Anyone who has been following the Daily News‘ coverage of Jared Paul Stern and the Paid $ix scandal knows that William Sherman has taken the story more or less under his wing.
The coverage of Stern has been less than friendly, but what do we expect from the rival newspaper? Well, we like to act as a platform for discussion (aka bitch fights) as often as possible … so when JPS sent us this email, well, we felt it was our gossipy duty to share it with our readers. Oh, and there’s some sleuthy news in there, too.
Apparently this William Sherman guy has some personal issues with this story …. A former Post editor just reminded me that Sherman used to work with us at the Post like 8 years ago … used to sit near Dunleavy, just around the corner from Page Six … he asked me: “Do you remember how he used to emulate your attire? He’d say stuff like. ‘the guy’s got good taste in shoes’ …. And how he tried to act like he was a bit of a dandy himself at the Post, always grousing about having won the pulitzer but getting no respect? Always whining about how he was ‘underappreciated’ and ‘underpaid’ for his ‘genius’?”
I don’t really remember him, but apparently he has a “red face and buggy blue eyes, like a drunken Elmer Fudd sans the hat” and used to brag about going to the Hamptons and stuff.
Used to work at the Post? Looks like Elmer Fudd? Brags about going to the Hamptons? Sounds like a News staffer to us.
But emulating Stern’s attire? We almost believe it. If only because by not including that information, Stern would have had a much better plug for his clothing line.
The New York Times is in panic mode. Courtesy those snooping tabloids, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and the fam are getting crap for the way they’re running the Grey Lady, thanks to the convenient power system currrently in place where the publicly traded paper is still run like a family-owned operation. What to do when you’re getting unwanted flack? Hire a PR crisis team, natch. They approached Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher — but unfortunately, Morgan Stanley (the leader in the fight for reorganization) already has ‘em on retainer.
Sagging stock price, dipping circulation, accustations over unwarranted increases in executive compenstation. If this gets any sexier, we just might find reason to ignore the Post’s Paid $ix scandal.
Which, we should note, sounds like what the Post would prefer. With the Times going light on Ron Burkle, it’s only natural for the Post-Its to launch an attack on West 43rd Street.
TIMES IN CRISIS [Janet Whitman, NYP]
Maybe it’s because we’re not private investigators, investigatory journalists, had to take Newswriting 201 twice, and don’t qualify as any Nancy Drew Hardy Boy team, but we’re having a little trouble connecting this whole Anthony Pellicano/New York Times/FBI+DOJ investigation wiretap leak. So won’t you walk through it with us?
• First, there is the Ron Burkle–Alison Hope Weiner connection. It was just a couple of weeks ago she helped spearhead (along with Campbell Robertson, et al.) the Times‘ investigation into Jared Paul Stern’s Paid $ix scandal. Did Burkle leak her that info? [NYT]
• And Weiner, along with David Halbfinger, did a majority of the reporting on the “secret” e-mails between Jared Paul Stern and Burkle. (Another Burkle leak?) [NYT]
• Meanwhile, Michael Sitrick represents both Ron Burkle and ex-Disney chief Mike Ovitz (who are both involved in the same Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case). [LA Observerd, LA Weekly]
• Adding to the mix, Pellicano was hired by Hollywood hot shot divorce attorney Dennis Wasser (whose clients include Tom Cruise), who is now repping Burkle in the supermarket magnate’s dirvorce. [Gawker]
• The NYT last week reported Pellicano tried to shake down Burkle in 2002 for $100k-$250k. If Burkle didn’t pay up, Pellicano threatened to carry out Ovitz’s investigation into Burkle — which, conflict of interest to the core, Pellicano was behind.
• Meanwhile, Burkle hired Pellicano to investigate Ovitz, at least according to Ovitz. That side plot was reported, of course, by none other than the NYT’s David Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner. [NYT]
Don’t know about you, but we could really use a drink .. not to mention some sunglasses and a trenchcoat. We’re not claiming anything just yet, but it sounds a little convenient that the Times‘ Weiner had access to Burkle’s stealth dealings … nearly all of which somehow land Burkle out on top.
We think some of our readers might be fedora wearing spies themselves. Today, one engaged gossip writes in to ask about some possible connections between media scandal mongers.
Did [Peter Davis] go to college at Bennington with Jared Paul Stern? Someone by that name did. And he graduated the same year Jared did (1994) and he studied literature and writing, just as Jared did.
Just asking…
While we get underway on our research, does anyone care to help out your gossip community? If you know where Christian Leone’s boyfriend went to college, let us know. Maybe there needs to be a journalistic red flag on Bennington’s lit department?
Earlier: The Sunday Styles Writer and His Boldface Boyfriend
Earlier: Page Six’s Jared Paul Stern stung by Daily News
Update: Yes the New York Times‘ Peter Davis went to Bennington with Jared Paul Stern. However, according to JPS, Davis graduated in 1991, not 1994 and left the year after Stern arrived. Stern “knew him slightly” but it’s doubtful they studied Chaucer (not to mention ethics) together.
Well, if the freelancers at the Post have been let go, at least one now notorious gossip is unawares. Though today’s Daily News story claims that Page Six contribs Fernando Gil, Lisa Marsh, Christopher Tennant and Jared Paul Stern are being “sacked,” staffers may not have actually received their memos yet.
“I haven’t heard anything from the Post,” Stern told us.
Even though Chris Wilson put a price on our head, we’re still nosing around looking for more details. Have you got some? Are you a (just announced) former Sixer? Tattle our way, baby: tattle@jossip.com.
Update: Fernando Gil tells us of his formal “firing” via the always classy out-of-office reply.
As you may have read in the Daily News, the Post has decided to hire a full time person from outside the column to be the 4th full timer along with Chris, Paula and Richard, which leaves myself and several other part-timers out of the picture. I’ll still be working on the Page Six magazine, due out in September, and other parts of the paper (hey – I hear “Tempo” digs itself some Latin American writers). If you do have anything that is Page Six worthy, and would like me to pass it along to one of my peoples at Page Six, by all means send it along. Now that my Fridays are free, I’m happy to report I can take up that 53-year-old rich nerd on his long standing lunch offer (Mahmoun’s falafel in ten, guy?) In any event, I look forward to seeing you all soon.
Update 2: Chris Tennant writes in to tell us he formally quit the Post two weeks ago, and the Newsies will be apologizing.
I stopped freelancing at The Post two weeks ago on my own volition to focus on other projects full-time. I’ve spoken to The Daily News and they’ve agreed to run a correction.
Earlier: Four Freelancers Axed from Page Six
Hearing four stringers at Page Six got the axe makes us sad. So we’re starting a new charity: Adopt A Sixer, wherein you make sure that even without the Page Six badge, they still get to eat, drink, and party on someone else’s dime all weekend. We’re taking Fernando Gil under our wing, which leaves three more in need of gossip stringer love.
• Speedo
• Altoids
• USA Network’s Show Us Your Character
• Cingular & One Tree Hill
• Magnolia Pictures’ Somersault
Help us make sure these pure souls never have to pay for a Ketel One martini ever again by advertising with us.
You know that old scenario where one guy ruins it for everyone? Well, this just in, courtesy (like you had to guess) of the Daily News: Jared Paul Stern ruined it for everyone.
Along with JPS, all of Page Six’s freelancers have been let go. The News is calling it a “housecleaning” and despite lack of comment from the competition, it’s needless to say this all goes back to the “scandal.”
Hints of a cleanup came last week when Post Editor in Chief Col Allan said in a published report: “We are going to tighten ship.”
Freelance reporters Fernando Gil, Lisa Marsh, Christopher Tennant and Jared Paul Stern are the byline staffers who are being sacked.
While these four contribs shared the “fourth chair” spot over at P6, behind Richard Johnson, Paula Froelich, and Chris Wilson, they also worked with Page Six The Magazine … which is still moving forth full speed ahead without its editor.
The fate of the crew is yet to be determined, but as for for Stern, we’re sure he can fall back on his fab clothing line, commission from Zink magazine, and contributors check from Nick Denton. Not to mention any other extraneous cash that may have exchanged hands.
Post cans four gossip scribes [William Sherman, New York Daily News]
Richard Johnson’s wedding may have been totally ruined by Jared Paul Stern and Ron Burkle … and Campbell Robertson … but thank Jesus, Moses, and Suri, not all is lost.
Page Six The Magazine will return to fill the void of glossy celebrity gossip that is obviously missing from all our lives. And, from the sound of things, a lack of JPS is not going to change much in the way of the Post’s/Page Six’s reporting policy.
Page Six reporters routinely cultivate relationships with publicists who feed them and other reporters items about celebrities spotted in the restaurants, hotels and nightclubs they represent.
Placing an ad in the Page Six magazine may be another way for advertisers, and the publicists they hire, to stay on friendly terms with The Post, said Robert S. Boynton, the director of the magazine program at New York University and the author of “The New New Journalism.”
“Put it this way: it’s a small price to pay for the possibility of getting favorable coverage,” Mr. Boynton said.
What was that delectable little Stern quote again? Something like “It’s a little like the Mafia. A friend of mine is a friend of yours.”
Oh, mafia schmafia.
Page Six, the Magazine, Is Returning (With an Edge, of Sorts [Julie Bosman, New York Times]
The Sun, Britain’s most gossip-y publication, printed a story last August that put Teri Hatcher in a van, having sex with some guy right outside of her house. And now the paper is pretty much saying that they made it up, it isn’t true, and that they’re really, really sorry.
The Sun now admits the article was “totally incorrect” and regrets “the embarrassment caused” to the Desperate Housewives star, reports the Associated Press.
Hatcher’s London-based legal firm, Schillings, said the Sun had agreed to pay undisclosed damages as well as Hatcher’s court costs. It also said the celebrity magazine Heat agreed to apologize for printing the same allegations in August.
See, that’s how gossip works on the other side of the ocean — the papers pay the people they write about. Not the other way around.
These days, Jared Paul Stern only has a few friends. You might’ve thought Nick Denton was one of ‘em, but Mr. Gawker knows a publicity pawn when he sees one. Then there’s “Snoodles,” (aka Ruth Gutman), who remains friendly with JPS only because she’s under marital contract to do so. But, at the very least, we thought he might have a friend in the blogosphere, with freejaredpaulstern.blogspot.com dedicating an entire free blog account to his cause. And then, that too, came crumbling down like a business plan based on polos emblazened with a skull and crossbones.
Free (um, we mean, FRY) Jared Paul Stern [Free JPS]
Earlier: Paid $ix: The Jared Paul Stern Movement Reaches Conde Nast, NYT & More!
Earlier: Paid $ix: The T-shirt and blog have arrived
Related: All Paid $ix coverage
• Mischa Barton wants out of The O.C. — and into leather and whips. [SF Gate]
• Laddy lit is back, yo! [NYT]
• Why do celebs choose baby names like Moses and Moxie CrimeFighter? Because they’re narcissistic egomaniacs, that’s why. [NYT]
• Kit Seelye didn’t completely slack off today: She’s on the trail of Daniel Pearl’s widow Mariane writing items for Glamour that might not be listicles. [NYT]
• We call it Paid $ix, others call it Burkle Watch. Dot com. [Burkle Watch]
• Which celeb baby matters more: TomKat’s or Brangelina’s? USA Today, and probably about 118 million Americans, want to know. [USA Today]
• Media Guy Simon Dumenco goes down the dark path we traversed last week: Jared Paul Stern’s Skull & Bones clothing line. [AdAge]
• ABC is getting pretty damn good at screwing over its affiliates. [B&C]
• With EIC Gregg Lagambina on the way out, Filter second-in-command Chris Martins has this to say to his staff: “Filter Magazine is hurting right now.” It nearly rivals the way Celebrity Living motivated its own troops. [FBNY]
• Reason No. 5421 we heart Details‘ Dan Peres: He doesn’t follow his own magazine’s fashion tips. [WWD]
• Learning from the mistakes of Cargo, Giant’s editor-in-chief Smokey Fontaine is going on a mad dash to redesign the mag. [WWD]
• When the Boston Globe’s Eileen McNamara found out she won the Pulitzer Prize, she was trying to finish cooking her kids spaghetti. [E&P]
• Celeb weeklies aren’t the only mags seeing circs disintegrate. Teen titles, as evidenced by Elle Girl’s shuttering, are suffering too. Yep, even Seventeen is on that list. [Mediaweek]
This week in New York magazine: A reminder that Julia Roberts is famous, Kurt Andersen gets too hopeful, and the public’s gullibility revealed.
• Julia Roberts in on Broadway. Cue unignored opportunity for a celeb cover story. [The Close-Up Is Her Voodoo]
• Kurt Andersen doesn’t need the blue Democrats or the red Republicans. He needs the purple party, which is just another way of saying “Jewgay.” [Introducing the Purple Party]
• Union Square serves as ground zero for querying the public on the Paid $ix scandal, where we learn some people get their gossip not only from Page Six, but on blogs too. [Just Asking …]
• When we’re handed a TV show on polygamy, courtesy HBO, the magazine must find our region’s own version. [Big Love on Staten Island]
• Alan Cumming gets through an interview without saying “sex.” [Killer Charm: Alan Cumming]
• News Corp. brass held an intervention with Rupert Murdoch over the Jared Paul Stern scandal, where it was revealed the two might, uhm, be neighbors. [Rupe & Ron????????s Neighborhood]
• Mandy Moore’s new movie is ridiculous, and here’s a few hundred words to explain why. [Self-Parody]
From this week’s New Yorker:
Tongues are wagging that va-va-voom vixen Angelina Jolie????????s new baby looks remarkably like Page Six????????s own Jared Paul Stern. Could it be that the lovelier half of Brangelina traded some power canoodling for honorable mentions? (Full disclosure: Yes.)
When both Brangelina and Jared Paul Stern hit The New Yorker, you know there’s someone David Remnick ought to oust, Jack Kliger style.
THE NEW PAGE SIX [Steve, Martin New Yorker]
The Paid $ix scandal, we’ve surmised, is much more fun when played out in pictures and graph paper.
So what if you can’t pronounce Ron Burkle’s supermarket conglomerate Yucaipa. You’ve still been thumbing your way through the Daily News, Post (sorta), L.A. Times, and, once again today, the New York Times. David Carr takes his requisite stab at the gossip industry, playing phone tag with all the regulars – Ian Spiegelman, Kurt Andersen, David Pecker, and gossip item emeritus Ed Koch – and reveals the industry shattering news that if your hotel wants to curry good favor from the Sixers, you let their reporters drown in Veuve.
But perhaps a Monday Times article, no matter how beautifully illustrated, wasn’t enough for you. Then it’s worth your while to thumb through Gawker’s weekend archives, fluffed with the most partisan coverage from Nick Denton’s camp since Jessica Coen took on Chris Wilson. While Stern utilized the blog’s empty restriction on column inches to muster items more nepotistic than ever we could think up to create an embonpoint of ego even Burkle would envy, the real story is in the not so subtle tone of Gawker’s editorial crew, suspiciously lacking any hope of authenticity. Said Gawker maestro Jesse Oxfeld to Fishbowl NY:
Giving Jared a gratuitous platform to defend himself is a small price to pay for having someone on duty to cover all the important media news that’s sure to break over Easter weekend.
And just when we thought Denton was keeping his feet dry in the pool of transparent attempts at publicity.
The Hard Edge of a Fluff Machine [David Carr, NYT]
• Our Paid $ix coverage goes above and beyond anything that anyone would care to know, including a whole bunch of tees, flyers, swag, depressing honeymoons, drunken nights with Choire Sicha, and still L.A. could care less.
• Bonnie Fuller starts up her promotion for The Joys of Much Too Much, amidst rumors of losing her job (completely false) and even comments on the wonderful world of Jared Paul Stern. Oh, and did we mention the Egyptians?
• Out has a new EIC, Aaron Hicklin, who assures us that his magazine will be gay. No, really gay.
• Gwyneth Paltrow has baby Moses, Angelina Jolie will have a baby more famous than Jesus, Maggie Gyllenhaal is just plain pregnant, and somehow Britney Spears manages to hold on to her concussed baby.
• The New York Times does the unthinkable and pulls its Boldface column, leaving us curled up and crying at the kitchen table over its last run.
• Matt Lauer ups his salary closer to that of Katie Couric’s and above Meredith Vieira’s, or is it the other way around? It’s so easy to confuse the two.
• New Yorker fashion director Michael Roberts does the Conde Nast shuffle, heading over to Graydon Carterville. [WWD]
• Jim Kelly throws another party at his Upper West Side home, and the media hounds show up. [NYP]
• Hachette chief Jack Kliger is looking to cut payroll costs by five percent — and hoped to keep staff in the dark till their pink slips arrived. [NYP]
• The real tragedy in the Paid $ix scandal: Jared Paul Stern wears monocles. [LAT]
• Meanwhile, we’re not the only ones who don’t expect the fallout to change gossip journalism because of P$. [PR Week]
• While we thought Dave Chappelle was having a mental breakdown, it turns out that all he wanted to do was to trash white people a little more than usual. But damn those caucasian bosses, they wouldn’t have any of it. [AP]
• Nerve goes to the gossip columnists for sex advice and, somehow, we were included. [Nerve]
• Kate White spends 10 hours a month perfecting the craft of the perfect Cosmopolitan cover line. With two million newsstand sales, it’s 10 hours well spent. [Forbes]
• More Paid $ix fallout: News Corp. is denying, on Richard Johnson’s behalf, deceased landlord-slash-media powerplayer Lou Rudin ever gave the Page Six editor a rent-controlled Upper West Side flat, though former NYTer Blake Fleetwood stands by the story. [Daily Politics]
• Meanwhile, Jared Paul Stern will answer Gawker’s questions, but not ours. It’s nice to know he’s still got kind words for Page Six, the institution. [Gawker]
• Egads! Sometimes the Washington Post news desk and editorial board don’t match up. [Washington City Paper]
• Meanwhile, President Bush wants WaPo to apologize for its “reckless reporting” regarding White House intelligence. [E&P]
• Leaks don’t only come from the White House; they arrive from the taping of Will & Grace’s series finale, too. (Spoiler warning.) [MNH]
• The seeds for the demise of Boldface Names were planted months ago when Bill Keller’s wife Emma Gilbey was overheard spanking the un-gossip column. [WWD]
• New Out editor Aaron Hicklin promises that his magazine will, once and for all, be gay. [P6]
• At least Radar had the decency to credit its cover photo inspiration. Not so for Vanity Fair. [WWD]
• Giant, in the wake of its gigantic (groan) overhaul, has hired an A-team of vets to help out the mag. Vibe founding editor Scott Poulson-Bryant leads the charge of Maxim wannabes. [FBNY]
• Yet another thing about freedom that terrorists hate: Hugh Hefner. [Reuters]
• Ladies and gentleman the long and oftentimes, sad story of a Mr. Ron Burkle. [Daily Transom]