Back in 1982, Press editor David Blum -- who was then a Wall Street Journal reporter -- was part of a team that published the one-off satire Off the Wall Street Journal, and now he and the Press have published the sequel: My Wall Street Journal, which is published "in honor of Rupert Murdoch's ever-expanding media empire." The project brings Murdoch's tabloid sensibilities to the legendary paper, with results like a full-page spread of a bare-breasted Ann Coulter; a gossip section entitled "Page Sex;" and headlines such as "Cleaning Lady Sees Virgin in Merrill-Lynch Q4 Loss." The team also produced a fake YouTube video of Murdoch reacting to My Wall Street Journal. Read more from the New York Times and Editor & Publisher.
AAN members were well-represented when the winners of the association's 2007 Better Newspaper Contest were announced this weekend. Syracuse New Times took home a total of nine awards, including first-place finishes in Best Advertising Campaign, Best House Ad/Ad Campaign, Graphic Illustration, Sports Feature, and Sports Feature Photo. Metroland won a total of seven awards, and staff writer David King was named 2007 Writer of the Year. Judges called King "a powerful writer, a master storyteller, and a thorough researcher whose convincing style grabs the reader and holds on tight -- navigating difficult subject matter, taking us to places we've never been, enabling us to understand things we never could." The New York Press came away with six awards, including first-place finishes in Best Front Page and Feature Story. The Ithaca Times took home four awards.
The Press' Becca Tucker stalked the My So-Called Life star in an effort to show just how easy it is to stalk celebrities in New York City, but Danes wasn't thrilled, according to Gawker. Jeff Berg, the chairman of International Creative Management, which represents Danes, called editor David Blum on Friday and asked him to redact online a reference to the street where she lives. "He got very hostile," Blum says, noting that Berg asked, "What are you going to do, print her phone number next?" The paper did keep her building number out of the story, by redacting it from a direct quote from New York magazine, which gives her full address online. "I'm no more inclined to print her phone number than to print her exact street address," Blum says.
The Washington Post media columnist's new book Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War has the Beltway buzzing after being partially leaked on the Drudge Report this weekend. "Kurtz's story was treated as big news -- but the substance, and some of the language as well, was no different from New York Press editor-in-chief David Blum's 2004 book, Tick... Tick... Tick..: The Long Life and Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes," according to Gawker. The big scoop from Kurtz was that Dan Rather threatened to take his Bush/National Guard documents -- which ultimately cost him his anchor chair at CBS -- to the New York Times, which was included in the 2005 paperback edition of Blum's book. Kurtz says he never saw that edition of the book. "Good for him for getting there first," he tells Gawker. "I'm a fanatic about giving credit, which is why my book is filled with footnotes, but you can't do that if you've never seen the information." That's all fine and good, but it leaves the New York Observer to wonder: Will Kurtz "continue to tout the anecdote as a 'scoop' in his upcoming appearances supporting the book?"
Manhattan Media has named Blum editor-in-chief of New York Press as well as editorial director of the company's community newspaper group, the New York Times reports. When he starts the job Sept. 5, Blum's first task "will be to compete more vigorously with The Voice," where he served as editor for six months ending this March. "I want to make The Press as fresh and unpredictable as possible," he says. "I tried to do that at The Village Voice, but I didn't have enough time at The Voice to achieve the goals that I had at the paper. But here I will." In his interview with the Times, Blum also takes the opportunity to take a shot at his new competition and former employer for its out-of-town ownership. "I am excited to be working with a publisher and an owner who lives in New York, who knows the city extremely well," he says. "I think that will be a big plus for The Press -- and for me."
That's his take after picking up a copy this week, though he says he has "hurt feelings" about City Pages "running the Twin Cities Reader [a now-defunct AAN paper he used to edit] out of business." Carr, who also served as editor of Washington City Paper and is now a reporter for the New York Times, tells the Minnesota Monitor: "I share newspaper approaches with [Village Voice Media]. I've always been equal opportunity in terms of choosing opponents and choosing targets." He adds that VVM papers "in general are far superior to most weeklies, and they fund great journalism, pay a living wage, pay healthcare."
"My job as editor in chief of The Village Voice was not all spent putting out the newspaper, but also keeping people happy thousands of miles away," Blum tells the New York Observer. Blum says he received frequent calls and e-mails from VVM headquarters about running the paper. An unnamed Voice staffer tells the Observer it wasn't clear the j-school adjunct was "comfortable in the editor role," noting he was more at ease with recent hires from Columbia Univ. than with longtime Voice staffers.
Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey says Blum was dismissed due to differences over "administrative style" and because he didn't get enough "news in the paper."
