Portfolio.com: Mixed Media

'TNR' Obama Cover's Metaphor a Bit Too Apt

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:50:35 GMT

Revenge or coincidence? A few weeks ago, The New Republic cried foul after Time produced a concept cover that resembled one that TNR had published. (Time said its design was in homage to a current NBA ad campaign.)

Now it's TNR's turn to be accused of lacking originality. This week's paint-by-numbers cover, consisting of an unfinished watercolor rendering of Barack Obama, bears a distinct resemblance to a Time cover from 2004 featuring Howard Dean.

TNR editor Franklin Foer says the similarity was unintentional: "Nobody here has any recollection of seeing that cover. Maybe we should get a subscription to Time." Ouch!

He concedes, however, that TNR is guilty of ripping off a certain magazine: TNR. See the cover image below from August 2001. Quips Foer, "I guess there's a reason they call it paint by numbers."

Late Breaks: Anchors Losing It, more

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:21:34 GMT

-Watch Sam Donaldson, Chris Berman, Lesley Stahl and others lose their shit on air. [Gawker]

-Those retired generals that the Pentagon used as covert spokesmen? They were pretty damn effective in getting the word out. [Media Matters]

-TechCrunch has a syndication deal with the Washington Post, but Michael Arrington's journalism wouldn't cut it under the Post's ethics policy. [Wired]

-Cindy McCain won't be writing her memoirs anytime soon. [The Page]

Bonnie Fuller Hints at What's Next: 'Stay Tuned'

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:27:58 GMT

As she exits the stage at American Media, Bonnie Fuller already has her next act scripted. But what is it?

"I can't tell you much yet. I can only tell you that I can tell you more in a few weeks," she says. "Stay tuned."

Fuller, who's spent the past five years as AMI's editorial director, overseeing Star and the National Enquirer, plus a raft of other tabloids and health titles, won't even say whether she plans to stay in the celebrity news arena, or whether she plans to work for someone else or start her own business, just that there is "a new direction I wanted to pursue."

But she will discuss why she chose to leave now rather than in another year, when her three-year, $2 million-a-year contract is up. "It just felt like the right time," she says. "I felt like I had accomplished a great deal now, the mission that I was brought in to do. We've really done well."

Her recent achievements include overseeing redesigns of Men's Fitness, Fit Pregnancy and Country Weekly. There's also the ongoing tweaking of Star, the drastic makeover of which occupied most of her first few years at AMI. She calls Star's relaunch "an unqualified success," a characterization others in the ultra-competitive celebrity sector might dispute. Through mid-April, its newsstand sale average is about 695,000, down from 726,000 in the first half of 2007.

"Star is in great shape," she insists. "Most people didn't think Star could transition from a tabloid to a glossy, and it was a great challenge, but it worked. The magazine's having a very strong year and has actually had a very strong past couple years."

Fuller flatly denies speculation that her leaving is in any way involuntary. "This decision is 100 percent mine. David [Pecker, AMI's chairman] would tell you exactly the same thing."

She also says she doesn't think the mania for celebrity news that AMI hired her to exploit -- and whose blossoming can arguably be traced to her successful reimagination of Us Weekly -- is anywhere near burning out.

"What's been really exciting about the celebrity news space is how it's grown into all news. We started with first one magazine, then it expanded to six magazines, then it expanded into TV news, and then into regular newscasts headlining with celebrity news. The space has never been hotter.

"What I think's interesting is how celebrity news has become totally mainstream news. All of America wants to hear about celebrity news, and not just in entertainment magazines, but they want to see it on their six o'clock newscast, and then again at 10 and 11."

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Photo by AP

Bonnie Fuller Steps Down at AMI

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:34:13 GMT

Bonnie Fuller, whose newsstand instincts helped shape the celebrity weekly category, is stepping down from her job as senior vice president and editorial director of American Media Inc., the company has announced. "I am proud of the significant achievements of American Media's celebrity and fitness brands over the past five years, and I am now ready for a new adventure," she said in a statement.

Though she still has a year left on her three-year, $2 million-a-year contract, Fuller, who joined AMI in July 2003, will move into a new role as a consultant as of tomorrow. She'll also remain on the masthead of Star as an editor-at-large.

It was largely Star that brought Fuller to AMI in the first place. Chairman David Pecker hired her to replicate her phenomenal success at Us Weekly, where she took a failing title and turned it into a newsstand hit in a matter of weeks. Fuller remade Star from a newsprint tabloid into a glossy, but never recaptured the magic touch she'd shown at Us.

BBC Confused About State of U.S. Magazine Market

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:42:22 GMT

Aren't eggheads supposed to be, you know, smart? So why do they keep launching new science magazines into a U.S. magazine market that's far from healthy? Do they know something we don't?

First it was Bonnier Corp. introducing Science Illustrated in December, and now the BBC is lining up a new science-and-history title, BBC Knowledge, to debut in August.

Never mind that ad spending is going down the tubes and the price of paper will leap by more than 25 percent this year. Andy Benham, the BBC's publishing director, says "the concept researched very favorably," possibly because we Yanks just can't get enough of seeing "color" and "humor" spelled with a "u": "While the content will feed American interests, the Britishness and BBC-ness of the magazine are seen as being key assets, offering consumers a fresh alternative to what is currently on the market," Benham says in a release.

BBC Knowledge will be a 100-page bimonthly with a cover price of $5.99. Sally Palmer, former deputy editor of Focus, will be its editor.

'WSJ' Editor Critiques 'NYT' Editorial Pages

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:27:38 GMT

Rupert Murdoch may see The New York Times as the primary competitive target for his revamped Wall Street Journal, but the Robert Pollock, the Journal's editorial features editor, says the Times isn't even in the same class.

"I'd say the Washington Post would be, in my opinion, our biggest competition in terms of quality," Pollock tells Reason.tv. "Certainly The New York Times has a great deal of influence, although they really run a different model from us in so many ways. They're much more columnist-driven."

Pollock also says the Journal's unsigned editorials put those of the Times to shame. "[W]hen you look at the unsigned editorials [in the Times], to be frank, I find them sort of hectoring in tone. They don't really do any reporting. The Journal has always prided itself on doing what we call the reported editorial. We break news in the unsigned editorials. We go get our own facts. We don't just take what the reporters are giving us."

Here's the video; the Times-Journal comparisons start at 8:18.

Idle Chatter: Is There a Way to Make Jay Stay?

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:53:34 GMT

-Now that Jimmy Fallon is taking over at Late Night and Conan O'Brien at Tonight, NBC may try to keep Jay Leno around by offering him a half-hour primetime show, but it's a long shot he'll take it. [NYP]

-Cablevision could strike a deal with the New York Post or Daily News to manage its printing and maybe some other operations. [NYT]

-Fortune is looking to reduce staff through buyouts and, possibly, layoffs. [WWD, Gawker]

-The buyout of Clear Channel appears set to go forward, with the banks that were balking at backing the deal reportedly amenable to a settlement. [Bloomberg]

-The Forward has named a new editor, Jane R. Eisner, who will be the first woman to edit the Jewish weekly. Jane, we're kvelling for you. [NYT]

-Remember that great profile of Chris Matthews in the Times magazine? Matthews refers to it as "that fucking article." [Portfolio]

Correction of the Day: Quoting the Security Guard

jbercovici — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:38:16 GMT

From today's New York Times:

An article on March 27 reported on a virus, infectious salmon anemia, or I.S.A., killing millions of salmon cultivated for export by Chile's salmon farming industry. It quoted an official at the port of Castro, Chile, describing bags of fish food stored at the facility by Marine Harvest, a Norwegian company, as containing antibiotics, pigments and hormones. The official, Adolfo Flores, identified himself as the port director. He in fact worked as a security guard, The Times learned subsequently. Had The Times been aware of his actual position at the time, it would not have cited him as an authority on the contents of the bags, which were labeled medicated food. The article also should have noted that Marine Harvest and SalmonChile, an industry association, deny that they use hormones or that the pigments they use pose any risk to consumers.

Update, 2:23 p.m.: It gets better: Craig Silverman points out that the reporter who wrote the salmon story, Alexei Barrionuevo, has been previously accused of plagiarism. Jacinto Blair, anyone?

Late Breaks: Someone's Getting Fired Over This

jbercovici — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:29:47 GMT

-Hillary Clinton's campaign needed some dummy text for an ad. It chose...an article on Troopergate? Now that is self-destructing. [DU]

-Sorry, boss: The Los Angeles Times advised its readers to vote against Proposition 98, an eminent-domain measure, even though its passage could net owner Sam Zell $15 million. [LAT]

-At Penthouse Media, Christian dating and hardcore porn go hand-in-hand. [Newsweek]

-Did Dove airbrush its "Real Beauty" women or not? The controversy rages on. Or continues, anyway. [Ad Age]

Norm Pearlstine Exits Carlyle, Joins Bloomberg

jbercovici — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:09:04 GMT

Norm Pearlstine is getting back in the news game. The former Time Inc. editor in chief and longtime Wall Street Journal hand has signed on with Bloomberg as chief content officer, in which capacity he'll "seek growth opportunities for its television, radio, magazine and online products and to make the most of the existing Bloomberg News operations."

Since leaving Time Inc. in 2006, Pearlstine has been working as a senior advisor for telecom and media at the Carlyle Group. He's also published a book, Off The Record, about his experience steering the company through the legal swamp created by the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

His move re-pairs Pearlstine with Matt Winkler, Bloomberg's editor in chief, a former Journal colleague. According to the announcement, the two began talking about Pearlstine joining Bloomberg when Pearlstine presented Winkler with an Emmy last December.

Update: Dealbook sees Pearlstine's jump as fallout from the credit crunch, which has made the kind of deals Carlyle hired him to engineer scarce. "In fact, Mr. Pearlstine's hiring -- and Monday's talk of 'growth opportunities' -- might signal that Bloomberg LP is more apt to be a buyer than a seller these days." Oh, but whatever might Bloomberg buy?