Results tagged “colallan”

The NY Post editor who was fired after complaining about a controversial political cartoon depicting the author of Obama's stimulus package as a dead chimpanzee has filed a major lawsuit against the tabloid, News Corp, and Post editor in chief Col Allan. It's a doozy! In the 38 page complaint, Sandra Guzman accuses her former employer of ignoring racist and sexual harassment, and depicts the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house run by the crude, misogynistic Allan. Hardly surprising, but her accusations are juicy nonetheless:

Legendary gossip columnist Liz Smith is leaving the NY tabloid pages: CityRoom spoke to the 86-year-old who explained that NY Post editor-in-chief Col Allan sent her a letter that he was not renewing her contract for her three-times-a-week column, stating, “Like so many other newspapers around the nation, we are buffeted by unprecedented economic gales." Smith joked, “I figure that without having to pay my salary"—$125,000/year—"The Post will immediately go into the black" and did admit to meeting with Rupert Murdoch to protest, "He said he wouldn’t interfere with Col Allan. Well, isn’t he right? Shouldn’t publishers believe in their editors?” (And Murdoch does believe in Allan.) But this gives Smith more time to work on Wowowow.com, the website she co-founded with other female boldface names (and where she just asked New Yorker editor David Remnick his thoughts on the newspaper business conundrum)—plus she plans to syndicate a five-day-a-week column.

The furor over the NY Post's editorial cartoon featuring a dead chimp killed by police continues as the NAACP called for the resignation of Post editor-in-chief Col Allan and cartoonist Sean Delonas, as well as anyone else "involved in the decision to print the image."

Today, NY Post editorial cartoonist Sean Delonas's offering that ties in the Connecticut chimp incident with the federal stimulus package is raising many eyebrows. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein wrote, "At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Most provocatively, it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that's what Delonas wanted."

Yesterday, over a hundred people - made up of "fans, reporters and photographers" - waited outside the Frank E. Campbell funeral home, where the body of actor Heath Ledger had been kept since ME's autopsy. Ledger had been found dead in a SoHo apartment by his masseuse and housekeeper on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of death is inconclusive, but he had a number of prescription drugs in the apartment, many of them to aid sleeping (he had been described as looking tired recently and even told interviewers he had trouble sleeping after filming The Dark Knight).

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water rescue off the beach at 105th St. and Shore Front Parkway in Queens, a person struck by a train at 77th St. and 4th Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting at Martin Luther King Pl. and Tompkins Ave. in Brooklyn.
• A middle-aged man was arrested Sunday evening after attempting to rob a McDonald's on Staten Island, but settling for ripping the clear acrylic box of donations for charity from the counter and making off with it.
• Cemusa, the Spanish company that brought us the city's new bus stop shelters, will be installing a new Grimshaw Architects-designed uniform replacement for New York's eclectic newsstand designs.
• The city will begin notifying pedicab applicants by mail today who has been granted, via a lottery where existing pedicab owners received preference, a license to operate their vehicles. Nonetheless, there will be a number of existing pedicab drivers who will be prohibited from continuing working as pedal-powered transit.
• There is currently no credible threat against Jewish targets, but as Rosh Hashanah begins tonight and marks the start of the Jewish high holy days, the NYPD will be stepping up security around possible targets of terrorism.
• Former NY Jet Curtis Martin may be the purchaser of Brooklyn's priciest condo: the $7.25 million penthouse triplex on Brooklyn Bridge State Park with 360 degree views of the city.
• The Travel section of the Times acknowledges that cool Brooklyn does not end at Bedford Ave., and ventures as far as Havermeyer and Berry St. along Grand St. Get there before it's totally played out.
• The ink is still drying on Rupert Murdoch's purchase of Dow Jones, but New York Post editor and alleged strip club afficionado Col Allan dropped by the offices of The Wall Street Journal, probably trying to pacify the upset reporters who are already seeing their pay cut through decreased health insurance contributions.

One can practically hear the giggling between the lines as The New York Times covers the New York Post's gossip page scandal that had the Post airing its own dirty laundry. Last year the Post fired Jared Paul Stern, a Page Six freelancer, after a billionaire accused him of trying to shake him down with promises to not write embarrassing things about him in exchange for cash. Stern is now suing the Post for his termination, in addition to a lot of other people, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. As part of his suit, Stern enlisted the aid of a friend named Ian Spiegelman, who the Post had fired a few years ago after he sent an extremely obnoxious email that was widely circulated. Spiegelman more recently wrote a litany of embarrasing things about the New York Post and its employees and gave it to Stern, but it became public on Page Six, where the Post characterized its former employees as liars.

This a very good day in the Daily News newsroom, while it must be more of a bummer at the Post's offices. News that a NY Post gossip writer has been investigating for trying to extort a billionaire mentioned in Page Six has turned into Christmas in April for the Daily News. (You can read the NY Times' article, as they are somewhat less invested in the story.) According to the Post's statement on its website, Jared Paul Stern (called a "freelance reporter who sometimes worked two days a week" by editor in chief Col Allan) tried to extort over $100,000 from Ron Burkle, investor, big time Democratic party donor and friend of Bill Clinton, in exchange for not featuring stories about Burkle in the paper; according to the feds' tapes, Stern even tried to get Burkle to invest in his clothing line! That's Page Six chutzpah right there.

Yesterday's post on our fears that Kerry picked Gephardt.