Steven Rattner - FishbowlNY

Katie Couric, Star Jones & the Fashion Week Flock

Diane Clehane — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:49:32 +0000

The media A-list has decided that winter is over (did it ever start?) and came out of hibernation in a major way at Michael’s today. Every square inch of the dining room was occupied by boldface names of every description from social swans (Amy Fine Collins) to talking heads (Star Jones, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Jeff Greenfield). The joint was really jumping by the time Katie Couric arrived for a late lunch and stopped by our table to say hello. Since it’s Fashion Week, we just had to ask her about the killer shoes she was rocking. “I got them at the Manolo Blahnik sample sale,” she told me. “They had way too many shoes in size 6 1/2!” From the ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ department: We couldn’t help but notice that Katie, who was sporting a glowing tan and an LBD accessorized with just the right amount of gold bling, looks better than ever. What’s your secret?

I was joined today by a fascinating trio of women. Psychic medium Char Margolis, her literary agent Corinda Carfora (who just happens to sing backup for Bruce Springsteen – I’m not kidding) and my good friend, psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig, who is the go-to therapist for the Today show and jewelry designer behind Gems en Vogue II, available on shopnbc.com. We got together to celebrate the publication of Char’s new book, Love Karma: Use Your Intuition to Find, Create, and Nurture Love in Your Life (Sterling Ethos). Char’s been busy taping segments on the book for The Doctors, Dr. Phil, Extra and Dr. Oz (whose segment will air during sweeps this month). She’s filming a segment for Dr. Steve tonight and then she’s off to more appearances in Amsterdam, where she had her own prime time television show for a decade, before going to South Africa for book signings and a speaking tour. (She’s also squeezing in a safari in her spare time). Char, who famously told Kelly Ripa she was pregnant during an appearance on Live with Reigs & Kelly, tells me that the most rewarding aspect of her work is “connecting people with their loved ones in the spirit world” through private readings and small group sessions. Not surprisingly, she said the hardest thing is working with someone who has lost a child.

: L to R: Corinda Carfora, Char Margolis, Diane Clehane and Dr. Robi Ludwig

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David Hockney, Lawrence O’Donnell And The Scandal-Scarred Manhattanite

Diane Clehane — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:45:45 +0000

— DIANE CLEHANE

When I arrived at Michael’s today and found myself engulfed in a sea of suits, I chalked up the relatively quiet dining room to the usual January doldrums. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the reason things seemed a bit quieter than usual was that there were more than a few folks present who preferred to fly a bit under the radar considering what they might be talking about. (Just a thought: This isn’t the place if you’re looking to have a low-profile lunch). An acquisitive media mogul dining with one of the city’s most respected media columnists? A scandal plagued Manhattanite dishing with the Times’ financial columnist? The last thing on the minds of these guys was table hopping. I guess we’ll just have to stay tuned to see what they cooked up over lunch.

Here’s the rundown on today’s crowd:

1. Artist David Hockney holding court with a table full of ‘suits’

2. Allyn Magrino and pals

3. Abernathy & MacGregor’s Jim Abernathy and some pretty preppy looking folks.

4. Uber literary agent Esther Newberg and a bookish bloke we didn’t recognize

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NYT Managing Ed Learns From A 29-Year-Old

Dorian — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:49:11 +0000

The first part of the panel last night on “How Newspapers Can Survive, and Thrive, In the 21st Century” at Columbia’s journalism school was essentially a retread of Robert Kuttner‘s Columbia Journalism Review piece about how newspapers are not dead yet despite the digital onslaught. Then he and others on the panel (save, perhaps, WashingtonPost.com’s Jim Brady) showed their struggles with many things digital.

“I find it curious that nobody has yet done a serous Web daily,” Kuttner said, which made us wonder about what he considers Slate or Salon, or MSNBC.com or CNN.com or the Politico or …

New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson seemed positively astounded by the idea of learning from a 29-year-old in her newsroom. “I found myself last week in the improbable position of creating a politics wiki. I probably didn’t know a year ago what a wiki was.” And she acknowledged she didn’t get the whole Arthur Sulzberger “platform-agnostic” spiel at first, but now the “sense of excitement is palpable” over digital media there.

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