Results tagged “newyorktimes”

In an article that seems to blur the NY Times' own decency standards, the paper of record examines how the word "douche" has evolved from a personal hygiene product into a popular TV pejorative. We're not particularly concerned with the journalistic merits of the piece — we'll leave that to the seasoned Times critics over at nytpick who claim the paper shouldn't have gotten its numbers on TV vulgarity from a Conservative anti-cussing group. But we were shocked to see the paper print the word "douche" five times in a page-one piece, when just last week it censored the words "fat chick" in an article about an online alibi by indirectly quoting a Facebook status update. Not to say that the Times' much-ballyhooed decency standards are a good thing, but consistency certainly is.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Times' cycling blog, Spokes, reports today that the paper's coverage of bike-related issues has remained strangely consistent over the past century. In the Gray Lady's 1890s "Gossip of the Cyclers" column — which was apparently the StreetsBlog.org of the McKinnley administration — the paper covered strikingly contemporary bike issues including reckless cyclists, brake-less bikes, and even concerns about bicycle access to the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the Times has covered each of these issues within the past few months. Though the Times no longer refers to bicycles as "the wheel" or fast cyclists as "scorchers," it's remarkable that more than 100 years later, both the paper — and the city — are still arguing the same topics.

Governor Paterson's insistence on running to stay in the governor's mansion next year may have less to do with his concern for the Democrats and more to do with his love of the party. Yesterday the governor explained why he is so headstrong in sticking around despite suggestions to the contrary from some pretty heavy hitters. Paterson said, "It has been the most exciting time in my life. It has been the most challenging time in my life. ... I'm gonna keep doing it until the public tells me it's time to stop."

It's been a week and a half since the NY Times published a bitchy review of Manhattan's first J.C. Penney, penned by columnist Cintra Wilson (pictured). She received plenty of unkind words in return for her barrage of insults about the average American woman and her size 12 style. Last week, she declared on her blog that the issue has been "flame-broiled to death" (a nod to the fast food nation she targeted?), but yesterday the Gray Lady gave her a lexical slap on the wrist.

Having blown one of the most coveted jobs in journalism through sheer mendacity, laziness, and drug abuse, former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair has found work coaching others on how to live their lives. It was over six years ago that Blair caused a huge scandal at the Times, after it was discovered that he'd fabricated a number of articles, deeply embarrassing the paper of record and bringing down executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald M. Boyd with him. But now Blair's turned the beat around and is certified to coach lives, at a mental health practice in northern Virginia—here's his website. Blair tells the AP, "People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense. Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'" And Blair's boss, psychologist Michael Oberschneider, coos, "Very few people can go through what he did and come back. He really is a success story." Unfortunately, that's exactly what Raines thought before Blair went and burned his house down.

Confirming rumors that the new New York Times restaurant critic—and Frank Bruni's replacement—will be a longtime Times writer promoted from within, the newspaper has just announced that food and culture writer Sam Sifton will take over the job starting in October. Executive editor Bill Keller sent a memo to staff members announcing the change of guard, writing, "We narrowed the list, and then narrowed it some more. We had some really impressive candidates, writers who know their food and have interesting things to say about the way we eat. Then we threw out the list and drafted Sam Sifton." Restaurants, fire up the Google Image cache now: Sifton, who lives in Red Hook, was most recently Culture Editor at the Times, but is also known for his writing about cooking at home as well as finding unusual food stories in the outer boroughs. He has also served as Deputy Food Editor for the newspaper. For the Magazine section, Sifton was last seen making meatloaf for Nora Ephron.

Yesterday we got to watch in "real time" the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, down to the second it was aired when covered by Walter Cronkite. Today the NY Times has included a four page insert in the paper, featuring the big headline of July 21st, 1969, just as it was printed 40 years ago. Wanna save some trees? Read the original story here; it's still probably one of the most exciting ledes of all time: "Men have landed and walked on the moon."

       

With the arrival of the first official weekend of summer, skies glowing in mesmerizing patterns and everyone looking for a breather from a full month of June gloom, New Yorkers already out in the streets have continued to form their own impromptu tributes to the late Michael Jackson. In Washington Square Park, a spontaneous dance party broke out yesterday at dusk with fans doing the signature moves of Moonwalker and Thriller alike, led by the few who showed up in fedoras, gloves on one hand and one MJ lover who went the full nine and had the classic red leather jacket.

In a funny and incredibly sad Daily Show segment, the New York Times opened its headquarters up to Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones, who questioned the value of "aged news" (pointing out nothing in the day's newspaper actually happened that day) and asked executive editor Bill Keller if the Times was making "Huffington Post money." Jones was also flummoxed by the sight of a landline phone.

Big news in the dining world today; the Times announced that the city's most influential restaurant critic, Frank Bruni, will move to the Sunday magazine section after five years on the beat. In an email to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller revealed that Bruni "will have license to follow his appetites — his journalistic appetites — wherever they lead him [at the magazine]... In his spare time, between aerobic eating and the requisite gym time to burn it all off, he has managed to produce a memoir of his lifelong, complicated relationship with food. Recognizing that the book is certain to seriously compromise his ability to be a spy in the land of food, Frank picked this as a natural time to move on. He will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials when his memoir, Born Round: the Secret History of a Full-Time Eater, is published in late August." Besides his generally impeccable taste and incisiveness, Bruni brought a fun, casual, and creative tone to the Times's dining coverage. Dining editor Pete Wells is currently searching for a successor to fill those big Italian shoes, and you can bet the mother of 12-year-old foodie David Fishman is already on the horn.

This week the Times's Frank Bruni gives some love to Buttermilk Channel (photos) in Carroll Gardens, where, "although one in three dishes widely misses its mark and the restaurant’s reach frequently exceeds its grasp, there’s the possibility of a terrific meal. There’s the probability of a pleasant one... Buttermilk Channel is a restaurant of real standards, noteworthy ambition and uncommon slavishness to trends. It’s laudable and predictable in equal measures. And it was packed every time I went." The bulk of the review is dedicated to Bruni's lust for their pecan pie sundae.

This week the Times's Frank Bruni piles on Shang, a restaurant in the Thompson LES Hotel helmed by the acclaimed, formerly Toronto-based chef Susur Lee, whose first mistake is making Bruni exercise: "The staircase was the first befuddlement and miscalculation I encountered — and a clue that the evening and restaurant might not be all I’d hope for. It’s a long, drab, foreboding rise of steps from the sidewalk to the host station, an entrance less inviting than aerobic. I’ve gone on runs that didn’t leave me as winded." As for the menu, some dishes are "intensely pleasurable," but overall it's "inconsistent and uneventful. The magic that Mr. Lee reputedly made in Toronto hasn’t followed him here."

Over the weekend, the Times used all of the buzz surrounding the inauguration frenzy down in DC to spin out the age-old question, "Is New York over?" The article focused in on the doom and gloom of late around town (jobs being lost, shops closing down) to question whether we're all collectively basking in an "ambient bummer." Apparently LA isn't slowing down as they keep "spinning out hits" like Gran Torino and Bride Wars (was Hollywood expected to shut down?). Ultimately it's one of those pieces that takes no real stance, citing prodigal daughter Joan Didion calling the city "over" 40 years ago. But the article still manages to speculate that we're “definitely shedding whatever New York was a few years ago.” Not to celebrate the tanking economy, but if one of those things we're shedding is "people complaining about $20 cocktails or $300 bottle service," is it possible that we're righting our course?

An NYPD spokesman this weekend cleared up a common curiosity: cursing at cops can't get you canned. NYPD's Paul Browne told the Times City section that New Yorkers were within their rights to mouth off at officers. In response to a reader's query "Are there any limits to what I can say to a New York police officer?" civil liberties lawyer Norman Sigel added, “It’s legally protected, and I advise people not to curse at anyone, including police officers, but if you do, it’s not grounds for an arrest.” The paper then clarified that threatening an officer or attempting to incite a riot however might not be the safest way to keep yourself on the right side of the law. Ironically, it's getting tougher for cops themselves to get away with dropping expletives...at least on the big screen.

Frank Bruni at the Times stays close to home (the Upper West Side) this week and on message (recession dining) with a review of two newish restaurants in the 'hood: West Branch (a mostly Mediterranean brasserie) and BarBao (mostly Vietnamese). He likes both, but West Branch is "always packed" while BarBao has empty seats, and this "may say a lot about which types of restaurants this cruel economy is going to be kinder to...At a different moment, in a different climate, both could probably count on success. But in this one, merit and good intentions aren’t enough. Caution, classics and French fries — these may matter more."

This weekend a Times reporter gets his hands dirty (but keeps his fingers unsmudged) while diving into the cutthroat world of commenting on New York neighborhood blogs. They discover that the city's "fabled brashness" often leads to "raucous New York-style debate." The writer then falls prey to something that a lot of us have been guilty of on more than one occasion—following insane comment threads. After introducing us to a Brownstoner post where commenters had a familiar battle over parents in Park Slope, the story ends with (Spoiler Alert) a get-together of Brownstoner regulars that was "bearing a notable absence of ill will" where "virtual friends didn’t look like what they had expected." The whole thing leaves you with so much of a virtually warm feeling that you almost begin to imagine a world where a couple who met as fellow Gawker commenters could end up betrothed—oh wait.

In what appears to be the work of a hacker, Silicon Alley Insider reports that the Fox News Twitter account recently posted the following "tweet": "Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay". While the link itself has already been taken down, a quick trip over to O'Reilly's home page reveals some possibly related clues. In the "O'Links Around the World" section, the top link earlier was "New York Times Writer Admits to Being a Sex Addict," which forwarded readers to this week's Modern Love column, which dealt with the casual encounters of a young gay man. Then in the backstage video posted on the site, O'Reilly responds to a viewer's inquiry saying that there is a "zero percent" chance of seeing Richard Simmons on his show. Why, you ask? "The short pants? it just doesn't work on the Factor. Short pants—it frightens me." While O'Reilly himself doesn't appear to post updates on Twitter, here's a list of the almost 70 feeds coming from NY Times staff members—most, if not all of whom have not been hit with graphic sexual harassment suits.

Is the Grey Lady is preparing for another sell-out at the newsstands this January 21st? Following Barack Obama's win on November 4th, the paper was practically saved by sales of its print edition on November 5th, when a line even formed outside of their HQ that afternoon. Eventually the paper ended up offering up commemorative prints of the front page for $15. Now MediaBistro points out that the paper has their own ad campaign running which will put the fear in you (you do not want to miss out on the Malia and Sasha get a puppy cover story!); they say: "Seems that the Times wants you to subscribe to the paper based on the idea that every day of the next eight years will be as historic as November 4." Well, maybe not every day, but expect another record day in sales after Obama's inauguration on January 20th—the site notes that whoever designs that front page "will be sure that it looks good in a frame."

In a tender column for the Times, one-time Nixon speech writer and Wonder Years star Ben Stein tells of how the "wealth management division" of an investment bank came to his Beverly Hills home two years ago trying to get him to invest with "a genius (who) never lost money." That genius, of course, was Bernard Madoff. What the bank didn't realize of course was that while Madoff may very well have been a genius, Ben Stein is a supergenius and turned down the offer.

The Times's neato "Then/Now" series, which always features two comparative photos of the same NYC location, past and present, concluded yesterday, having compared 16 views of the city 30 years ago with identical contemporary views. Today's view is of Times Square, looking south on Broadway from 50th Street to roughly 45th Street. As you scroll your mouse over the website's black and white photo from gritty '79, it transforms into the banal, supersize corporate ad vortex of today.

This week's NY Times Dining section has a long profile about Jamaica, Queens native Rocco DiSpirito, who many in the dining biz have criticized for focusing on TV shows and cookbooks when he could be running a restaurant. Some, like cookbook author Michael Rhulman, believe "he’s almost gotten to the point where people in the food world feel sorry for him and want him back." Others, like former NY Mag critic Gael Greene, opine, "I do believe that ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is kind of the last stop. I don’t understand—has he totally lost that passion to cook?" In his defense, DiSpirito paints himself as a populist who loves "advocating" for the "general public." But Ed Levine at Serious Eats scoffs at that, slamming DiSpirito and the Times in a fun blog post: "What DiSpirito really loves to do is bring attention to himself Paris Hilton-style and try to cash in on it. Only she can't cook."

This week Frank Bruni at the Times slams fancy Franch brasserie Secession, the new iteration of what was formerly Danube in Tribeca. It's not good. He's completely vexed by the "oddly organized riot of strangely mismatched options" on the menu, deeming it "the menu of an unfocused, distracted mind. And it’s a window into the present hyperextension of its guiding spirit, David Bouley [pictured]...Not much of what emerged from Secession’s seemingly overburdened kitchen rose far above mediocrity. And there were instances of outright sloppiness. A block of butter for the breadbasket had a hard, pale yellow ring around it, suggesting that it had begun to melt before being returned to the refrigerator."

This week Frank Bruni at the Times criticizes Corton, the new Tribeca restaurant helmed by enfant terrible chef Paul Liebrandt. Others at Time Out and NY Mag have raved, and Bruni's praise isn't exactly muted either: "At Corton [Liebrandt] calms down and wises up, accepting that an evening in a restaurant shouldn’t be like a visit to a fringe art gallery: geared to the intellect, reliant on provocation. It needn’t demand raptness. And it must, in the course of whatever else it means to accomplish, leave a person eager for the next bite and intent on the one after that." Makes sense, three stars.

Bill Ayers has written an op-ed for the New York Times this weekend where he addresses his decision to stay silent throughout a presidential campaign in which he "felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s 1984." Ayers admits regrets for some of his actions with the 1970s anti-war group the Weather Underground and takes "responsibility for the risks we posed to others," but overall defends them as "attacks on property, never on people, (that) were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war." And as for all of his alleged "paling around" with now President-elect Obama, Ayers says, "I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better."

This week Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni re-reviews Momofuku Ssam Bar, part of chef David Chang's New York empire, which you'll recall includes the impossible-to-get-into Momofuku Ko. There's a new chef at Ssam since Bruni awarded the place two stars in '07, and now he bumps it up to a lofty triple. The opening paragraph sums up his case: "If you’ve had just about all of the fawning over David Chang that you can take, think about how those of us dishing out the praise feel. We’d love to move on to a more original object of adoration and would be happy to pronounce him overrated or just plain over...But he won’t let us."

The Times concludes its epic, four-part think piece on the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission today. Yesterday, Robin Pogrebin's series looked into why many churches eschew landmark status (cheaper to demolish), Friday was about how sneaky developers send in the demolition crews mere days before the LPC holds their hearing, and last Wednesday's piece noted the fun fact that LPC chairman Robert Tierney has no background in architecture, planning or historic preservation. Today's coda considers the "delicate dance" between preservationists and developers. DUMBO developer Jed Walentas derides landmarking as "one of the best tools that anti-development people have." But his feisty dance partner, Andrew S. Dolkart at Columbia University, argues, "A relatively tiny proportion of New York land is landmarked. It’s hardly an obstacle to economic growth in the city."

The elaborate fake New York Times stunt may have cost up to $250,000. Though the group claiming responsibility for printing and distributing over one million copies of a July 4, 2009 edition says their costs were $100,000, the NY Post's experts believe that printing a 14-page, 4-color paper are closer to a quarter million for that many copies.

     

Update III: Here's a second video of the Fake NY Times (aka "New York Times Special Edition") being handed out:

This week Frank Bruni double-fists it with a review of two sushi places: Kanoyama, in the East Village, and Sushi Azabu (pictured), in TriBeCa, that both "stand out in part because they’re navigable in ways that aren’t too financially wounding." Kanoyama’s "brimming, glistening combination platter...is first-rate, and doesn’t give you the sense you sometimes get at other restaurants that what you’re saving in money you’re sacrificing in freshness." The clandestine Sushi Azabu, accessed via a secret staircase in the meh Greenwich Grill, is "erratic. Get the scallop sushi or the spicy tuna roll, lavished with sesame and a chili-spiked mayonnaise, and you’re in heaven. Get the crispy fried squid and you’re in a strip-mall sports bar."

Frank Bruni, the senior restaurant critic at the most influential paper in America, has submitted to a loooong Q&A from Times readers. Some fun revelations: His biggest tab was probably at Per Se, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,300 for a party of four. He says there was "a Jeopardy answer/question thingie that said something like, 'Frank Bruni spends $325,000 annually on his beat.'" Not true; it's way less than that. He eats out at least six nights a week, and on the rare occasion he eats at home, Bruni orders a "messy, sloppy, undistinguished Chinese delivery. There's nothing as thrilling as refined, accomplished, superbly prepared food. But there's also fun in uneventful food." Also, "some restaurants are so ludicrously loud that no more than 15 percent of their customers could possibly want it that way, and the servers must be in aural and vocal and psychic agony by night’s end."