Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy.
Celebrity Twittering seems to be at an all-time high, which means it's time to brace for the inevitable comedown, when the fickle famous give up microblogging forever. Oprah Winfrey, ever the trend setter, is leading the charge.
Hobo broadsheet the New York Times, last seen telling its reporters that text messages are too expensive, has found another way to save precious nickels: getting freelancers to pay their own reporting expenses. With virtual panhandling!
A successful PR pitch starts with a subject line that grabs the eye. Congratulations to Eric Schwartz, who pitched us a spa review story with the subject line above. Aspiring writers, take note. Here's a taste of the story's magic:
The Times' Brian Stelter notes today that thanks to television networks placing shows on the internet, more people are watching video on the web for longer periods of time, leading to an explosion of original content created outside of Hollywood.
The Sony Pictures executive who pulled the plug on Moneyball says that Steven Soderbergh changed the original script because he didn't want anything in the movie that didn't actually happen. So Billy Beane isn't a sweaty, foul-mouthed, Hooters...
U.S. troops have completed their withdrawal from major Iraqi cities, which is both awesome and terrifying. Iraqis are both celebrating and hiding in their basements, and the day has been marked by eerie calm and violence. Any questions?
Was former Village Voice and New York Press editor David Blum—whose tour through New York's dying weeklies has, fairly or unfairly, been regarded as a kiss of death—behind the bright idea of firing 10 New York Observer staffers?
The State somehow got hold of emails between South Carolina's cheating governor and his Argentine mistress. It turns out Mark Sanford was quite the sweet-talker, what with his whispers about diesel engines, and swamps.
We never imagined Josh Quittner would burn a previous Valleywag editor in effigy, but after seeing the video he's posted on Time.com, we wonder if we might need a restraining order.
New York, 6:01 AM
Fri Jul 10
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