The Bancroft Family High Jinks: Ongoing!MEDIA
• The Bancrofts are so dysfunctional that they missed the deadline for choosing their representative to the new Dow Jones board. Murdoch then vetoed two family nominations before agreeing to Natalie Bancroft, a 27-year-old opera singer and journalism neophyte. Family member Crawford Hill concluded: “This entire, sad and pathetic final episode is a fiasco. No wonder we lost Dow Jones!!” [WSJ]
• With the Times hiring former sex writer Susan Dominus as the newest “Metro” columnist, will the section be heading toward the look of “Sunday Styles”? [NYO]
• Nora Ephron: Blogging makes us better writers. Hey Nora, can you call our boss? [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
in other news
Alpha Naomi Wolf Takes on Beta ‘Sunday Styles’We’d understand if you couldn’t get past the front page of yesterday’s “Sunday Styles” section —between the interminable, several-years- late, and frankly pretty specious exposé on the art and science of emoticons (there’s an emoticon for Ronald Reagan? Really? When would you use that?) and the fawning and also several-years-late profile of Perez Hilton, who’s even more objectionable than his namesake, it was tough going. But if you didn’t make it to page two, you missed this delightful correction:
An article last Sunday about politicians’ choice of clothing while campaigning referred incorrectly to the role of Naomi Wolf in Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. She was a consultant on women’s issue and youth outreach to young voters; she was not Mr. Gore’s image consultant and was not involved in his decision to wear earth-toned clothing.
Funny, you know what doesn’t have a correction? For starters, any number of Maureen Dowd columns over the years referring to Wolf as Gore’s earth-toner. And also this: the initial 1999 Time-magazine article uncovering Wolf’s role with the Gore campaign — in which one campaign official described her as a “wardrobe consultant.”
Campaign Chic: Not Too Cool, Never Ever Hot [NYT]