Ray Richmond, a longtime Hollywood Reporter reporter, devoted his weekly column to Merv Griffin, who died last week after a battle with prostate cancer, noting that the Hollywood legend was a homosexuall — an open secret in the industry.
Then, as film critic David Ehrenstein explains on the Huffington Post, all hell broke loose:
Merv’s people called the Reporter, making all manner of threats and the piece was yanked hours after it went up. It was also yanked from Ray’s Blog. Then Ray called me. He was fearful for his job. So I called Michelangelo Signorile’s SIRIUS OUT Q radio show to inform Mike of this development. He was just talking about Ray’s piece at the time. And in no time at all outraged listeners were deluging the Hollywood Reporter switchboard with demands that the piece be put back up. And in a few hours it was — with a statement of support for Ray to boot.
Full story is here.
An update on the undulating Business 2.0 saga:
A number of Business 2.0 staffers have already found other employment and are hoping to collect severance packages before moving on, says the well-placed source. “But I don’t think anyone is pessimistic,” the source says. “I think people just want to be done with it. If it ends up being closed down everyone has pretty much gotten a nice soft landing, and if it’s going to be sold … they would love to hear the terms and if anyone here is going to be wanted by the new owner.”
Meanwhile, Gawker Media’s Valleywag reports that the doom and gloom is literally written on Business 2.0’s face:
A magazine logo near the entrance has been altered to read “Fortune 2.0.”
More here …
Budget season is on the horizon and — surprise — magazine executives are pouring their money into online. Like, for instance, Mansueto Ventures:
Mansueto Ventures, publisher of Fast Company and Inc. magazines, is planning to initiate a three-year plan to put more than $10 million incremental investment into its digital operation. “For 2008, we will increase spending across the board by an average of about 10 percent, getting the money from increased revenue,” Mansueto Ventures CEO John Koten says. “We are investing disproportionately in online, however—not just in our online business as a media property but in our online business as a source of data and information and as a social-networking platform.”
More here …
Keira Knightley, Pirates of the Caribbean star and frequent tabloid fodder, via People:
OK, I’m on the cover of a magazine but somebody else does the hair, and the makeup, and airbrushes the f— out of me – it’s not me, it’s something other people have created. It frightens me when kids go, ‘I want to be famous.’ Why? Because you can get into a restaurant? You know what? If you book [a table], you can get into a restaurant! ‘I want to be rich and famous.’ Go and work on the stock market.
That People published Knightley’s anti-airbrush rant is fitting, because the magazine never manipulates its images. Ever. Ever.
Just ask Kelly Clarkson: Keep reading →
Despite the firestorm of publicity surrounding the Michael Vick dogfighting case — and an ongoing two-year battle with the Human Society — online retailer Amazon.com refuses to stop carrying animal fighting magazines.
The Humane Society filed suit against Amazon in February to stop carrying at least a pair of magazines – The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock — that promote cruelty to animals. (The suit names and a pair of dogfighting DVDs carried by Amazon, though an Amazon search reveals the DVDs no longer appear on the site.)In a letter to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the Humane Society outlined its case:
If there is any doubt that The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock exist to promote and further illegal animal fighting, one need only glance through their pages to find hundreds of advertisements each month for cockfighting knives, cockfighting pits and the so-called “gamest cocks alive.”
“Although Amazon.com’s sales of these cockfighting magazines is, no doubt, ethically repugnant, the lawsuit is based on purely legal grounds,” Ariana Huemer writes on the Human Society’s Web site. “The federal Animal Welfare Act expressly and specifically prohibits use of the U.S. mail service for ‘promoting’ or ‘in any other manner furthering’ animal fighting … Every time Amazon.com sells a subscription to The Feathered Warrior or The Gamecock, it blatantly violates federal law.”
The animal rights group has been battling Amazon case since 2005. Ethan Eddy, lead counsel for the Humane Society, says that the while the group is not opposed to a settlement, nothing is imminent.
Amazon refuses to shy away from the suit, arguing that the magazines are protected under the First Amendment: Keep reading →
Less than a year after its most recent relaunch, Success magazine has folded for the third time in its more than 100-year history. VideoPlus, a Dallas-based marketing and communications company, announced today that it has acquired the rights to the magazine’s title, trademarks and logos:
Success employees learned of the acquisition in late July when the magazine’s owners closed its New York office. “I was informed by the investors that they sold the marks to VideoPlus on July 23 on an unscheduled trip by the owners to our office in New York,” Success publisher Joseph Guerriero tells Folio: Alert. “We had a total of 16 full-time employees and four part-timers. All were let go except for yours truly.”
More here …
As part of its continuing its efforts to educate the predominantly white magazine industry on diversity, the Magazine Publishers of America, has launched a series of profiles of magazine executives of color as a microsite. First up on the so-called “Masthead Mosaic” is Leonard Burnett of Vibe Media Group: “The reality is that America is browning. Whether it’s magazines, networks, or radio, we must learn how to entertain, value and speak to this new culture that is more diverse. And we require diverse people to do that.”
Noted: As part of its philanthropic efforts, Variety magazine has assembled a youth advisory board — chaired by NBC Entertainment president Ben Silverman — of more than 60 actors (including Dakota Fanning, Emma Roberts, Hilary and Haylie Duff) for the a non-profit initiative encouraging up and coming to become involved with humanitarian and philanthropic efforts. “This is Variety’s first-ever initiative to reach out to Hollywood’s next generation,” says Variety VP/associate publisher Brian Gott, noting the demographic “is also our reader.”
The following letter appeared in the New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist column on Sunday:
A journalism major at college, I was delighted to land an internship at a national magazine. My editor asked me to post comments on one of the magazine’s online blogs, being sure not to mention my working for the magazine but to write in a style that suggests I’m a reader. That felt dirty to me. Advice? — Nick McCarvel, Seattle
Randy Cohen’s ethical advice: “Pray to the ghost of Walter Cronkite that your editor meant this as an integrity test for the new guy. … Your ethical instincts are excellent: it is wrong to deceive the readers, even implicitly, and that’s what your editor asked you to do.”
A quick Google search revealed that McCarvel worked at Tennis magazine, and the Times article has since been updated: The unnamed editor left the magazine, “apparently for unrelated reasons.”
McCarvel, it’s worth noting, has his own tennis blog.
