Edition. Producers Dede Gardener and Bill Pohlad accepted the award in Malick’s stead, and De Niro later explained all the jury’s decisions with his trademark loquacity, culminating in a brilliant summation of the Lars Von Trier-Nazi-jokes controversy: “What was gonna be was gonna be.” Terrence Malick has made only five films in his 30-plus year career, so the prize represents a touching triumph for a director who has come to represent the apogee of American art house cinema. Hollywood filmmakers whisper his name, lest their agents overhear and punish un-commercial inclinations by making them story-pitch for Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wit’s End. However, his films can be a cleansing tonic—as its title implies, Tree of Life attempts to ponder over delivering 'life lessons' via color-by-number narratives. It is a blockbuster art film, and its arrival in theaters Friday prompts an interesting question: Can Brad Pitt’s mega-wattage lure the American public away from re-friend action extravaganzas at the height of the summer movie season?" (VanityFair)

"Last night in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, they held the Centennial Gala for the building which was dedicated on May 23, 1911. The opening ceremony was presided over by President William Howard Taft. The following day, more than 10,000 New Yorkers visited. The new main branch was considered, rightfully, the “jewel in the crown” and the opening collection consisted of more than 1 million volumes. Eight hundred guests were invited for last night’s Re-dedication ceremonies held in the Main Reading Room. The evening was a rare and significant public event including the Mayor, Michael Bloomberg; Catherine Marron, the Chairman of the New York Public Library and Paul LeClerc, the Library’s president. After a VIP cocktail reception, guests assembled in the Main Reading Room for a concert by the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus. After the concert, Barbara Walters opened the evening with some background of that day exactly 100 years ago pointing out the vast differences between the world then and our world now." (NYSocialDiary)

"Coming back from the broadcast upfront presentations in New York last week, I've been having a hard time getting the catchy tune out of my head. While less far-reaching and profound, there is a clear sense of changing of the guard and a new direction for the broadcast networks this year. I can't remember a time where the majority of the networks had new heads at their upfront presentations. Paul Lee took over for Steve McPherson at ABC, Bob Greenblatt for Jeff Gaspin and Angela Bromstad at NBC and Mark Pedowitz is succeeding Dawn Ostroff at the CW. There is a similar changing of the guard among the top TV producers this year. Upstart Chernin Entertainment and DreamWorks TV, which is reentering the broadcast arena, topped the pods with the most new series, 3 each, with another recently launched company, Aaron Kaplan's Kapital Entertainment, scoring 2 new shows. Meanwhile, such longtime upfront fixtures as Jerry Bruckheimer TV, Mark Gordon Co. and Wonderland didn't land any new series for next season. Also in a departure from upfronts' recent past, bullish by the influx of ad dollars from the recovering economy and driven by the desire of their new chiefs to stand out, ABC, NBC and CW took bigger swings than usual with such unconventional projects as the Broadway-themed Smash and Inception-flavored Awake (NBC), fairytale mystery Once Upon a Time and horror thriller The River (ABC). Meanwhile, CW successfully went after a pilot that had been developed and produced for a much larger network, CBS' The Ringer. And there are two other changes that I feel may signal a shift in the way TV development is done. First: actors taking things in their own hands. Tired of waiting for the perfect pilot script to come along, more actors than ever went ahead and wrote a pilot for themselves this past development season." (Deadline)

"Rei Kawakubo and her business partner and husband, Adrian Joffe, made a rare appearance at their New York Comme des Garçons store on Saturday night—their first in five or six years—to fête the designer's collaboration with Matt Groening. That's Matt Groening of 400-episodes-and-counting Simpsons fame, but it was his more obscure, underground project, Life in Hell, that Kawakubo took an interest in. Naturally. As Joffe put it, 'I knew about The Simpsons and Futurama, but when I discovered Life in Hell, I told Rei about it, because [as a fashion designer] your life is hell; to do a new collection every six months is hell.' ... 'I was in Tokyo and she asked me to tea,' Groening explained of his first meeting with Kawakubo. 'I knew of her; I knew how surprising her choices are. If I were an avant-garde Japanese fashion designer, she's who I'd want to be.'" (Style)

"Howard (Stern) said Lorne Michaels is an incredible guy. He said that Lorne said he would only executive produces the show that Conan left if they let Jimmy (Fallon) host it. He said the guy really put his balls on the line for him. He said he's become his closest ally. Jimmy said the guy has seen it all a thousand times. He said he has great advice for the show and he doesn't have to take it but he will take 99.9 percent of the advice. Jimmy said that Lorne told him that he should host award shows with other people. He said he wanted to do it alone and he told Lorne that. He said Lorne is willing to admit when he's wrong too. Jimmy said that they have cut jokes that Lorne didn't like. Howard said he saw Lorne out in California and he told him he's a genius. Howard said he keeps finding these people and reinventing that show. He said that he saw Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids and she's great. Jimmy said the guy is very smart and he will mould people. He said that he'll even tell you to not wear so many prosthetics on your face so people know who it is." (Marksfriggin)

"Last year at the Cannes Film Festival, attendees gossiped that the following year would potentially be 'a banner year' with a host of big name directors slated to complete their projects in time for the 2011 festival. That was indeed the case. People were already talking about Terrance Malick’s 'The Tree of Life' 12 months ago, and then there were others such as 'The Kid with a Bike' from the Dardennes, Pedro Almodóvar’s 'La Piel que Habito' (The Skin I Live In), Lars von Trier’s 'Melancholia' and Gus van Sant’s 'Restless,' just to name but a few. And there also ending up being some gems not in the official selection that were worth noting.  Not all press was limited to the films themselves this year, of course. Lars von Trier’s infamous press conference dominated the Cannes headlines for a day or two, outshining his critically acclaimed film, starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Below are the 12 'Must Sees' from Cannes 2011 with several more that are certainly worth a trip to a festival - or hopefully a full release. This list is simply the films iW has initially identified as ones to keep an eye for in the coming months. Many may be obvious to some, but still relatively new for others and maybe there’s also a below the radar gem or two." (IndieWIRE)

Ahnold: In His Own Words

The philosopher-king of dessicated beef liver tablets holds court:


From Pumping Iron via The Daily Beast

Social Networking and Television

It's not enough for a brand to advertise on a particular television program just because that show has great ratings. That's the old model of how things were done.

First of all, the traditional ways of measuring a television show's audience aren't accurate -- at least not yet. The landscape is changing too fast. Social media buzz, online views, embeds on blogs -- all of these things aren't quite calibrated to a fine science with accurate metrics. Media data collection and analysis is scrambling to come up-to-date with the various emerging platforms. But we are all, more or less, playing catch up to the technology.

That having been said, one has a strong sense, in spite of the nebulousness of the present state of our metrics, that buzzy shows like Colbert Report and the Daily Show probably rank high in the new metrics on account of their sophisticated mix of traditional cable strategy (winning the money demographic), their social media-friendliness, their online views and, finally, their general social buzziness. Whatever the Nielsen ratings are for Stewart and Colbert, those numbers don't fully capture the full influence of the show. On the other side of the spectrum, if Oprah -- particularly in the wake of her media victory lap -- is probably looking for ways to turn digital interest in her into ratings on OWN.

I have argued recently that we are probably moving into a post-traditional advertising era, mostly because brands are still presenting their pitch in the way they did in the 70s. Traditional ads, if they are to survive -- and they will, of course, in some form or another (could you ever imaging the election season political ad disappearing altogether?) -- evolve, addressing the fact that they are now competing with 500 + other channels, as well as a myriad of other devices and gadgets for their viewers' attention.

With that in mind, it is not too surprising that aggressive start-ups like the Dachis Group are going after television ad dollars. Bluefin Labs, a startup led by MIT professor Deb Roy and his research partner Michael Fleischman, wants to match up the world's television channels and their programming with the social conversation taking place around them. Some of their findings, from AdAge:

After nearly a year of crunching the numbers at the rate of 2 million minutes of TV and 3 billion online comments a month, Mr. Roy has already drawn some pretty striking conclusions. It turns out there are about 20 million people in the U.S. -- identified by their public profile names -- who routinely communicate about TV in social media; 4.2 million did so in April. Some have outsize influence over the conversation -- and presumably the opinions of the millions upon millions more who are listening.

The media and marketing industry is just getting its head around how to use this information. Brands like Best Buy, Mars and Humana, as well as agencies like Wieden & Kennedy, Razorfish and Dentsu are using the data to understand which shows and timeslots, as well as which creative, generates the most response. TV networks like Fox Sports are using it to guide programming decisions.

What will this data have on the future of sponsored tweets? Or sponsored Facebook status updates? In the future will these influencers be able to cobble together deals with companies? Will these trusted voices -- TV critics, amateur avids, bloggers -- dilute their hard won reputations from taking too much corporate money? 

Should one's social media identity change once it accepts sponsorships? Has Perez Hilton's? Are celebrity bloggers -- in the gossip machine -- as "trusted sources" somehow immune to the charges of selling out? Are there different standards of behavior acceptable to advertisers vis-a-vis a sponsored Facebook status update, a Twitter tweet, celebrity blogging or political blogging?

These answers are forthcoming and will be interesting to interpret.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Ever since International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest last weekend, eye-popping developments have come fast and furious -- most memorably the 'perp walk' the Frenchman took to face prosecutors' accusations that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid. Now comes a spectacle that is appalling in a different way: a power grab by officials of the European Union who are insisting that they must retain their prerogative to name one of their own as Strauss-Kahn's successor at the IMF. The Europeans will probably get their way. If so, that will be a travesty. The chorus began to emanate from continental capitals even before the IMF chief had a chance to acquaint himself with the unpleasantries of Rikers Island. According to top policymakers in Brussels, Berlin, and elsewhere in Europe, it is necessary to continue -- at least for a while longer -- the 'understanding' about the management of the Fund that has existed ever since its creation in the 1940s, namely that its head will be a European. After all, they say, the eurozone is in turmoil, and the IMF is playing a central role in the rescue of several countries that belong to the currency bloc. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders, and many of their colleagues have made clear that this is no time to be handing over the Fund's reins to someone from another part of the world." (ForeignPolicy)

"In his office at Kissinger Associates in midtown Manhattan, he invites me to sit on his left, advising that one eye no longer works as well as it should. But there is precious little evidence of much other infirmity. The wavy hair is snowy, the broad face is more lined but the analytical mind is still razor-keen ... There are good and not so good aspects of this lofty perch from which he surveys the panorama of national foibles. On the one hand, the Olympian prospect enables Kissinger to see the bigger picture. On the other hand, a lifetime’s immersion in the studious formalities of official business, the diplomatic obligation of wariness, has planed his conversation smooth of the knots and scuffs of the human condition. In the China book, though, human reality is very much present in his warts-and-all portraits of Mao and Zhou, Deng and Ziang Zemin. Kissinger chuckles deeply, as if gargling with pebbles, when he remembers the aged Mao, not going gentle, declaring theatrically that 'God will not want me,' or insisting that he wanted to be 'cursed,' to prove that even at the end he was imperially potent enough to provoke fear and rage. On the fall-out from Afghanistan: ‘An India-Pakistan war becomes more probable. Eventually,’ he says, his voice a deep pond of calm I have tried my best not to like Henry Kissinger for the usual Nixon-Cambodia-Chile reasons ..." (Simon Schama/FT)

"'I’m not going away, I’m just changing,' she said. 'I’m just creating another platform for myself, which eventually will be wider and broader than what I have now.' Skeptics about the OWN venture abound, but Ms. Winfrey has proved skeptics wrong in the past, most notably in the mid-1990s when she turned away from tabloid fare about cheating spouses and scandalous paternity test results and talked, instead, about 'living your best life' spiritually and emotionally. Surprising the television business, she held onto her viewers, and she remains the country’s most popular talk show host by far. People around Ms. Winfrey say they sense that she is nervous about OWN. 'I wish more people were watching,' she said, when asked about OWN’s weekly show about the making of her talk show. But she seems at peace with her decision, made 18 months ago, to quit her syndicated program and the demanding schedule that goes with it ... Ms. Winfrey has economic motives for the pomp and circumstance, of course. Expecting a big audience for the finale, some advertisers have paid $1 million apiece for 30 seconds of commercial time. Ms. Winfrey is likely to use at least a bit of that finale to promote OWN, which is available in about 80 million homes. But no one disputes that she deserves something of a victory lap ... She is a billionaire, but she is also a 'woman of the people,' as The Detroit News said in a headline last week." (NYTimes)

"Running out of slots for comedy series and striking out with new dramas in the fall, NBC and ABC in midseason expanded their existing two-hour comedy blocks on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively, to 3 hours to largely uninspiring results. Going into next fall, the 10-11 PM comedy hours are being scrapped in favor of opening up more traditional 8-9 PM comedy blocks on other nights. In another sign of the resurgence of the comedy genre, for the first time in 6 years, each of the Big Four broadcast networks will have 2 comedy blocks on the fall schedule. Interestingly, both NBC and ABC opted to launch their new comedy blocks in the time periods where they most recently ran comedies. And just like the last time, both NBC and ABC populated the blocks with new comedies. In fall 2006, NBC launched 30 Rock and Twenty Good Years from 8-9 PM on Wednesday, the same time slot the network is using this year for new comedies Up All Night and Free Agents. ABC, which is going with the Tim Allen vehicle Last Man Standing and Chris Moynihan's Man Up Tuesdays 8-9 PM, last tried comedies on the night in the fall of 2007, then-newbies Cavemen and Carpoolers. Something else happened this season - the return of the 10 PM drama." (Deadline)

"I knew Mr. Minnelli very casually when I lived in Los Angeles, during the last years of his life, in the late 70s, early 80s. He married his fourth wife during that time, and they got out among the older Hollywood social scene. He was a small man, almost petite, with a modest bearing that conversely added to his stature. Although hardly recognized for it at that late date in his life, he was a great great talent who will be admired long into the future. When he and his wife Lee went out to more casual outings, like a private screening or a dinner party afterwards in a restaurant, he often wore a bright lightweight sunny yellow jacket, with white shirt and dark thin tie and dark pants. His presence conveyed a sophisticated, yet Technicolor elegance, in that costume – just like his films. He moved slowly, as if tentatively, when he walked, and he had a very kindly, shy manner, almost an innocence – which is not probable considering the world he lived his entire adult life in. But possible nevertheless, for he was foremost an artist. He had a bit of a quiet stutter when he was excited about something, and there is a story that was told about him during those years which provides a key to his endearing character." (NYSocialDiary)

"Patrick McMullan pointed out an old Andy Warhol trick Thursday night at the Waverly Inn. If you're at a party with someone you don't want to be photographed with, just close your eyes when your picture's snapped and the lensman can't use it. It was an appropriate anecdote, since we were at a dinner for Warhol Factory-era acolyte Glenn O'Brien, who was celebrating his tome 'How To Be a Man.' The party, thrown by Gilt Man, was testosterone laden with such guests as John Auerbach, Aziz Ansari, Jim Moore, David Chang, Thom Browne, Simon Spurr, Andy Spade, Serge Becker and Eric Goode." (PageSix)

"In Caviar Kaspia, beyond the deli on the ground floor, past the giant stuffed sturgeon suspended over the bar and the oil paintings depicting traditional Russian scenes, Carine Roitfeld is waiting. Sitting at her favourite table by the window, which overlooks the Place de la Madeleine in central Paris, the former editor-in-chief of French Vogue looks exactly as she does in the fashion blogs that hungrily record her every outfit. Her hair is the colour of burnt sugar on a crème brûlée and falls over heavy-lidded, kohl-rimmed eyes; her figure is lean and petite and she’s wearing a black silk Balenciaga blouse unbuttoned perilously low, black Céline pencil skirt and fetishistic Miu Miu stilettos with laced ankle cuffs ... Roitfeld comes here frequently and likes the flattering lighting – 'very important when you look tired' – and the Russian art, but she avoids it when the rest of the beau monde descends. 'If you want to be cool, don’t come here during fashion week,' she advises. Roitfeld, 55, has built a career on being cool. She made her mark as a stylist in the 1990s, when she and the photographer Mario Testino created risqué campaigns for Gucci, then designed by Tom Ford. As the editor of French Vogue, from which she resigned last December after a decade, she became one of the most powerful women in the fashion industry, famous for edgy, sometimes controversial and frequently erotic photo shoots. Then, with the explosion of street-style blogs a few years ago, she took on a cult status as the queen of the 'French Vogue look' with its lingering air of le rock n’ roll. With this in mind I am a little surprised when Roitfeld picks up her menu and says, in her heavy Parisian accent, 'Me, I love the herrings.' Herrings just don’t seem all that chic." (FT)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"This week at the White House, President 'Yes, I can' will sit down with Prime Minister 'No, you won't.' The main agenda item will be the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, an enterprise that might be best described -- at least for now -- as the walking dead. But no matter. When you're the change president, you must believe even when reality tells another tale. Energized by transformative changes in the Arab world and genuinely worried that no negotiations spells trouble for America, President Barack Obama wants to push for big things on the peace process. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is equally determined to push back against big ideas that cross his own ideology, gut instincts, and coalition constraints. The recent Palestinian unity accord and the Syrian-orchestrated Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Syria border will only help him parry any American pressure. It would be nice to imagine that out of this American-Israeli yin and yang might come a common way forward. And if this were some more enlightened parallel universe, Bibi and Obama just might find it." (ForeignPolicy)

"When George W. Bush declined President Barack Obama's invitation to a ceremony at New York City's Ground Zero after Osama bin Laden was killed, the former president cited his desire to keep a low public profile. But Bush has been high profile on the private, paid speaking circuit: he has raked in millions of dollars since he left office by making scores of speeches that typically earn him six figures a pop. In the week after Obama's Ground Zero event, the nation's 43rd president made time for three separate speeches to hedge fund executives, a Swiss bank sanctioned for keeping secret bank accounts,and a pro golf event underwritten by the accounting firm involved in the Tyco International financial scandal. Bush's standard speaking fee is reportedly between $100,000 and $150,000. David Sherzer, a spokesman for the former president, told iWatch News that since Bush left office he has delivered almost 140 paid talks, at home and abroad. Those speeches have earned Bush about $15 million, a conservative estimate, following in the golden path blazed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Almost all of Bush's speeches are closed to the press." (iWatch)

"One of the most high-profile media courtships may soon be consummated: Katie Couric is closing in on a deal with Walt Disney Co.'s ABC to host an afternoon talk show. Couric, who anchored the CBS Evening News for the last time Thursday night, would begin her new syndicated show in the fall of 2012, according to people familiar with the negotiations who were not authorized to speak publicly about them. Some of the major deal points have been hammered out, although there are still outstanding issues surrounding compensation. The agreement is not expected to be finalized for at least a week. Couric's contract with CBS ends June 6. CBS, which until a few weeks ago had also been vying to distribute Couric's proposed syndicated show, has the right to match any offer to Couric before her contract ends. The network has not yet waived that right, nor is it expected to make a counteroffer, said these people with knowledge of the situation. Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger has been 'very involved' in the deal, the people said. He has been particularly interested in bringing Couric to ABC, in part, to fill the programming void that will be created by the departure of the queen of daytime TV, Oprah Winfrey." (LATimes)

"Recently, I made a split second decision to take a hedonistic trip to Paris for 5 days in pursuit of simple pleasures. Meaning: spending time with a close girl friend, walking around the city streets, and being completely sans reason d'etre. No business meetings, no social schedule, just a driving desire to be in Paris fancy free, so to speak ... So I booked a flight (using miles) and set off for this beautiful city without a dash of guilt. As a young girl, I attended school in Switzerland, and came to Paris on a regular basis. When my stepfather, Felix Rohatyn, was the U.S. Ambassador to France under President Clinton, I visited my mother and Felix at the U.S. Residence countless times, with my young daughter, Lily. I speak what passes for fluent French, albeit of a conversational manner, best left in secular realms rather than in discussions of politics! In other words I feel totally at home in this wonderful city ... By now it was 3:30 pm and I was feeling the effects of jet lag, so after 2 hours of ambling along, I returned home to finish unpacking and get ready for dinner. This evening we had a plan to have dinner with Carolyne Roehm, who had rented an atelier in the Marais for the month of April. I had asked Joy to book a table at La Voltaire (27, Quai Voltaire) as it is one of my favorite places to dine. Thursday night outside of La Voltaire. Carolyne Roehm and Joy Hendricks. Still looking well after a major feast. It is not an accident that I am absent from this image!! I have frequented La Voltaire for several decades, and the head waiter Thierry is the glue! He is the repository of all gossip in Paris and never forgets a face (unless he elects to)." (NYSocialDiary)

"When Sienna Miller settled with News Corp. for the modest sum of about $160,000, News Corp. executives privately crowed that they were shutting down the growing list of more than two dozen phone-hacking lawsuits. After all, Miller's lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's News of the World had been a devastatingly effective tool in unraveling the phone hacking cover-up at the London tabloid. Material unearthed in Miller's lawsuit spurred Scotland Yard to launch its latest investigation into phone hacking. Not so fast. This is a tag-team effort. They may be former lovers, but Sienna Miller and Jude Law are partners in the courts. Law is gallantly picking up right where his ex left off. While Law was busy judging films in Cannes, his lawyers (the same team that represented Miller) were working on Law's own suit against News of the World. Law and Miller were likely targeted in the same way and for many of the same stories. Law's case was added Friday morning, along with Labour MP Chris Bryant, to the initial group of 'test cases' given priority to go forward. The judge also identified a secondary list of five claimants to replace anyone else who may settle with the newspaper. They are: comedian Steve Coogan, former soccer star Paul Gascoigne, publicist Nicola Phillips, former MP George Galloway, and Mary-Ellen Field, a former advisor to model Elle Macpherson. And then there's Miller's stepmother, Kelly Hoppen, another 'test case. Hoppen's case could be particularly damaging for News Corp." (VanityFair)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"White House aides who previewed the speech for reporters Wednesday said that the president would use the opportunity to speak about the Middle East and North Africa region as a whole and how its challenges relate to the United States. 'Now, having wound down the Iraq war and continuing to do so, and having taken out Osama bin Laden, we are beginning to turn the page to a more positive and hopeful future for U.S. policy in the region,' a senior administration official said. 'The president will have the opportunity to speak broadly about the change in the Middle East and North Africa, the implications for U.S. policy, and some concrete proposals for American policy going forward.' Whom will he be speaking to? Leaders and citizens in the Middle East, of course. But several different American audiences will also be listening carefully to what he says. Here are some of them ..." (The Caucus Blog)

"Like any woman in transition, Maria Shriver is bound to hear plenty of advice in the days ahead, solicited and otherwise. As she said on YouTube recently, 'It’s so stressful to not know what you’re doing next.' The events of her life have thrown everything into question, making each next step feel like a possible pitfall. Here are seven dos and don’ts for Maria to follow as she navigates away from Arnold and into the future. 1. You’ve done Oprah, now stay away from talk shows. We know Oprah’s your best friend, your sister, your soul mate. You helped her celebrate her last show and she helped you stand tall. That’s fine. But you want to come across as Jackie Kennedy, not Elizabeth Edwards, so no sitting down with Barbara, Katie, or Diane. 2. Move from the hotel into a pretty house. People have seen you looking for a place for the past couple of months and yet you’re still ordering room service. So have you been looking for the right place? You need something Nancy Meyers-ish. Think Meryl Streep after the break up with Alec Baldwin. You don’t want to stay in Brentwood, and we agree that an ocean view in Pacific Palisades or Santa Monica would be more soothing than Hollywood or Beverly Hills. This Pacific Palisades house (No. 10 on the list), for example, has room for the kids with six bedrooms. And if you make Arnold pay the $14 million asking price, the world will cheer.  3. Go back to work. You need a confidence-building, high-profile project. Think about going back to NBC, perhaps to The Today Show on a manageable contract ...'" (Vanity Fair)

"Michael’s was its Wednesday self; big time clattering chattering and everything else in between. The likely suspects among the fresh new and occasionally visiting dignitaries. Bill Rondina of Carlisle-Per Se lunching with Thierry Millerand; Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media with Pam Friedman; Patrick Murphy with Joan Jakobson; Katherine Bryan with Barbara de Kwiatkowski, Steve Mosko of Sony TV with Jerry Stiller; celebrating a birthday Jon Meacham of Random House -- Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, Richard Cohen and Tom Brokaw; Evelyn Lauder with Christy Ferer; City Councilwoman Christine Quinn with Jamie McShane (her spokesperson) and Jared Kushner ... I was lunching with Wendy Burden, author of a memoir Dead End Gene Pool, who is in for a few days from Portland, Oregon – which is her home now – where she is working on a sequel to her memoir with the working title Machinery of Love and Death. Wendy’s heritage is the Vanderbilt and (obviously) the Burden dynasties. A great granddaughter (by a factor of five) of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Her families’ great fortunes of the hundred years of New York between 1850 and 1950 carried mighty influence -- both financial and political -- in the nation, even the world." (NYSocialDiary)

"If you were wondering why the streets of midtown seemed a bit quiet today it was because everyone — well, almost everyone — was at Michael’s today. I could barely keep up as the A-listers filed in one after another (Tom Brokaw! Jon Meacham!) and random celebs (Trudie Styler, Joan Rivers) drifted by ... (Table 1) Joan Rivers, presiding over a table full of folks including John Miller and some execs from WEtv. We’re guessing the group was feting Joan over the ratings success of the first season of her reality show, Mother Knows Best. (Glasses of white wine were being raised.) ... 8. New York Social Diary‘s David Patrick Columbia and author Wendy Burden. I had a chance to chat with David (quite the early bird today) ... David introduced me to Wendy when she arrived, and the conversation turned to books. David says Wendy’s latest, Dead End Gene Pool (Gotham), is a searingly candid and witty look at her fascinating family life. 'She writes about it all!' he told me. 'Not many people do that and do it well.' God knows Wendy has plenty of material. She is a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt whose family’s eccentricities would make a great Wes Anderson film. 'It’s about the end of my family,' deadpanned Wendy during her tale of the decline of the blue bloods. Not entirely. 'You’re still here!' chirped David." (FishbowlNY)

"Fifteen years ago my daughter brought home a tiny beagle with ears that were much too long and the kind of mournful gaze that brought tears to the eye. We named her Gypsy and she became the bane of our life. Gypsy was so greedy, she made Bernard Madoff look like Mother Teresa. In no time she grew a big stomach, although she remained lightning-fast when in the vicinity of anything edible. She would play possum, then strike like a cobra and grab steaks, sweets—she once even ate a box of paper hankies. She snored and made terrible smells. She bit and growled at everyone, but we loved her more than any other dog we’ve ever had. Last week, two years after her stroke, she had to be put to sleep, because she was suffering. Her last act before a nice vet injected her was to grab a lamb chop and devour it, bone and all. There will never be another like her. RIP, Gypsy." (Taki Theodoracopulos)

" ...It's almost universally agreed that each Pirates movie is instantly forgettable on its own terms, and for all their expensive, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced bombast, Olde World-y set decoration, and exotic locales, the films don't make a lick of sense. 'They all run together, they all merge, and they're not significant in cinema history,' says David Thomson, author of The New Autobiographical Dictionary of Film. 'They throw a lot of money at them, add special effects for horror characters, pretty women—and you still can't remember a thing.' How else but for a kind of willful amnesia and collective embrace of cinematic dreck do you explain the popularity of the third chapter, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, a blunderbuss of untied plot threads in nearly three hours of critically drubbed suckitude that still clocked $963 million in global ticket receipts? Not even the parties responsible for making the films—which have combined to gross a staggering $2.7 billion worldwide—fully grasp what's going on. In a recent interview, Depp related on-set conversations he'd had with Gore Verbinski, director of the first three films. 'I remember talking to him at certain points during production of 2 or 3, and saying: I don't really know what this means.' Depp said. '[Verbinski] said, 'Neither do I, but let's just shoot it.' This guy is this guy's dad, and this guy was in love with this broad. It was like, What?' Hammerhead shark-men dripping with seaweed. A voracious giant squid sucking a pirate ship down to Davy Jones' locker. Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom sucking face in front of a Windex-blue ocean. An armada of sand crabs hefting a landlocked ship on their backs. The non-sequitur sum of the movies' parts can be overwhelming." (TheDailyBeast)

4 Possible Trends for A Post-Commercial TV Advertising Age

In a digital cosmos of 500 + channels and distractions like the web, iPads, Wii, social media, etc, traditional television commercials have no choice but to change their boring ways. Granted, Upfront 2011 broadcast ad volume is upwards of $10 billion, but for some time now marketers, media companies and agencies have been trying to figure out how digital technology fits into their strategies on various digital platforms. Television ownership is slightly but significantly down. This Upfront Week comes as the mini-trend of "cord-cutting" -- people who get their video from the web instead of pay TV -- is being hotly debated.

While consumers have problems with traditional broadcast companies, there will probably always be commercials of some sort (political ads at election time come to mind). From mediabizbloggers:

Digital ad revenues are forecast by Myers to grow from a 3.3% share of total cable network TV advertising revenues in 2010 to 18.5% in 2020. For both broadcast and cable TV, while digital is a fast growing segment of their revenues, the engine that drives their business forward will continue to be traditional 30-second commercials. Yes, advertisers are shifting budgets to online, mobile and social marketing. But advertisers continue to rely on network and syndicated television to provide high quality series programming and reliably large audiences for their brand messages. The networks' future digital ad revenue growth depends on a solid foundation of successful quality programming.

That having been said, the nature of traditional televisions ads is going to have to change. With this year's Upfronts we are seeing how broadcast and cable networks and most importantly their ad units are dealing with this increasingly digital landscape. Take ESPN. "And new ad formats are coming to the network's coverage of Nascar's Sprint Cup. Starting Sept. 18, the network will debut a Nascar Nonstop commercial format, which will feature split-screen coverage of major races, with half advertising and half live coverage to avoid interruption during the second round of major races," says the Wall Street Journal's Andrew Hampp yesterday.

Therein lies the rub. The interruption factor. Commercials are interruptions in a digital universe where holding the viewers attention is of the utmost importance. Interruptions causes eyeballs to go elsewhere. I tend to check my email, my Twitter feed, facebook when commercials come on if I'm watching a television show on its scheduled night (which, with DVR, is an increasingly rare occurrence). Media organizations failing to minimize the interruption factor of traditional commercials will find it almost impossible to deliver an effective commercial reaching the desired eyeballs.

Here are 4 Possible Trends for A Post-Commercial TV Advertising Age:

Branded Content

Could branded content make it beyond the web on television?

Jason Bateman and Will Arnett's DumbDumb, an advertising and production company, is an interesting experiment in "branded content." It makes commercials fun; it makes commercials into actual, watchable content -- something somewhat vital. Their debut video -- for Orbit gum -- made its debut on YouTube. It is not inconceivable that in the future, branded content starts on television, then spreads virally from there.

There are, of course, obstacles. Right now only "edgy" companies will participate in this. Jason Bateman and Will Arnett can deliver edgy, funny content -- great for new companies looking for buzz -- but older, larger, publicly traded corporate entities probably won't want to give up control to largely untested comedy writers.

But I believe that the idea of branded content could be incredibly attractive to the younger demographic.

Product Placement

Let's hope Morgan Spurlock's product placement film is not something of a barometer as to how much PP a viewer can take.

Product placement is tricky and is best executed when least intrusive. This rule holds true for anyone but Steven Colbert, who, insofar as his show is entirely built around irony, it is the perfect medium for -- wink, wink -- product placement. Colbert is so brilliant that he can place a product and smile at the audience about the fact that he is doing so, never undermining himself in the embarrassing, mercenary process.
Irony is not just a generational maneuver in which to view the world, it also happens to be a marketer's dream. Think of it as honey to go along with the medicine. Steven Colbert's Colbert Report also does a great job at product placement (Doritos, Mountain Dew).

Bravo does a fantastic job at product placement, particularly in Top Chef (unironic), the rare reality TV show brimming with prestige. Bravo has always been something of a pioneer in product placement -- at least reality show product placement -- tastefully pairing premium food and media brands with their competition.

Product placement is an idea that will not go away. It is most effectively done when acknowledged either through irony or when organically integrated into a program of above-average quality. Regarding product placement on HBO's The Sopranos; back in 2002, Michael McCarthy wrote in USA Today:

For marketers, it's an offer they can't refuse. Getting a poster for fitness chain Crunch on the wall of Meadow Soprano's dorm room was a high point for Mark DiMassimo of DiMassimo Brand Advertising. Product placement on The Sopranos is "the best of all worlds," he says. "You have no commercial messages to compete with. People watch the episodes over and over again. Then they buy them on videotape and DVD — and watch them again.

Premium content on places like Bravo have significant product placement advantages. And HBO, which is elegantly migrating onto other digital platforms, looks to be a marketers dream.

Game Mechanics

Promotional sweepstakes are so yesterday. Game based marketing, however, are on the rise.

Top Chef is sort of a nice segway into the idea of gaming mechanics to move beyond traditional television commercials. Top Chef incorporates brands into their competitions ("use Quaker Oats to make a dish!").

Why don't television show use game mechanics in their campaigns? It has always irked me that game shows -- Who Wants To be A Millionaire? -- use gaming mechanics in their digital incarnations. What could be more attractive than playing, say, Jeopardy on the mobile competing against the players on television as well as players online on a sponsored leaderboard? And have prizes and promotions from those sponsors for the high scorers?

Publishers, in a tight competition with digital brands, are looking at social gaming experiments -- so why not television shows, particularly declining shows with nothing left to lose. Instead of -- or in concert with -- developing sweepstakes particular to social media platforms like Twitter, companies should move their campaign's center of gravity from web sites onto television programs using gaming mechanics.

For emediavitals, which focuses on the publishing industry, I have written: "Small publishers should experiment with aspects of social gaming in their overall strategy, encouraging the reader's natural urge to compete, thereby increasing engagement and loyalty. Virtual social goods are a rapidly growing industry, yes, but the key components to social gaming ultimately are competition, engagement, and loyalty."


Live Sponsor Ads

Internet TV hosts do livereads. TJ Walker, reviewing Jason Calacanis' buzzy This Week in startups wrote:

He Reads His Ads. Why is this a plus? Isn’t this what old time journalists consider un-dignified and unethical? With Calacanis, he claims to only promote advertisers he personally uses and that he thinks would be helpful to his clients. His not afraid to personalize the ads by even doing chimp noises to promote his advertiser Mail Chimp. Furthermore, his ads aren’t disrupting the viewer or the show because they are relevant to the show and his viewers. I would argue that Calacanis is MORE ethical than a CNBC host who is content to take a pay check while cutting to a commercial from BP or the Doritos Company, ostensibly with his hands clean.

Walker's conclusion? He predicts: "Shows won’t be able to sell interruption based TV ads; shows will need hosts who have an intimate relationship with the advertisers and the audience/community."

Live reads are more a staple of radio than of television but --as I've argued -- radio is television without the video. And all talk shows are more or less similar. Live reads could work on television talk shows, particularly if the brand being advertised allows for some improvisation. Back when Howard Stern was on terrestrial radio and they has 20 minute commercial blocks for every hour of content most listeners tuned out. But when he did live reads -- incorporating the shows narrative with the commercial -- we stayed and listened to it because it was content. A little improv in a live read goes a long way if allowed.

And that, to paraphrase Martha Stewart, is a good thing.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"(Niall) Ferguson's most recent strategic expository centered on the geopolitical implications of China possibly eclipsing American and Western power, reflections he recently shared at Chatham House in London [published as, 'The West and the Rest: the Changing Global Balance of Power in Historic Perspective,' May 9, 2011]  His compelling if provocative analysis built not only on his latest tome, Civilization: the West and the Rest, but also the much-anticipated sweeping history, On China, written by the Henry Kissinger, and published today. Kissinger's narrative sees Confucian roots in contemporary Chinese decision-making and upheavals. This is a consequential conclusion, because for Kissinger it means that as China's power ascends the temptation to wield power the way Europe or even America has done so will be tempered by tradition. Rather than seeking imperial rule, for instance, China will be content with finding its place under heaven, essentially as the regional Middle Kingdom. It is also likely to employ a classical Chinese strategy of playing external barbarians off one another, only occasionally clinching a few of the barbarians into its ambit. Thus, Kissinger emphasizes civilizational and cultural continuity as the common thread throughout Chinese history. In contrast, Ferguson emphasizes the simple but dominant theme of power, in a sense that Hans Morgenthau and John Mearsheimer would readily recognize (and indeed which Kissinger would have felt more comfortable with during his more youthful days as a statesman). At the heart of Ferguson's analytical question is this: what if China has not only figured out how to catch up with the West, but has also adopted an imperial Western conception of power? " (ForeignPolicy)

"HBO's 'Too Big to Fail' film premiere was not big enough to keep Warren Buffett and George Soros in the same room. Sources who attended the cable network's bash at the Four Seasons say the Wall Street rock stars, whose investment strategies couldn't be more different, stayed well apart during the evening. A source tells us Soros held court at a table in the center of the Four Seasons' Grill Room, where titans of finance lunch on weekdays. Buffett, however, presided over a table of female financial journalists in the Pool Room, which is at the other end of a long passageway. With the two titans of finance in opposite strongholds, one reveler says, 'It was like having a scale of wealth' teetering back and forth. The soiree feted HBO's adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin's book about the 2008 Wall Street crash and subsequent bailout ... Neither investor seemed interested in upsetting the balance by mingling. In fact, another party guest says that when Buffett arrived at the party via the Grill Room, with financial writer Devon Spurgeon, a photographer approached to suggest the Berkshire Hathaway billionaire take a shot with Soros, who was also with "a much younger blond' ... Safely ensconced in the Pool Room, the elegantly dressed Buffett ensured privacy by taking a table on the raised terrace, which is protected by a brass railing. A source says he was further buffered by an all-female table of guests ... 'No one could get to him,' says one source, who said that despite Buffett's sequestered state, he was able to enjoy the lavish Four Seasons spread, thanks to one woman at his table who ministered to his culinary needs. 'He was sitting right by the dessert buffet. And he enjoyed that dessert buffet a lot,' says the source." (NYDailyNews)

"The current saga between Zsa Zsa Gabor’s ninth husband, Frederic von Anhalt, and her only daughter, Constance Francesca Hilton, is as remarkable as it is mundane. It is the stuff of everyday life in courthouses all over the country when a loved one is incapacitated and family dramas break out into public viewing. On the surface, it is the stuff of tabloids: formerly glamorous actress succumbs to old age as her latest husband battles for control of the assets with her only next of kin. But, as Gabor comes closer to death, the sad story carries with it the strains of a Greek tragedy. Hilton, the only child of Gabor and her second husband, the hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, says von Anhalt has banned her from seeing her mother—a charge that von Anhalt denies. 'She can go on Sundays when the doctor is there so there is no funny business,' said John Blanchette, a spokesman for Gabor and von Anhalt. Gabor, 94, has suffered a slow and horrible march toward death that she surely never would have imagined. Always ultra-careful with her image, the world has seen garish pictures of Gabor in a hospice bed, her leg amputated after a gangrenous infection. Her slow demise has been covered in agonizing detail and has included such bizarre and sordid stories as von Anhalt wanting Gabor’s body to be preserved and displayed upon her death and Gabor wanting a surrogate to carry von Anhalt’s child. Hilton maintains that von Anhalt, a self-described German prince—despite being the son of a policeman—nearly three decades Gabor’s junior, is behind the leaks and the reason for her mother’s undignified end." (TheDailyBeast)

"What's the worst thing that could happen at an upfront presentation? It may be what's taking place at the TNT-TBS gathering right now: The network can't show clips of its shows to the audience. The session is on hold while technicians try to solve the problem, but it already screwed up one of Conan O'Brien's comedy routines ... Video came back about 15 minutes ago and appears to be OK. Whatever happens, the technical woes gave Conan O'Brien more ammo for a routine that took several jabs at Turner Entertainment. When the breakdown ruined one of his gags, he said, 'You know I love working at TBS -- the commitment to detail.' After a stagehand told him to skip the routine with the clip, he added: 'Alright, I guess I’ll do what I'm told. Beggers can’t be choosers.' Earlier he said, 'I did this upfront last year. Frankly, I don’t know why TBS doesn’t do what it does best and run it again -– four freaking times.' Also: 'We’re already No. 1 in TBS’ key demographic: People who can’t afford HBO.'" (Deadline)

"This year, Mark Pincus, the founder and C.E.O. of Zynga—the company that created the silly Facebook games FarmVille, CityVille, and Zynga Poker, the most popular online poker game in the world—had plans to spend the whole month of March at his ranch outside of Aspen. Pincus, who is himself, along with his company, devoted to the concept of 'play' in theory, practice, and also as an extraordinarily lucrative business model, was determined to have fun. 'Aspen is just dialed in as a sports town,' he says. 'You have skiing, hiking, road-biking, mountain-biking, golf, tennis … ' A slight five feet six, with large liquid brown eyes, Pincus looks down for a moment and purses his lips. 'I have to say, though, I hate tennis here. The ball goes faster because of the altitude. It’s harder to win points' ... So, on this Wednesday in the middle of his Aspen week, Pincus has been having fun all morning, slicing down Aspen Mountain before barreling down his driveway for a late lunch. Plus, the most fun thing ever happened today: he became a billionaire, at least on paper. It’s an amazing feat for a guy whom, a close associate says, 'no one in Silicon Valley wanted to touch in 2007,' and whose ideas a big game manufacturer turned down early on, 'essentially throwing up all over them.' In the Valley, Pincus has been famous for 15 years, but he’s always been plotting his big score. 'There’s an A-list [in Silicon Valley], and then there’s everyone else—and I’m not on the A-list,' he lamented to The New York Times six years ago, even after his first company, a wonky tech outfit, was sold for $38 million. Anyway, the Forbes list came out this morning, and there it was, finally, for everyone to see—Pincus, worth a billion dollars and counting. He’s one of the seven new 'Facebook billionaires,' a group which includes all those guys from the Social Network movie—Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker, libertarian investor Peter Thiel—plus Russian tech investor Yuri Milner. Pincus’s BlackBerry has been pinging on and off throughout the day, with messages from friends and colleagues offering congratulations. “You know, I was hoping not to be on the list,' he says later, shaking his head a little. 'I’m not looking to be famous for the amount of money I have, and it’s kind of socially awkward.' But from the glint in his eye, it’s clear that he isn’t exactly disappointed." (Vanity Fair)

"And what I know even more is that the Strauss-Kahn I know, who has been my friend for 20 years and who will remain my friend, bears no resemblance to this monster, this caveman, this insatiable and malevolent beast now being described nearly everywhere. Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally, but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate, obviously no, it’s absurd. This morning, I hold it against the American judge who, by delivering him to the crowd of photo hounds, pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other. I am troubled by a system of justice modestly termed “accusatory,” meaning that anyone can come along and accuse another fellow of any crime—and it will be up to the accused to prove that the accusation is false and without basis in fact. I resent the New York tabloid press, a disgrace to the profession, that, without the least precaution and before having effected the least verification, has depicted Dominique Strauss-Kahn as a sicko, a pervert, borderlining on serial killer, a psychiatrist’s dream." (Henry Bernard Levy)

"Lunch at Michael’s with Philip Kingsley, the world renowned Trichologist who is a new friend. Although Philip is one of those people who comes naturally to the gift of friendship. We met only a little more than a couple years ago through his wife Joan with whom I was in summer stock in the summer of 1967. Joan and I never saw each other again after that summer, except once in 1979 when I was first living in Los Angeles and she – newly married to Philip – was in town with her husband. We renewed our friendship only a couple years ago when I discovered that she and I had a mutual friend here in town. Since then we see each other almost monthly when they are in from London, and I have got to know her husband ... My objective with yesterday’s lunch was to interview him about his business, which is not unusual but a somewhat sparsely populated profession in a market that is vast and global. Definition: Trichology n. The branch of medicine, cosmetic study and practice concerned with the hair and scalp .. Susan Gutfreund stopped by the table and when I introduced them asking if they’d met (they hadn’t), she said: 'he’s famous.' Indeed he is. Later Gerry Byrne the media and entertainment consultant -- another Michael’s regular -- stopped by our table because he and Philip are old friends. So it turned out was Michael McCarty himself. In asking him about his life, I wondered what caused his break-out where so many famous people became clients. The first big break came in the early 1960s when Harry Andrews, the actor – then with the National Theatre – came to see him. Andrews was mainly bald. Philip told him in his straight forward but easy to take way, that he couldn’t re-grow what had been lost but he could help him take are of what he had left. Andrews became a client.  One day he said to his fellow company member, Laurence Olivier, 'Larry, you worry so much about your hair, you should go and see this Kingsley fellow because he’s so honest.' Olivier went to Philip and went back and again. 'And you know, actors talk,' Philip added, 'and soon the whole National Theatre company were coming to see me.' He was launched." (NYSocialDiary)
 

"Howard (Stern) brought up Arnold (Scwarzenegger) and how unbelievable he is. He said that he was living in a house with his wife who is a Kennedy. He said she gave up her career to have kids with the guy and she has 4 kids. He said he was so hell bent on meeting the Kennedy's that he did whatever he could to do it. He was obsessed with Jacqueline Kennedy. He said he met her at a celebrity event and worked his way into her life. He said just like the Kennedy's he married someone for political position and he cheated on the side just like the Kennedy's. He said it's like the grand tradition ... JD came in and said that he heard Arnold's kids changed their last names to Shriver on their Facebook accounts. Howard said he's going to get a lot of shit for this. He said he wants to know where he's going to show up first to talk about this. He said he should just move to Austria to get away from everything. Howard said that's what he'd do. He said he'd get the fuck out of Dodge. " (Marksfriggin)

"'I see myself as sort of an emotional consigliere,' Mr. (Jerry) Colonna told Betabeat recently, sitting in his office on Broadway. 'I like to have the deep conversations with people that really dig into their problems.' He was dressed a bit like Steve Jobs: blue jeans, white Nikes, a blue turtleneck and wire-frame glasses. He spoke with a soothing, monklike calm—a style that has proved surprisingly popular among high-strung local techies. Mr. Colonna’s touchy-feely ethos makes him something of an outlier in the city’s competitive, high-stress tech scene. Under the “recommended reading” section of his website, Mr. Colonna touts such titles as Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living and When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Uncertain Times. A post about a recent trip to Tibet includes a lyric from the Tracy Chapman song, 'Changes': If you knew that you would die today / Saw the face of God and love / Would you change? / Would you change? That sentiment stands in sharp contrast to the city’s predominant start-up culture, which romanticizes sleepless work weeks, solitary struggle and scrappy resolve in the face of failure.'You’ve either started a company or you haven’t,' Chris Dixon, founder of local start-up Hunch and a well respected angel investor, wrote on his blog recently, in what might stand as a stirring manifesto of the Founderist ethos ... During the first dot-com boom, Mr. Colonna was a founder himself. His venture capital firm, Flatiron Partners, which he stared with Fred Wilson, was the first in town to specifically fund early-stage internet companies, including Geocities, which sold to Yahoo for $3.7 billion in 1999 at the height of the Web 1.0 bubble." (BetaBeat)