Joseph Meyer

“Joseph will oversee business operations and will focus on making investments and exploring acquisitions,” wrote Kushner, in a memo. “He brings years of experience identifying growth opportunities and will help the Observer Media Group expand in the areas it already serves and bring its fresh voice to entirely new markets.”

Kushner’s full note can be seen at Daily Intelligencer.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Even though most of its content is written in-house, freelancers who fit this bill have a good chance of landing a byline, as there are a handful of contributor stories in every issue.

Got a great idea for these highly sophisticated readers? Get editors’ contact info in How To Pitch: The New York Observer. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Emily Witt

She confirmed with Capital New York that the book, acquired by Faber & Faber will be a “thoroughly reported cultural history of female sexuality in America.”

Very different from writing about Barnes & Noble, celebrity publishing deals, and classic lit, but interesting all the same.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

1. Gwyneth Paltrow Goes Topless for Vanity Fair, July 1
2. Longtime WINS Traffic Reporter  Steps Away After 20 YearsJeff McKay, July 1  
3. The New York Observer Lists “Power Couples,” July 6
4. One-Time New York Anchor Fired in ChicagoSteve Bartelstein, July 5
5. Justin Bieber Vanity Fair: On Pace to Be the Worst-Selling Issue in 12 Years, July 5
6. WNET Takes Over Programming of New Jersey Network, July 1
7. Ashton Kutcher vs. the Village Voice, July 1
8. New York Post Fires Reporter Over Leaks, July 1

Keep up-to-date with the latest FishbowlNY news. Click here to sign-up for the FishbowlNY daily newsletter, bringing you our articles each afternoon directly to your inbox.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This is the cover of today’s New York Observer. Elizabeth Spiers posted it on her Tumblr earlier today. If that’s not a classic, we don’t know what is. Also, recognize that pose?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This is what you’ll have to do:

“The Managing Editor will be primarily responsible for Observer Media Group’s newest editorial product, NYO Magazine, but will also oversee various other publications and sections including Observer Philanthropy, The Educated Observer, real estate magazines and travel magazines… [You will] manage a crew of five interns… New graduates are encouraged to apply…”

Business Insider says this “sounds like a situation set up to fail,” and we can’t say we totally disagree. But we’d be impressed by any recent graduate who had the self-confidence to think that they can run a new magazine on almost no experience, and control an unruly crew of 5 interns on top of that. Takes some nerve. Click through to Business Insider if you’re interested in accessing the listing.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New York Observer

Let’s just say this story went over somewhat badly with Village Voice Media. Terribly, in fact. Executive editor Mike Lacey wrote a long, invective-filled response to the Observer today, sounding near apoplectic with rage. Every other sentence contained an insult for Stoeffel. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here are some highlights:

Stoeffel is the overly powdered aunt that haunts family holidays. At dinner, she’s left her teeth in a glass of water on the bedside table. She’d like to chew your goose. But she’s left to gum your bird while forgetting the grandkid’s names.

Admittedly, we’re not entirely sure what he’s getting at there. But let’s continue:

Because she is neither competent nor engaging she should not be allowed to discuss religion or politics, let alone sex and journalism.

And that’s just how it begins!

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Observer announced today that Sarah Douglas, currently a staff writer at Art+Auction magazine and its affiliate website, will be the new culture editor at the Observer.

Editor Elizabeth Spiers said about Douglas, “She has a great eye for a story and I know she’ll produce a smart, sophisticated culture section that I look forward to reading.”

Douglas also ran the U.S. editorial office of the London-based The Art Newspaper and has contributed to New York magazine online, The Economist’s quarterly Intelligent Life and The National, among others.

“I’m excited to bring my knowledge of the arts to a leading paper that covers all of the cultural disciplines that thrive in this city,” Douglas said.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Donald Trump

Maybe this has something to do with the small fact that the Observer is currently owned by Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

Observer editor Elizabeth Spiers tweeted back: “Guys, we are covering it! (Which you’d know if you actually called me—or asked).” While we wait for the piece, Cook speculates about the tricky situation Spiers is in. Trump, as everyone knows right now, has incredibly thin skin when it comes to his coverage in the press.

There’s not an easy answer to the question of how your newspaper should appropriately cover your boss’ loathsome father-in-law… But the current strategy, with Trump sort of loitering around the edge of the Observer‘s coverage—and frequently without a disclosure of his relationship to Kushner—while he’s in the middle of what certainly looks like another swindle, feels awkward for everyone.

Update: the Observer does feature an interview Trump gave on Talk1300 today, though once again it fails to offer any opinion on Trump’s antics, and only lays them out. In the interview, Trump says, “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks,” and — as proof? — there’s a picture of him posing with Snoop at his Comedy Central roast.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This has not been a good month for looking over your shoulder and copying your classmates work: Just last week, Gerald Posner from The Daily Beast resigned after he was caught by Jack Shafer copying portions of The Miami Herald in his columns.

Now New York Times writer Zachery Kouwe has resigned from his business beat over at the newspaper after it was discovered that his role at Dealbook involved at least six instances of copying of press releases and other news sources word for word.

So what was Kouwe’s excuse for the misdeed? Apparently they keep him so busy at Dealbook that he didn’t have time to realize that he was inadvertently stealing other people’s words.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Is the New York Post‘s column about Governor David Paterson maybe, possibly having an affair becoming more believable the more it gets passed around? That would be the thesis of yesterday’s New York Observer column by John Koblin, who argues that the “fake news cycle” – that can only exist thanks to the wonders of the Internet and story forwarding – has allowed media to “enter a moment where even the process of journalism—getting a story—is news in and of itself.” This is based on the fact that Paterson actually had to address the issues of his affair, and a timeline of all the blogs and news media that reported the news (Koblin first broke the rumor of the NYT story on Twitter).

But the truth is, politicians’ sexual scandals have always been ripe fodder for both tabloids and legitimate journalism outlets, and it’s not like Page Six suddenly started existing when Web 2.0 developed. It is not a new development that reporting on a story suddenly makes it true to a vast majority of readers, only that the Internet provides outlets allowing anyone to discuss and debate these salacious items, creating more “hype” for what may turn out to be a total non-story.

Read More: The Fake-News Cycle — New York Observer, Shock for Gov. Paterson’s mansion cop — New York Post

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Condé Nast, which took some tough hits in 2009 (along with most other magazine publishers), is now trying to raise employee morale — and trying to find its golden goose — by offering $10,000 every quarter to the staff member who comes up with the best idea for improving the company, The New York Observer reports. We’d suggest that $40K a year could pay for an outside consultant, but that’s so 2009.

The new Si Newhouse is all about being warm and accepting, as evidenced by last week’s Observer profile of the nicer, humbler, Chuck Townsend, Condé’s CEO. So get to work, Condé employees; there’s $10,000 up for grabs.

Read more: The $10K Contest at Conde Nast: Help the Company! –New York Observer

Previously: Condé Nast Hires Consulting Co. For “Realignment”, Conde Nast’s Positive Outlook

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Paste magazine, run by Tim Regan-Porter, Nick Purdy and Josh Jackson, offered its readers several options to help combat dwindling finances, including several different subscription package combos, fundraising and getting recording artists to release a special song for their magazine that wasn’t available elsewhere. They also started turning out a smaller product to save on costs.

Not only did it work, but Paste is on the road to being out of the red, according to publisher Purdy. And with if the magazine can find more help from an “angel,” it would “put us on sound financial footing and let us invest in things like circulation again,” he told Audience Development.

Now Paste has bulked up its content by entering into a licensing agreement with Featurewell.com, which allows Paste articles, columns, and reviews to be reprinted in other publications. Meanwhile, Paste is able to reprint content from any of Featurewell’s other clients, including TV Guide magazine, New York Observer and Reason magazine. While we’ve seen this sort of content-sharing happen with more and more frequency with Web publications (like Gawker and The Business Insider), it’s been slow to catch on with print journalism. Here’s hoping that 2010 sees other small publishers being as creative with their funding options and content as Paste.

Press release after the jump.

Read More: Back in Black –Audience Development

Previously: Paste Asks Readers, Musicians To Help Save Mag

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

But today’s story wasn’t about how Newhouse has mended his ways to incorporate Condé Nast Digital into his magazines’ 10-year plan. Instead, the quote serves to reinforce how anti-Newhouse the idea of marketing the Condé brand for licensing purposes is. But it’s been a tough two years for the company and a lot of concessions have had to be made: we may not be so far off from a reality where Gourmet gets a second life in the form of cookbooks and baking supplies.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

First, the News Corp. boss grouchily warned that his newspapers’ content would be pulled from Google’s news feed, then he was reportedly working to strike an exclusive deal with Microsoft’s rival search engine Bing. Yet Murdoch continued to place ads for The Wall Street Journal on Google, and then Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt wrote an op-ed in the very same paper explaining how ridiculous Murdoch’s assumptions of content theft are.

Now, Google has fired off another round of damage control, once again putting it in layman’s terms for ailing media execs: their company is here to help, not hurt, the news industry.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.