Advertising And Editorial Blur At The Times [Do Not Want]

Quick: Which one of these two boxes is an ad, and which is official Times Web content? Both ran in a column down the right side of an nytimes.com business news article, both have headlines in sans-serif font, both use the exact same link colors. It turns out the one with the big corporate logo (on the right) is actually the editorial content, while the one designed to look like a trustworthy Times table of contents is actually an ad, taking the reader to awful, faux-objective content like this. Congratulations, Times. I read a lot of fairly scuzzy media websites in the course of a day, and I've never been tricked quite this completely. Or as Ashton Kutcher likes to call it, "Link'd."

Your Next President: "I have a son I haven't seen nor paid child support for in 17 years." [From The Mailbag]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I've switched to a new write-in candidate for president after receiving the following very important email on our tips line! I admire Leonard F. Gundy's decision to leave the Army "Signal Core" in 1982 because "I love to give orders, I hate to be given orders," but I do wish he had some Air Conditioning experience. But that's what running mates are for, right?!?! Will you vote for him too Y/N? His very convincing email is after the jump.

Why I want to be the next President of the United States.

I believe in the people of this country and in their desire to see us the smartest and the leading nation to the world when it comes to education, protecting our environment and natural resources.

I want to stand on the steps of the Capitol Building and yell into it "Hey, Get To Work You Lazy Do Nothings" every day till they finally get to serving those that put them into those offices. I want to raise some hell in every branch of our government, and I have a very loud voice, let me put it to work for you.

I guaranty I will fix every government agency within the fist 3 months of taking office and recover hundreds of millions of dollars they have been wasting and stealing from all of us. I'll push through a 35% raise for our teachers and change our public schools from 12 grades to 16, every child/person will get a 4 year degree through our public school system from now on.

I love to give orders, I hate to be given orders, that's why I left the Army "Signal Core" in 1982. I have worked in almost every field except Air Conditioning. I self taught myself computer programming for a project I was working on for protecting children on-line.

I have always been a leader never a follower, I enjoy budgeting and locating dollars that are being wasted and re-allocating them. I follow a principle of doing the job right the first time and never having to re-do it.

I strongly believe in ones rights to bear arms and agree those that use them to commit crimes deserve maximum sentences. I feel every state must have the same laws and the same punishments for the same type of crime, no more example punishments to make a point.

I feel all women should be able to decide to have a child aborted, but feel it would be better, to have someone pay their expenses, and adopt the child. Preserving life is one of gods commandments I'd like to see everyone think about it before aborting that child.

I have had 3 children aborted by women I dated. It does hurt. I have a son I haven't seen nor paid child support for in 17 years.

I love to fix things, lucky for me there are millions of things here that need fixing, I'm ready to get started on them now.

I want to let everyone in our government know this, be warned, im not one of the guys, I will investigate everyone and I will find all wrong doings for the American people and I will throw you out on your ass. We will have a new government that 100% serves the citizens of the United States of America with respect and dignity and those around the world that are abused and starving. We will again be the greatest country the world has ever known, but first, we have lots of fixing to do here and I will see all of it gets done now.

I've got the guts to run, do you have the guts to let me try to fix what needs done? Yes or No?

If you would like to know more about me give me a call and lets talk. I would love to have your vote for President.

Leonard F. Grundy

New Yorker Near-Copies Another Cartoon [This Thing Looks Like That Thing]

Bill O'Reilly Falsely Accuses Times Of Caricature [Shouting Heads]

In response to a Times column about Fox News uglifying a picture of reporter Jacques Steinberg and viciously smearing Tim Arango and other journalists, the cable network's chief rageaholic, Bill O'Reilly, is pretending to be pissed at the Times for caricaturing him in the illustration for a 2007 book review. The caricature, he said during his Fox show last night, even included some kind of devil horn (clip after the jump). But O'Reilly's screaming on-air hatefest is the worst sort of act, because if you actually examine the illustration, reproduced after the jump, you notice two things.

2. The illustration is by no stretch a caricature, defined by Merriam-Webster as "exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics." It is a series of straightforward renderings of O'Reilly as he looks on camera. A variety of unnatural colors are used, but not in the service of exaggerating anything about O'Reilly or making him look bad.

O'Reilly's ginned up outrage comes from Roger Ailes' mudslinging, dirty-politics playbook. The idea is to attack the critic, as the network did with our own Hamilton Nolan yesterday and as it has been doing with journalists and other targets for years now. But some of O'Reilly's emotion may very well be real: emerging evidence, as reported by Arango and Steinberg, that this old routine is getting boring and driving away viewers is apparently causing some very real panic over at Fox.

[TVNewser]

The Big, Throbbing Porn-News Hustle [Publicity Stunts]

Over the past week, publications like the LA Times, New York Post and even our own Valleywag have parroted a report from the Adult Internet Market Research Company about how the recent federal taxpayer stimulus checks led to a spike in porn site membership. Predictable: it was an interesting piece of news dangled in front of the media in the lull leading up to the holiday weekend, when filler is traditionally needed. Unfortunately, it looks like the report was "total bullshit," at least judging by the reporting of Adult Video News columnist and porn-market scholar Tom Johansmeyer (pictured).

First off, AIMRCo's website has existed for less than a month, according to registration records. The phone number for "head research consultant" Kirk Mishkin appears to go to a personal cell phone. And the only two companies named as being affiliated with the company, LSGModels.com and MoreyStudio.com, "look like low-rent adult sites at best... they are not major adult internet powerhouses," Johansmeyer writes.

Then there's the lack of any disclosed methodology:

What is missing from the story is detail. AIMRCo says that “[u]sing a connected network of over 400 paysites and 2000 affiliates/traffic trading sites, we gather the data necessary to make informed market trend assessments.” Yet, it does not indicate the size of the sample for this particular survey. It offers no description of the responding companies. For Fox’s survey, there is no comment as to whether members would have joined anyway.

Johansmeyere also notes that industry publication Adult Video News used to compile an overall report on industry sales but has been able to get reliable statistics. How did AVN not know about AIMRCo, if it is a reputable, lonstanding organization? And if AIMRCo is an upstart, where did it get the stats that AVN couldn't?

It's shocking — shocking! — that anyone connected with the porn industry would artificially inflate the size of something just for some cheap attention. It's obscene, really.

[Migrant Blogger, Migrant Blogger]

(Photo via Migrant Blogger)

Russian Regime Tries To Ban "Rude Comments" Online [The Internet]

Oh, hey, remember how Vladimir Putin and his thugs control everything important said on television, newspapers and radio in glorious free ex-Soviet Russia? Well, it seems the regime would like to extend its power over the media so as to stop people from saying mean things on the Web while stifling any real online dissent while they are at it. A blogger from Syktyvkar recently wrote that police are "scum" and that the force "should be cleaned up by ceremonially burning officers twice a day in a town square." Syktyvkar is basically next to the north pole, so this was probably just a misunderstood offer to warm everyone up by the campfire, but the blogger has been given a suspended one-year prison term, and everyone is upset that the police state is about to ruin the last fun place to say mean things about people (oh and also express political opinions or whatever):

"This was an absolutely unjustified verdict," Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA centre in Moscow, a non-governmental group that monitors extremism, told Reuters. "Savva for sure wrote a rude comment ... but this verdict means it will be impossible to make rude comments about anybody."

Also funny is the letter from the blogger, Savva Terentiev, to Vladimir Putin:

"It is our duty to take responsibility for words on the Internet but ... I did not call for the inflaming of social hatred towards the employees of the police department," he wrote in the letter, posted at one of his sites, www.zasavva.ru.

Ha ha, no, you did not call for the inflaming of hatred toward the police, Savva. You called for the inflaming of the police themselves! Nice backhanded snark, buddy! Email me for a commenter invite.

[Reuters]

(Image adapted from Modern Humorist.)

Death Of The Brand Extension? [Magazines]

Condé Nast confirmed tonight it will shutter Golf For Women magazine, seven years after buying the Golf Digest spinoff from Meredith Corp. Ad pages were off 7 percent through the July issue and there's been significant turnover on the business side. Meanwhile, also at Condé Nast, Men's Vogue is looking gaunt. Is the magazine brand spinoff an endangered species? After all, a variety of teen-themed brand extensions threw in the towel on the concept two years ago, including Teen People.

True, but the magazine industry is feeling pain all over the place(to take but one example, Oprah's once-highflying magazine, O, saw circ tumble more than 10 percent in the past two years). And some brand extensions are doing well — the Wall Street Journal is rushing forward with plans for WSJ. magazine, in the mold of similar, thriving extensions at the Times (T magazine)and the Financial Times (Spending It). The trick seems to be to bundle the extension with the original — and to not try and charge extra for it. [MediaWeek]

Worldly Marcus Brauchli To Edit The Washington Post [Jobs]

The Washington Post tonight named former Wall Street Journal editor Marcus Brauchli its new executive editor, replacing Leonard Downie Jr. after 17 years. The transition comes thanks to a new publisher, Katherine Weymouth, who wants to put her own stamp on the paper. With Brauchli, it will be hard to avoid doing just that. While the Post has remade itself over the past decade as a local paper with a focus on national politics, Brauchli is basically a foreign news reporter who, prior to a replacing Paul Steiger atop the Journal masthead, edited global and national news. Then again, we hear Brauchli is prepared to sacrifice much of what he has accumulated at the Journal to take the Post gig — and not just the wealth of his experience.

Buzz among Journal-ites is that Brauchli is giving up his estimated $3 million to $5 million Journal severance to take the Post job, since News Corp. inserted a non-compete clause into the deal when Brauchli exited the Journal after briefly serving under Murdoch confidante — and eventual Brauchli replacement — Robert Thomson. UPDATE: As noted in the comments, Portfolio's sources have stated that Brauchli has been assured his non-compete doesn't apply to the WaPo job. It's entirely possible our source, who heard second-hand, is wrong on this score.

There would be an element of self-cleansing in Brauchli returning News Corp.'s money. When he exited the Journal, there was scattered grumbling that the once-loved editor had abdicated too readily to Rupert Murdoch and his henchmen, perhaps motivated by his eventual payout. One former Journal staffer complained to us at the time:

He was supposed to be the bulwark, preserving original Wall Street Journal journalistic standards against the expected onslaught by News Corp. But what did he do? Certainly not what John Carrol and Dean Baquet did at the LA Times. They defiantly resisted efforts to weaken the newspaper, stood up for standards, spoke out publicly and ultimately made principled resignations. Marcus, by contrast, rather than making a peep of public protest, readily agreed to being bought off for a large sum and also signed a non-disparagement agreement. So much for principled stands.

For Weymouth, Brachli's hiring marks a chance to reverse some of the work of her uncle, Donald Graham, still chief executive of the Post Co. It was Graham who refocused the Post locally, even as the Times stepped up its national ambitions. "He has backed the Post into an economic cul-de-sac," one industry observer whispers. "The papers that are going to fail first are the city ones."

Then again, Brauchli was also considered a Web-aware modernizer at the Journal, and his battlefield experience there trying to merge the disparate cultures of Dow Jones and News Corp. will come in handy as the Post tries to integrate its largely independent website with the print newsroom. It's possible Weymouth plans to maintain a local focus in print while drawing on Brauchli's Web savvy and general management experience to grow washingtonpost.com.

[Washington Post]

Roger Ailes' History Of Media Manipulation [From The Archives]

Fox bossman Roger Ailes is the best teacher any media attack flack could have. He's been screwing with the media for decades. Ailes is the man who perfected the art of hammering the media with charges of bias in order to deflect negative coverage from oneself. Kerwin Swint's new biography of him, Dark Genius, has plenty of examples from throughout his entire career. And you have to hand it to Ailes: his clients—all the way up to the President—got the best media haranguing tactics money can buy:

Early on, Ailes tried (unsuccessfully) to get two newspapers to retract negative coverage of him. In today's environment, the gambit might have succeeded. You have to admire his balls, considering his suggested correction:

When Ailes was helping former president George Bush prep for his debates, he slipped him a sure applause line: attack the liberal media messenger, Dan Rather:

Jared Paul Stern Will Sue Ron Burkle Forever [Lawsuits]

Former Page Sixer Jared Paul Stern's defamation suit against billionaire creep Ron Burkle was recently tossed out, as we all know. But his nutty lawyer Larry Klayman promised an appeal! Unfortunately, that appeal can't go forward in New York just now. Klayman, who is insane, is not allowed to practice law in New York, and Stern's New York attorney just quit, saying his "military service is complete." Yeesh. Still, they'll hire a new guy and fight on. Why? Why continue embarrassing himself further? Stern explained why in a terse statement: "I've got nothing better to do than bury the fucker if it takes 20 years." Enjoy your gadfly, Ron!

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