Media People

Let it be known that Sam Sifton, the New York Times’ National Editor, is a Big Pun fan. Today marks the 12th anniversary of the rapper’s death, and so Sifton tweeted “A dozen years years! RIP Big Pun. “I ain’t a player I just crush a lot,” along with a link to the video.

We’re happy that Sifton has an appreciation for the hip-hop legend, but he didn’t do his research. The song he linked isn’t the popular “Still Not a Player,” it’s actually the much better, yet not as radio friendly “I’m Not a Player.” The latter was Pun’s first single, the former — which featured Joe — was a remix of “I’m Not a Player.”

Of course this could be Vevo’s fault, because it mislabeled the video as “Still Not a Player.” Or maybe Sifton is a bigger fan than we thought, and meant to link Pun’s “I’m Not a Player” because it’s clearly superior. If that’s the case, then we need to start hanging out with him.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Jared Kushner is one of nine bidders looking to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers. His offer has advanced to the second round of the vetting process and if it is approved, Kushner would be the youngest owner in the league. The Los Angeles Times reports that Kushner is working with UBS’ Vice Chairman Aryeh Bourkoff to help seal the deal.

If Kushner ends up acquiring the Dodgers and then brings them back to Brooklyn, he would pretty much own the city. We hope he understands that.

Hell, he could even send the Mets to LA to help smooth things over. We don’t think many people would miss them.

Lord knows New Yorkers have had plenty of complaints about Michael Bloomberg. He underreacted to the blizzard in 2010, then overreacted to Hurricane Irene. The oddness of choosing Cathie Black as school chancellor was only eclipsed by Bloomberg’s quick decision to drop her. Bloomberg also did just about everything wrong when dealing with Occupy Wall Street.

Bloomberg has made a lot of mistakes, but just when we’re finally fed up with him, we read that he donated a whopping $311 million to charities last year. Then we have to admit that — to use a technical term — he’s a pretty solid dude.

The New York Post reports that the gigantic number not only topped his 2010 mark of $279 million, it also made him the fifth most generous donator in the nation. The top donor last year was the estate of Margaret A. Cargill.

In 2010, Viacom’s Philippe Dauman was the highest paid CEO in the country, pulling in a cool $84 million. However, things changed drastically last year. According to company security filings, Dauman saw his pay almost halved, as he earned $43 million.

According to the Washington Post, the drop in pay can be attributed to lower stock options which were valued at six million, down 79 percent from 2010.

We imagine that getting your pay cut in half hurts a lot less when your salary can still afford you the finer things in life, like luxury cars, diamond-encrusted Toms and a small country or two.

Regarding his departure, Poynter interviewed Raju Narisetti, the former managing editor of The Washington Post who left last week and is heading back to The Wall Street Journal.

Here are a few excerpts:

Why he left:

“…when the opportunity to do what I have done at the Post — get more people to consume more Post journalism than ever before — but now to do it across multiple brands/websites on a global scale at a company that has made profound bets on digital growth came about, it felt like an interesting new challenge to take on.”

On his work at the Post:

“And I tried, with mixed results, to drive home one simple lesson: Big established newsroom cultures can get into trouble when we focus on the rear-view mirror and only talk of how far we have come. I wanted my team, and others willing to listen, to focus the Post on how far it needed to go and how quickly we need to get there.”

Read more

It’s been well documented that Chase Carey, the right hand man to Rupert Murdoch, holds quite a bit of power at News Corporation. Murdoch has a lot of trust in Carey, at one point saying, “Chase is my partner and if anything happened to me, I’m sure he’ll get it immediately.”

As News Corp. wades its way through the murky waters of the phone hacking scandal, Carey’s role has grown larger than ever, so we’re all getting some insight into what the man is truly like.

Helping us all out is the new New York Times profile, which sheds plenty of light on the COO. Below are some highlights.

• Carey really, really likes sports. He once played rugby and is a “die-hard Yankees and Giants fan.”
• His diet could use some work. “He regularly orders a hamburger and fries during power lunches in News Corporation’s third-floor executive dining room and rides a packed commuter train home to the Connecticut suburbs, often popping a can of Budweiser on the way…”

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By now you’ve read Mark Wahlberg’s idiotic remarks about 9/11. Poor guy confused life with one of his action flicks, and said that he could’ve stopped the tragedy from happening. It was almost kind of cute; in a sad, depressing sort of way. Like when you see a cat struggling to figure out the complexities of a paper bag.

Wahlberg has since issued the standard apology, but that wasn’t enough for Shane Smith, one of the Co-Founders of Vice. He took to Twitter to challenge Wahlberg to a fight.

Smith said that if he wins, he will admit that Wahlberg could’ve prevented 9/11. But if Smith wins, Wahlberg has to stop acting. He also spelled Wahlberg’s name wrong. Innocent typo or tantalizing trash talk? You decide.

There hasn’t been a response from Wahlberg yet, but hopefully he’ll take Smith up on the offer. Until then, we’re going to prepare for the fight by watching “Good Vibrations.” We hear Roy Jones Jr. used to do that.

Larry King and Carlos Slim are getting ready to launch a “huge online initiative.” Could a F**k Yeah Larry King Tumblr be on the horizon?

Well, no one really knows. There are very few details, but apparently King and Slim are teaming up to do something, and the adventure is already underway.

“I can confirm that there have been discussions in which I participated,” King’s lawyer, Bert Fields, told The Wrap.

Fantastic! Not only does that completely clarify things, it makes us excited. We bet the trio discussed the weather, the rising price of suspenders and… Shakira. But that’s just a guess.

A couple hours ago we pointed out how absurd the article Arthur Brisbane recently posted on the New York Times’ website was. Brisbane has now responded to all of his critics. He told Jim Romenesko:

What I was trying to ask was whether reporters should always rebut dubious facts in the body of the stories they are writing. I was hoping for diverse and even nuanced responses to what I think is a difficult question… I was also hoping to stimulate a discussion about the difficulty of selecting which ‘facts’ to rebut, facts being troublesome things that seem to shift depending on the beholder’s perspective.

Hmm… Okay. We think we can (again) answer Brisbane fairly quickly.

Nuanced answer: Yes. Facts are facts. They are not difficult things. For example, the capital of North Dakota is Bismarck. That is a fact. It doesn’t “shift” because the FishbowlNY editors have never been to Bismarck.

Hope that clears things up.

Anna Wintour has always been a staunch supporter of Barack Obama, so now that he’s facing an election year, she’s back to stumping for the incumbent. Of course she’s looking fabulous while doing so, and wants you to look dashing as well.

To do that, she’s spearheading “Runway to Win,” a collaboration between some of fashion’s elite to design products that will benefit Obama’s reelection campaign. The Huffington Post reports that some of the designers participating in Runway to Win include Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, Joseph Altuzarra, Rachel Roy, Jason Wu, Rag & Bone and Diane von Furstenberg.

They will all work together to launch couture products, like leather jackets with Obama’s mug on the back and trucker hats that have been sniffed by Bo. Kidding! We’re sure the items — which will be sold on Obama’s site — will be much more fierce than that.