This means that Moonves, who might have faced a raft of suits (and, one supposes, countersuits should he want to sue the suers for not leaving), will now only have to contend with the last of the Three – Josh Howard (see glum picture at left) – who still clings to his desk and refuses to leave, and who promises to be the hardest case to get rid of.

Advantage: Les, even if purging Howard will necessitate being nice to Martin Garbus. Very nice.

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But New York being the center of the universe, we see no real need to cover anything that happens outside of the five boroughs. So rather than sending our Foreign Correspondent to far-flung locales to report on media people in said far-flung locales, we’re sending him off to far-flung locales to report on media people in New York.

Without further ado, we’re pleased to introduce FishbowlNY Foreign Correspondent, Sacramento Is The New New York—or “SAC” for short. [Translation: we don't know his real name.] We’re starting him off slow by having him cover New York bloggers, and when he’s ready to deal with the maelstrom of discontent and ego confusion that is New York old media, we’ll have him take a crack at the Barry Dillers and Mort Zuckermans.

SAC’s initial investigations seemed to indicate that the New York bloggers are merely badly scripted computer programs (“bots,” he said) that generate random textual outputs and, occasionally, photos of cats. We pointed out that were this true, it would mean that he was now in the employ of a piece of software—and badly scripted software, at that—but he had his fingers in his ears and was loudly singing a song with the somewhat odd refrain, “I can’t heeeeear yoooou…”

SAC’s first dispatch, following last week’s events:

Will blog for food: Jason Kottke™ has short-circuited, running a stored procedure wherein it quit its day job in favor of working on its blog full-time. In order to do so, the Kottke mechanism has asked its readers to help sustain itself in perpituity. It even randomly generated an adorable banner that you can place on your blog (you do have one, don’t you?) to show your solidarity with this brave pioneer. Also, the Kottke is wondering if it can crash on your couch for “a few days, tops and, oh yeah, I drank that six-pack that was in the fridge, it was like, waay in the back so I figured you didn’t want it.” I suggest that Kottke get himself pregnant and whore out his sure-to-be adorable belly for advertising dollars.

This phenomenon is not without precedent, as proto-bot Andrew Sullivan attempted the same algorithim sometime last year, with mixed results. I say mixed because then it will sound like I have some thoughful insight into Sullivan when in fact, I haven’t ever read a single word he’s written. I’m not kidding. But I hear that that he can benchpress, like, 500 pounds or something, so don’t tell him I said anything. I don’t want him to lift almost 3 of me into the air. At least, not without a spotter.

This move has caused a shockwave throughout NYC. People are scrambling to make sense of this, each person dealing with it in their own, unique way. Some have jumped on the Kottke bandwagon and shown their support monetarily, while others have quietly given up blogging althogether. The reaction here in Sacramento can be summed up in the following interaction I had with the bakery girl at Safeway this morning:

Me: Do you have any chocolate old-fashioned?

Bakery Girl: Not yet, they’ll be out in about 10 minutes.

Me: That’s cool, I’ll just grab a glazed instead.

Bakery Girl: (blank stare)

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We mean, George, let him deny that he will ever seek office, for cryin’ out loud, not be allowed to bury the answer in a joke. You’re dealing, after all, with the guy who went public on Leno with his ambition to be Governor, with an operator so canny he’ll deny his further ambitions right up to the point where he declares the date of Jack LaLanne’s birth a national holiday from inside 1600 Penn Ave. Next time, George, act your resume and try a little Reporting and Writing 101. Because this is embarrassing.

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Well, that’s all well and good, but what about these (projected) numbers:

Percentage of people ordering F&L who’ll actually read it: 14.

Percentage of buyers who will display it on their coffee table to get literary street points: 78.

Percentage of readers who think Johnny Depp wrote it, or some of it: 52.

Percentage of reprinted runs in which Douglas Brinkley will write a long foreword: 100.

Percentage of under-30 readers who’ll buy it because they miss Kurt Cobain: 9.

Percentage of over-55 readers who will do so because they miss the Sixties: 96.

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Certainly sounds like a lock to us. The AP even mentions that the IOC lads, who have already gotten the same treatment in London and Madrid, will next go to Moscow and Paris where, surely, no bid will taste as sweet.

Fishbowl suggests the AP try challenging a puff quote and the guy who gave it. Because the IOC bid for New York is hanging in the balance now that the West Side stadium bid has been thrown into turmoil. Paris has better facilities. The Russkies will make their subway run on time. The IOC has been investigated for corruption. And everyone but your reporter knows it.

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Wired EIC Chris Anderson is writing a blog about a book he’s writing, based on this article. At the moment, he’s fixated on a quote by Michael Wolff in the disappeared IWantMedia article from last week’s edition of FishbowlNY:

WOLFF: Well, I think Consumer Reports at one time was the brand in product evaluation. That’s what you would say: “Check Consumer Reports.” But if you want to buy something now, it’s “Check the Web.” It’s not that Consumer Reports doesn’t have a business, but it has certainly lost its position as the grail of product evaluation.

Anderson’s theory:

There are three kind of people, which being a science geek, I will describe in physics terms (that noise is the sound of a readership stampeding for the exits):

A) Position People
B) Velocity People (first derivative)
C) Acceleration People (second derivative)

Category A people think: “4 million subscribers is a lot. Consumer Reports must be doing something right.”

Category B people think: “It used to be 4.2 million. Consumer Reports is in decline.”

Category C people think: “They lost 200,000 readers in three years! Consumer Reports is dead.”

Now I should quickly add that I have no idea if Consumer Reports is indeed losing readers; I just made those figures up for illustrative purposes (and to add to the evidence that blogs are not journalism)…the third, which is clearly false, is the one that gets all the attention. People are drawn to grand overstatement, especially if it’s in service of a broader point.

The pinnacle of grand overstatement is endism, the declaration that the moment something stops growing it is effectively dead. In this, Wolff is in good company…The reason endism is not necessarily a sin is that all three of those perspectives are legitimate.

We get endism, but we’re more well-versed in trendism, which is sort of the opposite. Growth indicates that something is over, and therefore, effectively dead. This happens most frequently in fashion—see ponchos, trucker hats, and soon, if we’re lucky, Ugg boots (which should have been over two years ago)—but also in entertainment, media, etc. If we’re wrong about this, we’d imagine that there are hundreds of thousands of column inches of intellectually dishonest “In/Out” charticles in American magazines that need to be abolished permanently. (You don’t want to have to fill that space with actual reportage, do you? Then just admit we’re right.)

One commenter adds:

Wow, did you miss an opportunity. Consider:

A) Position People
B) Velocity People (first derivative)
C) Acceleration People (second derivative)

should have been followed by:

D) Jerks (third derivative)

I’m not making it up. That’s the name for the third derivative of position. The name for the fourth is inauguration.

In defense of endism [The Long Tail]

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Saw some frazzled, knitting bag-toting, middleaged Brooklyn lady reading a pamphlet on the uptown 2 this AM: “Blogging for Profit.” Key section: “Fame and Fortune.” Key do’s/don’ts: “Never, ever slander a person, business, or service!” and my favorite, “Get Links!”

We’d really like to get our hands on a copy of that pamphlet. If anyone has one, do send. Email FishbowlNY@mediabistro.com and we’ll give you a mailing address.

Blogging: the new Amway. We always knew it’d come to this.

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“We knew this wasn’t sustainable,” said Michelle Ebanks, group publisher of Essence and Suede. “It was consuming more time and resources than we thought [it would require] to get to a level of equilibrium.”

We’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t really see that one coming. (But it was so pretty! And Suzanne Boyd was going to be the next Anna Wintour!)

Guess we can put this on eBay now.

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Hate to say Fishbowl told you so, Doug, but this is only the beginning of The Treatment. Time for plastic surgery and plane tickets to countries whose names you can’t pronounce.

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Fishbowl would rather you shut up about it, actually, Doug, and let the man have his funeral. Who in the world cares what you think, even if Thompson did plan it? There are ways to insert oneself into a grief process. This is not one of them. And, by the way, that HST magic moon dust you hope will rub off on you? It won’t.

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Okay, David, time to do the (reality) checklist: You say you don’t want to be “loved,” but every studio executive will make you feel that way for the first 60 days. After that, consider yourself deflowered. And if you admired the “honesty” in Bernie’s (long) goodbye, there’s plenty more where that came from. Oh, and when you say you “actually like this kind of person – the movie person,” we know every agent along Wilshire Blvd. is getting ready to disabuse you of that notion. Prediction: Nikki Finke, who seems actively to loathe everyone, will do a “Halbfinger is for sale” piece or a “Halbfinger doesn’t get it” slam job within said 60 days.

Welcome to H’wood, Dave.

P.S.: Love the tie. Very Formosa.

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Brinkley, who Slate’s David Plotz called “John [F. Kennedy] Jr.’s most prolific mourner” appears to be making an encore appearance for the death of Hunter S. Thompson. Plotz on Brinkley, following the death of JFK, Jr:

Between Saturday and Tuesday, Brinkley appeared on MSNBC, Late Edition, Meet the Press, Good Morning America, Dateline, Today (twice), and NPR (twice). He also penned columns about his relationship with Kennedy for Newsweek and the New York Times, and was quoted everywhere else ink touches paper.

According to the Washington Post, Brinkley cut a $10,000 deal with NBC for a week of exclusive Kennedy commentary, but then agreed to provide it pro bono. Editors at George are reportedly so annoyed about Brinkley’s death punditry that they have dropped him from the masthead.

From today’s Denver Post:

Thompson’s family remained in seclusion as security guards stood under two scrap-metal buzzards perched on either side of Thompson’s driveway.

Presidential historian Doug Brinkley was flying to Aspen on Monday night to act as a spokesman.

15 Nexis results and counting…

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Related:
Stern: SEC Subpoenas Blue Radio Raconteur’s Guest Over Sirius Talk [Forbes]
Sirius Key Statistics [Yahoo! Finance]
Martha Stewart Living Key Statistics [Yahoo! Finance]

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Famous Blogger (inasmuch as that’s not an oxymoron) Jason Kottke has quit his day job to blog full-time. He plans to support himself via reader donations, a lá Andrew Sullivan.

We weren’t going to post about this initially, because there’s only so much Internet to go around, and more Internet for Kottke means less Internet for us. Or: if we have two Internets and we give you one, we have only one Internet left—which is one less Internet than we started with. And frankly, we’d prefer two Internets.

At any rate, Kottke has apparently stumbled upon the little-known secret of commercial blogging: it’s incredibly lucrative. Most people don’t know this, because the existing for-profit blog network moguls go to great lengths to hide their wealth. To be fair, there was that incident last year where a couple of Soho residents en route to Balthazar were hit in the head by jewels and rare coins leaking out of the second floor windows of Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton’s apartment. That might have been a clue. Or maybe it was last year’s Fabergé easter egg hunt at Jason Calacanis’s place. (That may have been a little over the top.) Who knows, really?

We’d speculate more but we’re having the mediabistro offices gold-plated at the moment and we’re in the process of moving the huge wodges of cash that are cluttering up the fourth floor.

So, yeah. Feed the Kottke. Or just stick your tongue in his ear. Whatever.

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