Say what you want about New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, who announced yesterday (left) the newspaper would be cutting 100 newsroom positions this year. But the guy gives a damn good bad-news speech. "We-all of us-have taken a badly wounded, publicly humiliated newsroom and restored it, largely by dint of…
According to a New York Times staffer who spoke to Gawker, the first major newsroom layoffs at the Times didn't surprise the 200 employees who got the news this morning from executive editor Bill Keller at his annual "Throw Stuff At Bill" meeting. "In some ways it was anticlimactic," the staffer said, noting that…
By year's end, the New York Times will cut 100 newsroom positions, executive editor Bill Keller announced this morning at his regular "Throw Stuff At Bill" meeting. "At the end of the year, the newsroom will be smaller than it is now," Keller told the group, warning that staffers should prepare for layoffs. "The…
The Daily News was very busy this afternoon telling everyone and their mom that the city tabloid will go all color by the end of 2009, making it the "first major market daily newspaper in the United States" to do so, according to a release. (Never mind that Europe's been doing this for years, along with plenty of far…
Doldrums? Blues? Forget the Zoloft. Seriously, just put it down. Instead, douse yourselves with these old-timey news station sign-offs, from the days when the networks took pity on their viewers and ceased to hurtle information at them around the midnight hour. The swelling arias! The purple mountain montages! The…
And so it begins. Tribune CEO Sam Zell announced in an email today to employees that he'll be cutting 400-500 positions across the company's various newspaper divisions. "Unfortunately, I can't turn this ship from its course of the past 10 years within just a few months," Zell wrote. "Further, while I will do…
Maybe Julia Allison should just stick to communicating via smoke signals, since everything the woman writes on anything more permanent is made immediately public. Of course, that might interfere with the dating columnist's constant Tumblr updates. Former New York Press sex columnist Kelly Kreth (the one who was fired…
Forty people (twice as many as
originally thought)
An iVillage spokesperson "can confirm for you that 13 employees were affected today" by layoffs at the NBC subsidiary, not the larger number we reported earlier based on employee accounts. "Nobody saw it coming," an insider told us. Editor-in-chief Jennie Baird, who…
There's always a chuckle to be had when one attention-whore snipes at another attention-whore for stealing her attention-whorey idea, however lame. Today we got an email from a very annoyed Kelly Kreth, the former New York Press sex columnist, who says that Julia Allison pinched something for her blog from one of her…
We hear axes are falling at iVillage, the women's-oriented media company bought by NBC Universal two years ago for $600 million. According to a source, the company "just cut about 20 positions, some of them occupied. Maybe a dozen people got the axe." Adding insult to injury, the poor employees left standing are…
Divulging your corporation's proprietary information on your blog is generally a no-no, and now the bastards say you can't even hold a good virtual wet t-shirt contest starring your fellow employees. Prominent law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (phew) has heartily chastised two employees for an…
Mind thievery at Brown University! A couple of rascally student reporters at the college's daily paper stand accused of lifting material from the Yale Daily News and Harvard's Crimson. (We're assuming there's no point in cribbing from the Cornell paper.) New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen dispensed a little sage…
Oh my God, guess what? An Ivy League education may not be the key to success, riches and true happiness after all! Recent Dartmouth grad Jennifer Krimm's Sunday piece in the Washington Post has earned her IvyGate's totally righteous ire. Kentucky public school kid Krimm is an Arabic-speaking Fulbright scholar and…
Will the kvetching never end? The photog recipient of that famous "fuck you" from Tribune CEO Sam Zell has finally come out of witness protection to speak about her harrowing experience. "It was not my intention to offend him," Sara Fajardo told the Orlando Sentinel's ombudsman, who also spoke to the paper's…
The press has been barred from covering Karl Rove's speech today at Choate, the chichi Connecticut prep school. Sort of like Rove was barred a few weeks ago from delivering the school's spring graduation address. "This is a special program, a school event, and we typically don't invite the media to a school event," a…
Take a listen to this original clip of former CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer crooning Honky Tonk Confidential's "How I Became An Anchorman," a version of which he sang for Viacom boss Sumner Redstone last week. This recording has Schieffer's original line.Rebuffing the advances of a gas-station customer, Schieffer…
Is Deborah Solomon going soft? The Times Q&A queen's weekly interviews usually involve verbal water-boarding and creatively bitchy editing, but in her column today, she practically asks ex-Daily Show producer Ben Karlin if she can give him a big fat fucking hug. "Do you have any dating advice for your children?"…
Are you so super-excited for The 50th Annual Grammy Awards tonight? Yeah, us neither really. But we're going to watch anyhow because, like the rest of the world, we are sick sick people. It's important we be able to tell our children we caught every minute of cracky Amy Winehouse's live satellite performance as it…
