The Media Mob

"There’s no truth to it," said Si Newhouse in a statement sent through a spokeswoman to wsj.com today, regarding the rumors that Anna Wintour is on the verge of being replaced by Carine Roitfeld as editor of Vogue. "This is the silliest rumor I ever heard."

Gawker wrote in an item earlier today—filed under the header "Rumormonger"—that Mr. Newhouse left for France early to seal a deal with Ms. Roitfeld.

So what does it mean that Mr. Newhouse released this statement? It means it's probably not going to happen all that soon! Mr. Newhouse very rarely delivers statements, even through his spokeswoman Maurie Perl, so the fact that he felt compelled (from Europe!) to take care of this is a rather strong vote of confidence for Ms. Wintour.

At least for the time being.

Could There Ever Be Another Britney Spears?, asks MTV.com's Jennifer Vineyard.

It's a question whose time has come. Just as The Boston Daily Globe asked WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER GREAT WAR in April 1893, people have been wondering similar things for as far back as Google searches will allow writers to search after 6 p.m. on a Tuesday.

- Will There Be Another WPA?, The Christian Science Monitor, December 8, 1942.

- Will There Be Another Christmas Is Thought of All in Pacific Area, The Hartford Courant, December 25, 1943.

- Could There Be Another Holocaust?, The New York Times, March 6, 1977.  read more »

Farrar, Straus and Giroux editor Lorin Stein has been wanting to publishing Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin for years, but until now could not find a work of his that could be translated easily enough into English.

That changed this week, Mr. Stein told Media Mob, with FSG planning to publish a short volume tentatively titled A Day in the Life of an Oprichnik in the near future. Mr. Stein compared the book to A Clockwork Orange, describing it as a satirical novel set in 2028 that follows a protagonist who's basically a henchman to a Putin-like dictator ruling over a Russia which has walled itself off from the rest of the world.  read more »

The December 2008 issue of The Atlantic just went online and judging from the Letters to the Editor this month, reactions are split over whether or not the magazine's massive redesign works.

One reader complains:

You look like a cross between Time and The Economist. Amid your lunging social and political reportage, you severely neglect literature and the arts, save for those shabby paragraphs of sanitized authors and titles in the back. I know you will not dare to publish this, fearing to offend what H. L. Mencken called the 'great booboisie' of readers.

Another is more favorable, writing:

Could it be that all it took was a stunning new wrapper to transform an indisputably excellent magazine into one that instantly strides to the head of the class? Or, alternatively, has The Atlantic been so skillfully retuned from the inside out that the changes ever so slightly shift the book’s emphasis and sensibility?

Having thought about it, I conclude, happily, that both are true: every element and detail of your redesign is 'just right.' A venerable old title is once again a brilliant monthly gift to readers who appreciate being challenged at every turn.

The author of that letter? Cable Neuhaus of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Mr. Neuhaus isn't just an outside observer, he's a magazine industry veteran.  read more »

Ah, now that Michael Wolff has released his new biography on Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News, it was just about time for him to babble some highly quotable comment and drum up some press for it: like, say, "MySpace users are [expletive] cretins."

His friend, Jon Fine of BusinessWeek, took the author out to dinner and discussed a subject he doesn't go into depth in his new book: MySpace.

Apparently, Mr. Murdoch and pals aren't too happy with it.

MW: ...I think it is--if you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor.

 read more »

How much would you pay for a little face time with Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation? What about lunch at the Union Square Café with her?

Well, if the current bids on The Nation's First Ever Online Auction are any guide, it'll cost you upwards of $2,500, but really, according to the description of the item, its estimated value is "priceless."

Other items for sale include a signed copy of Victor Navasky's A Matter of Opinion and original art by Edward Sorel and George Shreiber.

There's also an autographed DVD of John Cusack's Mark Leyner-cowritten movie War, Inc. that's currently at $80, perfect for that Halliburton-hating, Military-Industrial-Complex dismantler on your Holiday gift list.

Howard Gardner has been taking the Internet to task for quite awhile now. He is best known for revolutionizing education in the ’80s with his theory of multiple intelligences, which challenged the idea of a single human intelligence that could be measured by an IQ test. As a psychology and education professor at Harvard, he has been studying the ethical questions posed by the Web through his GoodWork Project and its Developing Minds and Digital Media arm, which examines how today’s youth think differently based on their obsessive use of digital media.

In 2007, he released his  read more »

Sheila McClear, one of Gawker.com's three writers, has been fired.

Ms. McClear told us her layoff was characterized to her as part of a budget cut at the Web site, and was told that her page-views were lacking. She learned the news after she heard rumors that there would be further cuts at the company (19 people were let go back in October, and a few more last month) and asked her bosses directly if she had anything to be concerned about. After that, she was summoned to a conference room and told that she'd be let go starting in January.

She said she was told there would be no more layoffs at the Gawker Web site in this round of cuts.  read more »

The Associated Press' Hillel Italie is reporting that Rebecca Saletan, who became publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt when the company's component parts were merged by the Irish multimedia firm in January, has resigned from her position and will serve out her last day on December 10th. Ms. Saletan's departure will come two weeks after Publishers Weekly reported that the editors who report to her had been told to stop acquiring new books because there was not enough room for them in the budget.   read more »

Danny Shea of the Huffington Post is reporting that David Gregory has been chosen as the next moderator of NBC News' Meet the Press.

Mr. Gregory's name has been reportedly on a short list of possible replacements for the esteemed position since Tim Russert passed away of a sudden heart attack this past June.

When reached by Media Mob, an NBC News spokesperson said that the network "has nothing to announce."

Likewise, when contacted by phone, Mr. Gregory’s agent, Richard Leibner of N.S. Bienstock, said he could neither confirm nor deny the report.