At Last, the Candidates Find Their Senses of HumorOn ‘Letterman’ and at last night’s Alfred E. Smith dinner, the candidates get some laughs — and not the nasty, ‘I hate you’ type of laughs they earned during the debates.
Why Katie Couric Will Do a Great Job Interviewing Sarah PalinIt’s more than just multiplying by two the sexy librarian fantasy that has white men everywhere riveted by Sarah Palin. It’s that Couric is the right choice for an interview that will finally teach us something about the enigmatic Alaska governor.
ByChris Rovzar
company town
Why Do Weather Reporters Need to Stand IN a Hurricane to Report on It?Do we really need Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, and Brian Williams in Louisiana when they could cover the hurricane and the RNC at the same time? Plus, all your daily finance, real estate, law, and media news.
Mike and the Mad Dog Break Up at LastAfter months of rumors, Chris Russo is off the popular sports-radio show — that and more, in of our daily industry roundup.
company town
Circulation Report: ‘Vogue’ Down, ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ UpPlus, Katie Couric takes control of CBS News’ political coverage, hotels keep cropping up in Gowanus, and KKR’s IPO doesn’t go as well as planned, all in our daily industry report.
Katie Couric: ‘America Is Giving Me the Hillary Clinton Treatment’The CBS anchor identifies with the former presidential candidate. Plus, why it’s not looking good for Wall Street bonuses, or the doorman who won $5 million on a scratch ticket a couple of months ago, and more, in our daily rundown of New York media, finance, real-estate, and law news.
The Freedom Tower Has an Empty Dance CardThe Port Authority is offering it up for sale, according to the ‘Post.’ That, and more city news in our daily industry roundup.
Lindsay Lohan Is Getting a New Parent Figure!He’s getting married, and so, too, might John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston, if he continues to not dance with other ladies at clubs. Read all about it in our daily gossip roundup.
Taxi TV: Turn It Up or Turn It Off?In which we ask: Are you one of those people who idly watches the new in-cab programming? Or do you angrily poke at the screen until it mercifully blacks out?
Jack Welch Has Some Letting Go to DoThe former GE chief won’t shut up about his old job, Andrew Cuomo goes on a subpoena rampage, Katie Couric may have a book in her, and a homeless man blunders on to some very special blueprints in our daily roundup of news from the world of finance, law, media, and real estate.
Alex P. Keaton May Have Made a Sex TapeWeird wiretapper Anthony Pellicano says he knows what Michael J. Fox did back in 1990. Plus, Ashlee Simpson pregnancy rumors persist, Adrian Grenier gets a girlfriend, and more in our daily squeeze of the juice from New York gossip columns.
in other news
The Couric Countdown Has Already BegunAs we learn more about the meetings and discussions behind yesterday’s report that Couric may leave CBS in 2009, it seems like she’s already planning life after the evening news.
in other news
Katie Couric’s Last StandReports are now saying she won’t last through next year. But what will she do next? We have an idea!
company town
Katie Couric and Sean McManus: Chipper at CBS in Spite of It AllMore troubles for Sam Zell, Heather Mills is coming to town, and half of Bear Stearns employees are facing the ax. Click through to read the rest of our news roundup from the fields of media, law, finance and real estate.
gossipmonger
Graydon Goes on the Model DietAlso, Julia Roberts makes out at the Waverly Inn, Chuck from the Greatest Show of Our Time gets crunk, and Katie Couric is a plagiarist — all in today’s roundup of the dish from the city’s gossip columns.
gossipmonger
Jay-Z and Mary J Blige Get Down to Their Own MusicHova and Mary J stop in at 1Oak, Julia Louis-Dreyfus talks trash, and J.Lo starves herself back to normal in our daily roundup of the best bits in New York’s gossip columns.
company town
Katie Couric Goes There With Larry KingThe CBS anchor unleashes her inner adolescent boy, JPMorgan wins again, and a big-time lawyer heads to the pokey in our daily roundup of news from the fields of media, finance, and law.
company town
JPMorgan Gearing Up to Move Into Bear’s Sweet HQFINANCE
• JPMorgan Chase will probably move its investment-banking unit to Bear Stearns’ smokin’-hot headquarters on Madison Avenue. The building is valued at $1.2 billion, which is just one-fourth of quadruple the price JPMorgan paid for the firm itself. [NYP]
• JPMorgan Chase’s valuation of Bear Stearns shows that financial institutions are significantly overvalued. Speaking of which, many employees had their life savings wiped out. [NYP, WSJ]
• Meanwhile Goldman Sachs’ earnings are down but beat analysts’ expectations. [DealBook/NYT]
in other news
CBS Gives Katie Couric Another Thing Not to Smile AboutIf Katie Couric had a real Facebook page, one that just her friends could see, for the past couple of years you could just imagine that it would have this constant status update: “Katie Couric is disappointed.” After her ratings at CBS News slumped and the network became less supportive of her, you might imagine that she’s sort of just generally a little disillusioned all the time. So you almost forget that there might be specific things that she’s disappointed about. Like presidential primary debates, for example. Today, we learn from the Observer that she wanted to host one (as anchors tend to do — Anderson Cooper alone moderated, like, fifteen), but for various reasons a CBS debate never materialized.
company town
Katie Couric Must Really Hate GoldfishMEDIA
• Katie Couric’s YouTube channel provides real service journalism: While chitchatting with Joe Biden, the CBS anchor recommends viewers tune into her favorite viral video — the one where a little girl watches her goldfish get flushed down the toilet. [HuffPo]
• The New York Times op-ed columnists can’t endorse political candidates. This “isn’t a problem” for Maureen Dowd because she doesn’t “do a partisan column.” [NYO]
• Vegas, take note: Big Apple broadsheets are front-runners in the race for the Pulitzers. [E&P]
company town
Meet Microsoft’s ‘Gatekeeper of Funding’FINANCE
• Now that Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid, it’s up to Microsoft’s self-described “gatekeeper of funding” Christopher P. Liddell to plot the company’s next chess move. [DealBook/NYT]
• Fearful that 90 percent of TheStreet.com’s franchise revolves around Jim Cramer, today the finance-driven Website launched Mainstreet.com, which will revolve around celebrities and personal finance. You think Britney’s psychological drama is intense? Wait until you hear about her bond portfolio. [NYP]
• France’s rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel might have had an accomplice. How did police find out? By sifting through 2,000 pages of instant-message traffic. Bet that was a gr8 time. [NYT]
in other news
Katie Couric Thinks Cindy McCain Looks Like ‘a Husky’Harry Shearer has another funny outtake clip of Katie Couric, this time broadcasting from New Hampshire during the primary. Greatest lines include “Giuliani’s dead. I mean, you know what I mean,” “Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” “[Cindy McCain] looks like a husky!” and “I don’t know much about Huckabee.” Click above to view — it’s sort of boring and riveting at the same time. But it raises the question: How does Harry Shearer keep posting these things without backlash from CBS News and Couric herself? Unless Katie secretly likes this stuff slipping out
Katie Couric 1 [My Damn Channel]
Earlier: Katie Couric: ‘This Tart is Ready to Go’
company town
Hey, HR! Lauren Conrad Needs a New Magazine ‘Job’FASHION
• Stella McCartney just had baby number three: Beckett Robert Lee Willis. [WWD]
• Mulberry’s new shoe line is set to debut on Valentine’s Day. [British Vogue]
• The Hills girls will no longer “work” at Teen Vogue. [WWD]
in other news
Chinese Reporter Visits Michael’s, Unveils ‘Courstrong’?
The Wall Street Journal’s Li Yuan, who writes Beautiful Country, a column that “looks at American business life and business culture from a native Chinese perspective,” according to the Journal, had lunch at Michael’s recently and wrote about it in a column on the “power lunch,” which appeared on the Website yesterday along with an amazing accompanying video (above). “Over the past 18 years, a glamorous daily soap opera has unfolded here,” Yuan wrote of the restaurant. “Who’s eating there, with whom and what they might be discussing are hot gossips for tabloids and blogs.” During her expedition to Michael’s, Yuan made an accidental but important discovery: She spotted Katie Couric having lunch with Lance Armstrong! Sure, the meeting could have been business-related. But maybe, just maybe, it was something more. After all, Katie is totally Lance’s type. Even if she’s not 18, she’s blonde and quirky and has piles of her own money. And Lance’s dedication to his Livestrong Foundation must appeal to Katie, who lost her husband to cancer in 1998 and has been a huge cancer-awareness advocate since. Of course, the lunch could also have been a ploy to get back at Tory Burch for dating Katie’s ex, Tom Werner. Hot gossips, indeed!
gossipmonger
The Nine Media Lives of Tina BrownTina Brown signed a deal to develop story ideas and shows for HBO. Donny Deutsch celebrated his 50th-birthday party at the Jazz at Lincoln Center with lobster tail and foie gras. Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman are having trouble yachting around on their Caribbean honeymoon because there’s a massive fuel strike on St. Barts. (Weinstein’s friends also sent him a lot of video congratulations on the day of his wedding.) Lydia Hearst is mad that her name is being attached to Darfur awareness events without her permission. Gay activist Allen Roskoff keeps George Bush toilet paper at his Jane Street apartment.
in other news
Alessandra Stanley Misses Katie Couric’s Clickety HeelsThe Times has had some great moments in cattiness: Caryn James weird takedown of Angelina Jolie (“While visiting orphans in Africa; did she think viewers wouldn’t spot her cat’s-eye makeup and heavily glossed lips?”); Maureen Dowd’s Hillzilla column; in fact most of Maureen Dowd’s columns about women. But Alessandra Stanley’s 2005 categorization of Katie Couric’s Today show persona as a “downright scary” is one of the greats. “America’s girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall,” Stanley wrote. “At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights.” But like a woman that loves a man even though he treats her bad, two years on, Stanley is still missing the frisson, the danger, the excitement brought by La Couric. “Changes on Today have smoothed out some of the more interesting quirks,” she writes in her column about the pastel dullness of lady-friendly TV shows like Today and The View. “Ms. Vieira, who replaced Katie Couric more than a year ago, is pleasant but bland, and not forceful enough to dim the ascendance of Ms. Curry, who was passed over for the top co-host job but seems determined to play the role anyway.” Aha! We think we see the healing beginning. Could Anne Curry be the television dominatrix Alessandra needs to hurt her so good?
Morning TV Veers From News to Frills [NYT]
Previously: ‘Today’ Seeks Yesterday’s Glory [NYT]
early and often
Today in Giuliani: Lies, Damn Lies, and StatisticsYesterday, Giuliani waved off the growing perception that, during the heady early days of his courtship with Judith Nathan, he misused taxpayer dollars by billing treks to Southampton to obscure city agencies. “This story is five years old,” he told Katie Couric last night. “It’s a typical political hit job.” At the least, Mitt Romney, who has been criticizing Giuliani’s fiscal policies, is chuckling. Since Politico broke the story on Wednesday, Rudes has been shamed by former mayors David Dinkins and Ed Koch as well as current mayor Mike Bloomberg: (“We use credit cards, but not for that,” Bloomberg’s spokesman said.) Said comments caused Giuliani’s deputy mayor Joe Lhota to sheepishly retract an earlier statement that this kind of accounting has “gone on for years,” and predated his boss. “I should only talk about what I know about,” he said. Some have come to Giuliani’s defense, like Fran Reiter, his former deputy mayor who now works for Hillary Clinton, who said that while Rudes’s bookkeeping methods were wonky, his expenses were ultimately legit. “The only political issue is any potential embarrassment because he was going out to Long Island to meet with Judith.” Well, yeah. Today, the Times piles on with a story about how the statistics Rudes uses in campaign speeches are usually “incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong.” Such as one he used in Wednesday’s Republican debate: “Under me, spending went down by 7 percent.” (An aide told the Times what he meant to say was that he had proposed a 7 percent reduction in per-capita spending.) They also weigh in on the scandal, running a picture of the motel in which Rudy’s security stayed while presumably waiting for the boss to emerge from his cocoon of SeniorSex and concluding with an excellent quote from voice of truth and reason Bernie Kerik:
“There would be no need for anyone to conceal his detail’s travel expenses,” said Mr. Kerik, who was indicted earlier this month on unrelated federal tax fraud and corruption charges. “And I think it’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest that the mayor or his staff attempted to do so.”
Well, there you go. If Kerik says everything Rudy does is above the board, it must be, right?
Earlier: Giuliani May Have Billed Summer Weekend Flings to Taxpayers
early and often
Hillary on ‘CBS Evening News’: Motherly, TerrifyingIf you were watching CBS News last night (and we know that’s not all of you), you saw Hillary Clinton in her exclusive interview with Katie Couric. Hill had to get it out of the way before the CBS writers struck; otherwise she’d have to face the same fate that John Edwards and Michelle Obama did with The View (i.e. pulling out at the last minute and getting bitter estrogen whiplash for the rest of the race). For the interview, she decided to wear a smart black suit with turquoise earrings and a matching necklace. Mrs. Clinton looked good, we thought. And as the questions went on, we began to think that she was warm, smart, and almost motherly. Then the interview took an ugly turn.
Couric: [Warmly, almost pityingly] If it’s not you, how disappointed will you be?
Clinton: [Matter-of-factly] Well, it will be me. But of course, I’m ready to support the Democratic nominee, whoever it is.
Couric: [Still warm, definitely pitying now] I know that you’re confident it’s going to be you, but there is the possibility it won’t be and clearly you have considered that possibility.
Clinton: [With a voice like a crackling glacier] No, I haven’t.
The Huffington Post has the clip. It’s too bad. We understand the need for her to maintain her sense of inevitability in the primary, but it seemed a little demented. We love Hillary, and she was really personable until that moment, after which she suddenly turned into the kind of thing we would imagine during sex in order to delay orgasm.
Couric To Clinton: Has She Considered Not Getting The Nomination? “No, I Haven’t.” [HuffPo]
