We attended a party for Salon.com last night. The edgy online mag was celebrating 10 years of feisty cultural commentary, news, reviews, and community--and the New York mediarati turned out in force
to party with the crew.
Spotted at Crobar last night--Seth Mnookin, former media columnist for Newsweek and author of Hard News, an account of pre-Judy Miller scandals at The
New York Times; Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the Times' publisher; Dave Talbott, Salon's founder; and Jann Wenner, chairman of Wenner Media and Rolling Stone's founder. Of course there
were many more media luminaries prowling the venue but, uh, we weren't able to connect the names with the faces or something like that...
Suffice to say, most of Salon's New York-based
contributors and staffers were there. We chatted briefly with Lori Leibovitch, who heads up Salon's newest blog, "Broadsheet," a smart 'n sassy pink-collar venue with lots of room to grow.
We
didn't observe any pyrotechnics but couldn't help wondering whether Mnookin purposely tucked himself into a spot away from Sulzberger, who appeared attached to one particular section of the bar for
more than an hour. We tried to think of something sharp to say to Pinch (that's his nickname) and lost our nerve. Too bad.
Unfortunately, the only thing that sprang to mind went something
like this, "Caught you on 'Charlie Rose' the other night, gee, lots of dodging and weaving on the Judy Miller/Valerie Plame/WMD stuff." Typically Charlie lobs softball questions and coos over his
guests like a baby. But this time (the interview aired Sunday night), he really tried to make Sulzberger own up to the situation. No dice. And no dice for us. We couldn't think of anything nice to
say, so we didn't venture into Sulzberger's orbit. The thing is, though, he looks so approachable--like a great listener. We recall meeting him a few years ago as he raced out of the men's room during
a New York Times Digital event in the Times Co. executive dining room. He was friendly and ebullient and walked straight up to us to shake hands. He's got charisma in spades, but not on Charlie Rose.
Egad.
Pivot Point: Meanwhile, you can still tune in to AOL's "The Biz," an online show depicting "The battle for the best job in music." In the Day 19 episode, the action is down to
two finalists competing to run a music label. Yancey and Greg are the last two standing and sit down to lunch with rapper TI. The guys ask him questions about how to manage artists; he shares tips on
strategy, like this gem; "It's never what you're worth, it's what you can negotiate."
We observed the taping of this episode and for what it's worth, TI is quite full of himself. One bit that
didn't make the edit: TI telling Yancey and Greg that his advice isn't free, and he's only doing this lunch as a favor to the record label. His advice would cost potentially "millions." Oh, brother.
Still, you should check out "The Biz." The TI lunch appears at the end of today's segment. Chevy's a sponsor, the packaging is superb, and the video experience is smooth. It's like watching
reality TV on the Web. Yeah.