Gabe Sherman

For all the clumsiness of the McCain press folks over the past 30 hours since The New York Times published their story about their candidate's ties to a lobbyist, they scored at least one direct hit—a talking point that has appealed to and happily been dispersed by the self-involved press.

But first, the idiocy!  read more »

So that Times story about John McCain, the one the world heard about in December, was published last night.

In a nutshell:  read more »

Media reporter--and Observer alumnus--Gabe Sherman is leaving Portfolio and joining The New Republic, WWD reports. He'll be covering the presidential campaign there, and he already has a piece about Mike Huckabee's combative relationship with the Arkansas press corps. While Sherman won't be a staff writer for Conde Nast anymore, he'll stay on as a contributing editor.

Last Sunday the Times' public editor, Byron Calame, described how a canard had made it on to the front page: a report in April that the new Airbus jumbos would carry more than 800 passengers by having them stand up, harnessed to stalls. The story was wrong, but it went round the world faster than you can tie your shoes.

The problem with the public editor's story is that it reprises virtually the same story by the Observer's Gabe Sherman three weeks back. Sherman did his reporting on the heels of a lame-o correction of the airplane story in the Times on May 2. Sherman quoted a leading Times editor, Craig Whitney, saying that the correction was insufficient. And lo, the next day, The Times expanded its correction to an Editor's Note. Calame writes, "The May 2 correction did not go far enough in clearing up the issue, and top editors heard complaints from inside the newsroom. So on May 4 an Editors' Note essentially corrected the correction." The Public Editor opens his inquest with a sweet bromide of journalism: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. (I never got that one anyway—tell me how you check it out.) Right now I'm thinking of another bromide: Credit where credit is due.

I look at Chuck Schumer's central role in stopping the Dubai ports deal. Jason Horowitz wonders how firm Bloomberg II's control of the city is.

Gabe Sherman has two nice political stories on the Times beat. The paper, he reports, is assigning yet another reporter, Anne Kornblut to the Hillary beat. Her beat seems to be Hillary's presidential campaign, now becoming -- in media eyes, at least -- more an assumption than a question.

Also from Sherman: Mark Warner's people aren't so happy about the Times Magazine's technicolor, Mr. Ed-like depiction of their "handsome" candidate on last week's cover. Matt Schuerman sees control of Ground Zero flowing away from Pataki, and already toward Spitzer. And Joe Conason points out the difficult questions facing supporters of South-Dakota style total abortion bans: Do exceptions for make any sense? And are the authorities going to arrest patients?

In a strange fit of caffeination, The Transom began researching the in-office population of various magazines and newspapers this morning. Yom Kippur in the New York media world is sort of like, well, a big Jewish rapture.

But, of course, in trying to find out who was in what office... there was no one to pick up the phone. All we know is Jews! Still, The Transom was able to ascertain that a minimum of 1/5th of the staff of editors New York magazine was MIA, and on the day they close the weekly, no less!—although, no official statement was made, as the luscious spokeswoman Serena Torrey didn't pick up her phone. (Stealth Jew?)

Better yet, 100% of the staff of Gawker is also missing today. And we were going to call New York Press and the Village Voice, but we felt like we knew the answers already. Also, we didn't care that much.

The Transom can also report first-hand that office life at the Observer is largely nonexistent. Of course: So very much to atone for, so little time. They really oughta stretch this thing out for a week. (Yes, we're looking at you, media reporter Gabe Sherman!)  read more »

Out of sheer loneliness, The Transom ventured out to City Bakery, where gentiles read last week's Arts & Leisure. (Conclusion: the goyim don't need to worry about timely consumption of culture news. Hello, it's Thursday already.) While there, we spent $18 on a wee bit of salad, and we rather feel that's exactly what we deserved. —Choire Sicha