The Art Of The Tasteful Sell Out [Newspapers]

There was much consternation in the media world earlier this week when it emerged that Tribune's Los Angeles Times would take its Sunday magazine out of the hands of trained journalists and hand control over to the newspaper's sales staff. Editor Russ Stanton even insisted that the magazine's name be changed so readers didn't get the idea that it still had, you know, integrity. But journalists are as much to blame as the business side for the fact that their work increasingly sounds like catalog copy. Here's ink-stained wretch Rob Walker in his most recent "Consumed" column for New York Times Magazine:

Bose’s $350 QuietComfort 3 model, introduced in 2006, has a fold-flat design for easier portability, ensuring sonic isolation as you navigate the melting pot. And the $300 QuietComfort 2 can now be augmented with a “mobile communications kit” for your cellphone.

The headline for the column is "The Silence Generation." The subhead? "QuietComfort Headphones." The "TM" is implied.

Then there's the Times' T Magazine, ostensibly about style but at heart a celebration of products and consumption itself. It followed in the footsteps of the Financial Times' shamelessly named How To Spend It, and is so fabulously profitable that it will be aped by the Wall Street Journal in the form of WSJ. magazine.

Your typical hack at an elite newspaper, one suspects, is not so much opposed to selling out to crass commercialism as he is opposed to doing so ineffectively, without an elegant sheen of respectability and fig leaf of journalistic contemplation that makes a money-grubbing endeavor so much more palatable to the writerly ego. Sales jocks could never understand off such a maneuver. They are way too honest.

Fist-Bump Tutorial For The Awkward [Journalismism]

Oh, hey, look: A newspaper writer actually made a good, funny internet video! And his name isn't David Pogue! It's not clear if the North Carolina News & Observer's J. Peder Zane has a theater background like Pogue, but his tutorial on how to do a "fist bump" in the "New Camelot" era of Barack Obama is more natural and relevant than one has any right to expect from a print journalist. Watch as Zane's words deliver the message that everyone wants to be as cool as Obama, while his actions imply that most white guys are better off embracing their inner stiffness.

Perez Hilton Not Getting Laid Much [Struggling Writers]

The Los Angeles Times interviewed internet gossip belcher Perez Hilton for the "How I Made It" feature in its business section. The newspaper does its best to puff Hilton up, saying he charges "up to" $54,000 for a one-day ad package and noting he once wrote for Star magazine — without mentioning that Hilton was fired from that same job, per the LA Times' own reporting. The not-so-subtle message to readers: If this guy in bunny slippers can make $50k per day off his crayon-illustrated website, why is the recession kicking your ass? That's OK, since Hilton takes himself down a peg, by talking about his sex life:

What fame hasn't brought: Hilton dishes that "in 2007, I got laid once. One time. Which, for a gay man, is unheard of. That's like, celibate."

How sad and cringe-inducing. But maybe Perez just got way too picky after his 2006 makeout session with John Mayer. He had at least one really, really desperate groupie sending him a sex tape and everything! Now is no time to start holding yourself to "standards" or whatever, Perez.

[LA Times]

Do Magazine Grids Out-Pander Listicles? [This Thing Looks Like That Thing]

After we linked to Vanity Fair's blog matrix graphic earlier today, our inbox filled up with links to other, similar grids. Not surprising, since the format has been around for years and has spread widely. New Republic, to take but one example, published a "Bush Apostate Matrix" earlier this week. New York runs them regularly, here's the May 19 "Approval Matrix." Where/when did the first one of these grids crawl out of the primordial media ooze? (At Spy, probably. Of course.) And is anyone keeping track of their numbers in the wild? With Google and the rest of the internet turning everyone into short-attention-span clickmonkeys, it's only a matter of time before these random-access smorgasbords steal the listicle's place in the hearts of magazine editors everywhere.

Sam Zell Cleaning House [Journalismism]

"Scott C. Smith is stepping down as publisher of The Chicago Tribune and president of Tribune Publishing as part of changes being made by Samuel Zell." [Times]

Fox Calls Michelle Obama A "Baby Mama" [Race-baiting]

Fox News had commentator Michelle Malkin on to talk about how Barack Obama's wife Michelle has not been the victim of unfair conservative attacks, and as she was speaking the network displayed the caption seen above: "Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama's baby mama!" The term "baby mama" is, of course, slang for the unwed mother of one's child (married ones usually just called "wives"). This is sort of like when Anderson Cooper of CNN misused the term "boo," except vicious and racist instead of adorable and funny. It also follows incidents in which Fox asked whether Michelle Obama did a "terrorist" fist-bump with her husband and in which it circulated unsubstantiated rumors that she used the term "whitey" in a speech once. Whoops! Fox News has "accidentally" injected another crazy defacto allegation about the Democratic presidential candidate's wife into the mainstream dialog. Disingenuous semi-apology to follow shortly. (UPDATE: Already happened.) Video after the jump.

[AP, Salon]

Can I Buy Me Some Excitement? [Gawker Stalker]

Life is so boring when you're a bazillionaire. Or so it seems for Oily Davis and Scott Storch, according to our stalker.

Brandon Davis and Scott Storch in 1 Oak...at the same table. Scott was with this blah girl & Brandon was sitting the whole looking at his cell phone.

Breaking: M. Night Shyamalan Is a Gigantic Prick [Jerks]

Television producer and angry blogger Chez Pazienza has a two-year-old bone to pick with M. Night Shyamalan, the dopey screenwriter/director behind such dreck as The Village and Samuel L. Jackson Has Osteoporosis. And he's finally decided to share it with the general public, on his blog and on the Huffington Post. Just what did Shamalamadingdong do to piss off Pazienza so? During an interview for Shyamalan's dreadful "fairy tale" about things called Narfs, Lady in the Water, the hack acted like the haughty, bratty Hollywood idiot everyone already suspected him of being. He didn't like the format, he didn't like the camerawork, he didn't like anything. Though it's an old story, it does seem timely as his next sure-to-be dismal effort The Happening is hitting theaters tomorrow. Plus it's always nice to have suspicions confirmed. Some choice bits from Pazienza's rant are after the jump.

Shyamalan said of the experience:

"Somebody's gonna get railed when this is over. I just want you guys to know that. I just want to warn you that it's coming. You've never seen me on a movie set, but you're gonna."

Shyamalan pulled me and his Warner handler (a man with the apparent patience of Job) aside, and basically did his impression of the shark in Jaws during the final clash with poor Quint. Once again there were accusations of unprofessional work: he was distracted by noises in the next room; he didn't like the look of the shots; we obviously didn't care enough to take this interview seriously. He then pulled an argument out of his ass that was so transparent, you would've thought it was the first half of The Village.

"Look, I don't care about me. You can do what you want with me. But these are good actors and they deserve better."

As he continued to rant, I noticed that he was either delusional or narcissistic enough to believe that everyone around him adhered to his personal point of view unquestioningly (and you wonder why the leaps of logic in his movies). He flat out said that both the anchor conducting the interview, and the video crew taping it had told him that they agreed that the shoot was shit. Suffice to say I suffered through the tapes of the interview several times during the course of the afternoon. He apparently really is hearing voices.

High School Musicewww [Cleanliness & Godliness]

Rather than taking a shower, gooey teen heartthrob actor Zac Efron likes to clean himself with baby wipes. Just like Terrence Howard's butt!

Facebook Sucks [Advertising]

Somebody created ten fake Facebook profiles of varying descriptions, built them up to 200 friends each, and is now selling them on eBay to anyone who cares to take them over for undercover marketing purposes. Yet another reason to make friends in real life instead. [Ebay via Adrants]