Archives: December 2005

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This is a bit of a mish-mash (aka a Hodge-Podge) of some of our favorite posts from the past year, basically an excuse for us to show off the fact that we learned how to make an image link to a post (9 months in and we’re learning, people!). It is by no means all-inclusive especially since there are none you can sing along to. Even so, a picture’s worth a thousand words and that’s good, because there are 18 of them and who wants to read an 18,000 word blog post? Exactly.

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Today is the last day of the last workweek of 2005, and let’s be serious – only me and my mom are reading this blog right now. So that’s it for today. BUT – we still have a few 2005 roundup posts on deck, and Lord knows we’ll all have hangovers to nurse on Sunday, so come back and let us wash away the pain! In the meantime, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Thank you so much for reading, and have an awesome weekend followed by a fantastic, wonderful and fulfilling 2006.

It’s my job at Fishbowl to observe, comment on and critique the New York media world – if I’m to have any credibility at all in so doing, I have to be able to look at Mediabistro and its properties with the same eyes.

So I can’t let this go without comment: earlier this week, mothership (and my employer) Mediabistro published “2006: A Media New Year,” a list of media predictions for 2006 from eleven “critics, commentators, and industry reporters.” Here’s the thing: all of them were male.

Now, I have no doubt that the omission was unintentional – author David Hirschman is an absolute doll, and a friend – but that is still unacceptable, especially when there are so many intelligent, savvy, qualified and witty women who know the industry and have smart, informed opinions. It’s also an appalling message to send to the thousands of people who visit Mediabistro every day.

So on this, the last business day of 2005, I present th FishbowlNY round-up of some other expert prognosticators, with their thoughts on the coming year in this industry, by turns witty, intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful. Please note that this is NOT an exhaustive list; I only saw the article myself yesterday morning (my bad), and this is just who we were able to nab over 24 hours during a holiday week (one person even emailed from a boat in the Virgin Islands!). So stay tuned – I’ll be updating this post as stuff comes in.

And now, I give you “2006: The Year in Media Predictions” by a bevy of smart, expert industry observers and participants who also just happen to be female.

Lynn Harris, Salon/”Broadsheet” contributor; author of “Miss Media” and, for the record, not E. Lynn Harris:

• CNN’s new format: “Anderson Cooper 24/7.”
• The Times will break the following news, again: Reggaeton is hot, blogging is popular, the Eighties are back.
• Also at the Times: the Styles section goes daily, replacing Science, Metro, and National.
• Oxygen Media continues to fail to appear on anyone’s list of media
  predictions, or TiVo.
• Going out on limb here: A.J. Jacobs tries something, writes book.
• Mediabistro includes women in its 2007 list of prognosticators.

Myrna Blyth, NY Sun and NRO columnist, former editor of Ladies Home Journal, founding editor of More and author of “Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness – and Liberalism – to the Women of America“:

• The internet will begin to take so much money out of print budgets that publishers will take a break from trashing each other and try to find new and ingenious ways to trash their web competitors. The MPA will commission a study to help.
• The New York Times Book Review will check out their reviewers’ biases a bit more carefully but will continue to give conservative books crummy reviews.
• Hillary Clinton will try to firm up her base support among women. Expect a Hillary and Chelsea mother’s day cover on some woman’s magazine in May.
• Maureen Dowd will run a desperately seeking someone ad in the personal section of New York Magazine. Oh, sorry, she already did.

Wendy Shanker, author, “The Fat Girl’s Guide To Life” (which, btw, is “Vere Curve” in Italian and “D&#252nn Sein War Gestern!” in German)

• Even more celebrity trash mags will come on the market, including massive flop Jessica Simpson Weekly, edited by the newly-free Janice Min.
• Magazines will continue to post celeb photos asking, “Is she too thin?” next to “Butt Be-Gone in Six Days!”
• “Lost” is actually autistic child’s inner world
• TV ad industry sinks as digital video recording rules
• Music industry sinks as downloading rules
• Two of the “Desperate Housewives” will have to go to rehab for “exhaustion and dehydration” (put your money on Hatcher and Cross)
• Maureen Dowd marries Kenny Chesney and/or Keith Urban
• Americans continue to care more about celebrities than the state of the world
• …and here’s one for the long-term: Oprah in 2008!

Rachel Pine, author, “Twins of Tribeca, and “Communications Director, Doubledown Media:

• Journalists in all types of media will take what they learned from the coverage of the hurricanes and Plame and run with it. They have the power to wake people up and show them when their government is failing miserably, they possess the ability to move people in and out of office, and the responsibility to keep asking questions and not be satisfied with evasive or programmed answers. The fourth estate’s back, baby!
• Advertisers will once again realize the power of print — not necessarily huge, mainstream publications, but they will begin to understand, embrace and champion affinity publications as never before.
• Snarkiness will be replaced by leurve and compassion.

More fabulous female media commentators after the jump…suffice it to say that it is NOT an exhaustive list.

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Throw those devil horns up in the air – BusinessWeek‘s Jon Fine is rockin’ the house! A close read of Time Out New York reveals that Fine’s band “Coptic Light” had not one but TWO of the “Best Albums of 2005″ in the TONY round-up. Music editor Mike Wolf said of the band’s eponymous album: “Could this Brooklyn trio’s ideas be that much better than everyone else’s? Rock & roll has rarely sounded so fresh and gripping.” Pretty good! The album also made the best-of list of music assistant Hank Shteamer, whose name inspires so many punchlines I can’t think straight (“I don’t even know ‘er!” is only the exciting, classy beginning). Fine, formerly of AdAge and the band “Bitch Magnet,” who also reportedly once had all sorts of long rocker-hot hair, recently came back from touring in Japan. “Coptic Light” is, in fact, big in Japan.

Disclosure: Fine is blissfully wedded to MB cyberhoncho Laurel Touby, but that’s not why I wrote this item. On the contrary, I actually don’t really know how she feels about “Bitch Magnet.”

Fishbowl takes her camera with her most places, so you’d best be looking sharp. Still, not everything makes it on our precious blog – sometimes we can’t upload for some reason or we get distracted or there’s real news. Every time a photo goes unpublished, it’s like a little arrow to the heart. So, today, on this last business day of 2005, I cast my quiver before ye in “The Year’s Most Random Unsorted Vaguely-Organized Photos That Didn’t Make It To The Blog.” It’s not that I don’t have more, it’s just that I’m kind. Vamanos, muchachas! Enjoy.

Campbell Robertson und Gabe Sherman, “The Situation With Tucker Carlson” launch party. Am I biased or do they look like an adorable Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Media? No, I’m probably biased.

FishFriend for life (and authoress of many a fine post on this here blog) Elizabeth Spiers and BlackBook/NYT/many-things contributor Dana Vachon, both of whom are pictured in a moment of summer early-evening relaxation at the farewell-for-a-few-months party for Salon NY editor Kerry Lauerman. Both are working on their first novels, both of which involve finance n’ stuff. Fishbowl is a consultant on neither book.

Funkmaster Will Leitch (of Deadspin)

Fishbowls DC & NY, in the enforced Mediabistro dress code (just kidding – Garret Graff of FBDC was about to go speak on a panel; I was, er, not)

Seth Mnookin and Alan Baldachin of Hand Baldachin LLP at the Radar party back in May (Baldachin was part of the Radar legal team, and is Canadian and knew Fishbowl way back when)

Anthony Haden Guest and, er, guests at the Radar party. I don’t believe any of them ended up in the pool.

The Kids from Fame The Black Table: Aileen Gallagher (now MB associate EIC), Will Leitch, and AJ Daulerio, late of Oddjack

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em! Maer Roshan and friends at the Radar launch party – refraining from comment except to say, wow! You could smoke indoors! The Hotel QT really IS paradise!

And now we bring you an adorable baby picture! Media significance: tenuous (I was staying with his parents when the Judy Miller mea-culpa-that-wasn’t-quite-a-mea-culpa ran, and that was where I wrote the posts that were cited here. Fishbowl: Proud to be #6. Hey, it’s the end of the year. I’m allowed.)

The next few photos are from a series I like to call “The People on the Telly are my Friends.”

Oh, the ‘stache. Tom Friedman on I believe it was “Charlie Rose,” exuding manic energy and frequently giggling/chortling. I have it DVRd somewhere. I never did get a chance to use this photo, or the one I like to call “Thomas Friedman is crushing your head.” Sad.

Fareed Zakaria. Need more be said? This is smaller sized for some reason, but enlarging it via code makes it look all pixilated so you’ll get this version and like it. Is it me, or does Fareed somewhat resemble Willem Dafoe? Agree? Disagree? And what IS up with China these days, anyway?

Best friend Jon Stewart with not-unattractive guest George Clooney back in late September. We half-blogged this but it was getting tiresome transcribing all the times Jon pointed out that Clooney was a handsome man (money quote: Jon telling Clooney that he was so handsome that he should be spreading his seed around; Clooney replying that he was doing his best).

Bob Herbert on Tavis Smiley, which I had half-blogged before I realized it was a repeat. Duh. Sometimes I do that.

I was never at a party with any of these people, but they make me feel like part of their warm family every morning (just joking Miles, I’m yours). But these posters were all over the subway back in the fall (are they still?), in various permutations. Ah, Doozy.

George Clooney again, just because.

Heidi The Bitchin’ Bloggin’ Lawyer Whose Last Name Escapes Me und Overheard in New York’s Michael Malice, posing insouciantly at the Andrew Krucoff farewell party, which doesn’t seem all that long ago and yet he is now back. So wait, after you’ve been to Jerusalem does it vitiate the whole “Next year in Jerusalem” thing during Passover? Fishbowl is a Talmudic scholar.

Nikola Tamdazic, before the lens instead of behind it! You’ve probably all seen this guy’s work – he’s the crack photog who goes to parties on behalf of Gawker and snaps great-looking shots, sometimes of breasts (er, not anyone who has ever written for this blog). His work can be found at ambrel.net, but check out how cute he is, he looks like he just stepped out of the OC! Pictured with Fishbowl.

Daniel Radosh at the Radar party (I know, these are randomly-sequenced). I call this pic “Fresh-Faced Radosh” because he is glowing with innocence and vulnerability.

Tom and Tom: Toms MacFarland and Scocca from the Observer, rocking out in the upstairs room during the Radar after-party at Marquee. These two gentlemen know how to cut loose! Note the long, flowing flaxen locks formerly known as Scocca’s hair.

Alex and Alex: The Alexes Ross and Balk (music critic New Yorker and music and all things critic at TMFTML respectively) at the infamous “Red Lobster” lunch in late July. Many people attended. Much grease was consumed. Yet the account remains unwritten. Sad. (That’s Nichelle of Nichelle Newsletter looking on at the right, btw. She always wears awesome hats.)

Doozy and Rovey (taken by Greta Van Susteren and culled from a random website recently). White House press holiday party. Where was Fishbowl’s invite? Hmph. (NB “Doozy” is my name for Fox’s Steve Doocey, who unwittingly inaugurated the concept of “blog synchronicity,” which has really taken off.)

Remember that Sync farewell party? My camera ran out of battery so I couldn’t take photos but the indefatigable Mark Remy, late of Giant and presently of the super-secret Time Inc. humor website, was on hand to help out, and he whipped out his equipment right then and there. Thanks Mark! This shot is of former Sync features ed. Matthew Schneiderman, who says that only his mom calls him Matthew. Okay, we’ll call you Matt, but only because we can now call this photo “The Matt in the Hat.”

The gang from Golf Magazine! They were so fun. I have their names in my email somewhere, please hold. Update: Here we go! L to R: Seth Kelly, Lisa Taddeo, Mike Corcoran, Lisa Freedman. I’m pretty sure I got my Lisas straight.

Matt in the Hat rocks out with Mark Remy! Partying is FUN.

Here we have the lovely and wonderful Lisa from Men’s Health, whose last name escapes me (I will find and fix). But she was a peach. (UPDATE: Said peach was Senior Associate Editor Lisa Jones.) She’s with Tom Lippert, not a writer but a friend thereto, and also coincidentally the son of a partner at my former law firm, with whom I interviewed for my very first New York job. So, thanks Tom! Say hi to Nels for me!

Jon Stern of Penthouse, with Bill whose last name is somewhere with Lisa’s and the Golf Mag people (UPDATE: Schulz). People, just so you know, Jon Stern is hilarious (we were in a sketch class together), and also, he knows his Ragtime.

Seth Kelly of Golf Mag with Tom the not-media person but the yes-attractive person.

“Daily Show” writer Scott Jacobson, who has a cat, with Mark Remy. Fishbowl doesn’t really concern itself much with the Daily Show, so we were pretty breezy.

Jon & Bill are friends. Aw!

Happy Chanukah! Latkes for everyone!

Do YOU have unpublished media photos for random barely-screened publication on Fishbowl? If so, send ‘em in!

We took a break from Michael’s this week but that doesn’t mean you can’t send us in your observations from the holly-bedecked dining room filled with Proust-evoking madeleines and heartfelt media joy. If you were there, we’d love to hear from you. Please send your observations our way; otherwise, fear not – we’ll be back next week for more fun.

UPDATE: An eagle-eyed and owl-eared tipster reports the following:

The back room of Michael’s was closed off and dark on this rainy media-macher deprived Thursday, and the front room was half empty, but Diana Ross and her hair were in the window at table #1 with an unknown woman with less hair, Gerry Inzirillo of Saul Kerzner’s Sun resorts was in the power corner at table #4, social PR eminence James Mitchell was in the opposite corner, and Garry Zarr of the American Museum of Natural History was at the Michael Wolff memorial table with author Michael Gross, who was overheard asking the waitress if he could order an exorcism along with his lunch, just before Mitchell called across the room that he’d bought ten copies of Gross’s “740 Park” for Christmas presents. Speaking of books, Simon & Schuster’s Alice Mayhew was at table #14 and Lewis Korman of Savoy Entertainment Books was at table #18. Finally, Michael Barker of Sony Pictures represented the movie busines at table #23.

Do owls have ears? Fishbowl is an expert orinthologist. In any case, sounds like a great day at Michael’s – we’ll see you all there next week. Ain’t no mountain high enough to keep us away!

Alex Trebek giveth, and Alex Trebek taketh away – yes, friends, the reign of Brooklyn-based freelancer and man-about-town Peter Rubin has come to an end, but not before he won a whopping $29,400. Go Peter! Highlights from his last night: “Who is Jack Welch?” “What is ‘Shook The World?’” “What is Uruguay?” Lowlights: Wrongly identifying Christina Applegate as starring in the musical “Chicago.”* Good guess…FOR SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T LIVE IN NEW YORK! Here, Peter, hold out your wrist. Now, slap. (Here, you can borrow the well-worn ruler from your brand-new pal, all 10.5-inches-and-counting of it.) Otherwise he missed answers from “Menopause” The Musical” and “Sunset Boulevard” (Peter Rubin is ready for his closeup, Mr. DeMille). In Peter’s own words after being dinged straight through the Musical Theater category by his showtune-warbling opponent:

I just stood there, blinking. My mouth was probably a little bit open too, but mostly the blinking. Where’s my “Dancehall Reggae” category? My “Mid-90s Hip-Hop” category? Nowhere, I tells ya. It’s all New Testament and show tunes. I made up for it in “Word Lore” and “The Winter Garden” though. Suckas.

Well, suckas except for the whole not-losing thing. Still, he got to go home with a fistful o’ dollars and his pride mostly intact, except for some trash-talking from Trebek:

The first night I was on I picked up 21,000+…had a rhythm going with
the buzzer and didn’t have to contend with things like my own ignorance. Your tipster, sadly, missed that show and was able to zero in on Monday, and what what was likely one of the uglier victories in Jeopardy history. How could it not be? So, so ugly. So ugly, in fact, that Trebek saw fit to open Tuesday’s show with a broadside–it was edited out in the airing, but he said something about “hopefully tonight will go a little bit better than last night.” Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve been browbeaten by a man like Trebek. It was all I could do to keep answering in the form of a question.

Well, Peter, all’s well that end’s well, except for the whole showtunes thing. The New York Post picked up the story (we’re going to brazenly take credit), but THEY didn’t get to rub Peter’s bald head. I’m just sayin’. Congratulations on your win, Peter, and don’t worry about the whole not-knowing-who-Abel-was thing, in a week all that will be soooo 2005, except for when I repeatedly reference it on Fishbowl. Thanks for playing!

p.s. Number of emails from young ladies who also wante to rub Peter’s shiny bald head: 1.

GQ ‘Pardy Pooper [NYP]

*It’s “Sweet Charity.”

• Putting a dent on New Year’s: Sacre bleu – smokin’ hot geek of the year Nick Denton has had to cancel his New Year’s party. What? No free-flowing champagne and stalker’s-eye view of Balthazar? Damn. Never mind that he lives so close to the rice pudding place. [WWD]

• “New Jersey: Wrap Your Legs ‘Round These Velvet Rims and Strap Your Hands ‘Cross Our Engines!”Apparently, New Jersey needs a new slogan. Alternatives include “New Jersey: We Give Love A Bad Name” and “New Jersey: Start Spreadin’ The…” oops. Point being, Bruce, Frank, and Jon Bon Jovi. What more do they need to say? [NYT]
• Beth Ostrosky loves dogs, not unlike Slate readers: The “leggy squeeze” of Howard Stern poses with schnoogies in her 2006 calendar, which Slate readers are expected to buy up in droves. Oh, come on. Schnoogie! It’s only one of the most popular words of ’05! [NYDN]
• Oh, fine…yes, goddamn it, we’ll still need you: Big profile on Jann Wenner in the NYT Sunday! He’s gonna be 60! Rolling Stone is gonna be 1,000! Sorry for not writing on it sooner, but I just find that this guy gets a lot of ink. Aren’t there any other super-fastidious Brownridge-losing Min-exasperating Men’s-Journal-running telegenic-journalist-seeking quasi-Napoleonic party animals out there? Oh. [NYT]
  

An astute observation from the “Fake Fact of the Day” site:

Critics are often flummoxed in writing their columns this time of year, unable to find a hook.

Indeed.

Media Web’s 2005 awards [MarketWatch]
114 Magazine Industry Predictions for 2006 [Folio]
2005: A (Somewhat) Comprehensive Look at a (Not-So) Surprising Year in Magazines [Folio]
Slate’s 10 Most Popular Articles of ’05 [Slate]
Media Guy’s 10 Most Pathetic Media Meltdowns of 2005 [AdAge]
The Year in Politics [Salon]
Sneak Peek: 2006 Media Predictions [Forbes]
2005′s 10 Sexiest Geeks [Wired]
The Year in Sports [Salon]
The 10 Best Movies of 2005 [Salon]
Best of 2005: Entertainers of the Year [EW]
2005: Boob Tube at Its Worst [NYDN]
Business: Winners & Losers 2005 [NYDN]
2005 Stories of the Year [InTouch]
2005: The Ratings [TVNewser]
Top 10 Newspaper Industry Stories of 2005 [E&P]
Crunk ’05: The Year in Media Errors and Corrections [RTE]
Top 50 Albums of 2005 [Pitchfork]
2005 Jossip Awards [Jossip]
Film Critics’ Poll 2005 [Village Voice]
The Year in HuffPo Blog Posts [HuffPo]
The Ten Best Top-Ten Lists [AlterNet]

Yesterday Nora Ephron had a lovely, lovely op-ed piece in the New York Times on food as memory, the small moments of goodness that are to be appreciated in life, and why Hungarians are about more than just goulash. I will use her words to describe it: “simultaneously sweet, savory and completely unexpected, like all good things” (now I will use my word to describe it: strudelicious!). It’s an evocative, funny read (with a major meow moment to her first husband Dan Greenburg, whom she apparently did not get a book and movie out of). The NYT readership approves: it is currenly sitting proudly at #4 on MEL.

Here’s where Fishbowl comes in: yesterday I got a tip that the op-ed was posted on HuffPo, on its very day of publication. I’d seen double-posting before on HuffPo; I knew Jay Rosen often posted new PressThink entries on HuffPo, and I recalled the same about David Corn. With Ephron, though, my eyebrow arched; it wasn’t her own website but a customer paying for content. Hm.

It is at this point, dear reader, that I goofed. Because after reading the piece on the NYT site, I clicked over to HuffPo to see if it was indeed there; a quick glance down the left-hand side revealed that, yes, Ephron’s post was indeed up, complete with the opening sentences as teaser. I didn’t bother clicking through.

If I had clicked through, though, what would I have seen? Find out after the jump, where all mysteries are revealed.

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