New York Daily News editor-in-chief Martin Dunn announced he is stepping down today. He told Media Decoder (which characterized the news as "unexpected") that he will be spending time with his family and taking care of his wife, who has cancer, "She has an illness that is going to take us many months to get over, and I want to spend as much time as I can with her. The demands of running a tabloid newspaper in a city with a tabloid war are enormous. And if you can’t spend every ounce of energy doing that then unfortunately you don’t feel as though the paper is getting the best of you." more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] In the rush to report on Haiti's catastrophic earthquake, it's understandable that the media is going to make mistakes. Heck, this photo from the 2008 Chinese earthquake, which the Daily News included in a slideshow of 54 images from Haiti today, was probably tossed in by some hapless, unpaid photo intern. An intern who must be destroyed. Hat tip to the NY Post editor who altruistically pointed this out to us; judging by today's edition, we're surprised to see they're even paying attention to this. And speaking of fake Haiti earthquake photos, you also need to watch out for fake Haiti earthquake charities. more ›

The sorry state of the Mets isn't just a local issue at this point. Last night on The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien got in on the fun showing just how deep dysfunction runs within the organization right now. more ›

Yesterday the Mets held a press conference to say that GM Omar Minaya would be investigating allegations that VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard had ripped his shirt off and challenged minor leaguers to a fight. But much like the period of speculation leading up to Willie Randolph's firing last year, the situation has quickly snowballed, calling into question the way in which the entire organization is run. more ›

The local papers have weighed in and made the Mets' firing of manager Willie Randolph their number 1, 2 and 3 topics. Angry over how Randolph was fired (flying him all the way out to Los Angeles?!? And Omar Minaya claiming that the media speculation pushed him to fire Randolph?), yes, but the tabloids were probably angry over something else: The fact that the firing took place around midnight PST/3 a.m. ESt, which meant it was too late to get into yesterday papers! So today, it's all about the Mets. more ›

The Post and Daily News gleefully put the old Gray Lady on their covers with the same headline--"The New York Climbs"--in the Times' headline font. The NY Times tucks mention of the pair of unrelated climbers, Alain Robert and Ray Clark, who scaled its building to the bottom of the front page. more ›

The Post is doubling its weekday price to 50 cents. Why? It's the "result of increased production and transportation costs." more ›

Earlier this week, it seemed all but certain that the Tribune Company would sell Long Island newspaper Newsday to the News Corporation. But given News Corp.'s ownership of the Post and Wall Street Journal, not to mention two NYC area TV stations (WNYW and WWOR), criticism of the potential deal has given Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman an argument why he's better suited to buy the paper. more ›

Newspapers all over the country are paying close attention to the stunning news that Governor Eliot Spitzer paid for a prostitute - and was apparently a regular client - to "visit" him from NY to DC. Our local papers all take a shot at the former crusading Attorney General who rode into the Governor's Mansion on a promise of reforming Albany. more ›

The shocking news of Heath Ledger's death in an SoHo apartment is front page news. more ›

If there's one thing to warm up New Yorkers - and New York newspaper editors thinking about a holiday issue - today, it's the Giants' NFC Championship win over the Green Bay Packers. Let's look at how they touted the big win. more ›

Gary Anthony Ramsay, the former NY1 reporter who was fired after calling into the station's live call-in show under a different name (to complain about former police commissioner Bernard Kerik), is weary. At least that's what he told blog Deep In the Heart of Brooklyn, in a long, breathtakingly soul-searching email. DITHOB's blogger, Brooklyn Beat, had previously wondered "Dude, Where's My Anchor" and someone purporting to be Gary Anthony Ramsay wrote back and gave the... more ›

Sean L. McCarthy has got it made. Blogger of comedy for The NY Daily News, New York's Funniest Reporter , and he spends his nights hanging out with some of the funniest people in the world. A truly enviable position! What's his secret? How did he get to where he is? Gothamist wanted to know and found out! more ›

Got a tidbit for us? Send it to the feedbag. more ›

• Over 120 waiters from Sparks Steakhouse, both current and past employees, have been permitted to join a class-action lawsuit in federal court over money alleged to have been deducted illegally from tips. The plaintiffs' lawyer classified it as "the largest class-action ever against a restaurant." [NY Post]
• Pete Wells chimes in on the lobster roll legal battle between Rebecca Charles and Ed McFarland, and focuses for a moment on the fiduciary duty aspect of the claim rather than the intellectual property issues: "In legalese, a 'fiduciary duty' is like a kind of loyalty that you owe somebody who places their trust in you. You’re not supposed to put your own interests above theirs. . . . Ms. Charles’s lawyers are arguing that as sous chef of Pearl Oyster Bar, Mr. McFarland had a fiduciary duty to the restaurant." [NYT Diner's Journal]
• A former executive from Cipriani got sent back to the slammer yesterday for filing false insurance claims. He had previously served time for tax evasion and racketeering. [NY Daily News]
• The sushi spreadsheet has been updated for 2007! [Snack]
• And food-lovers are going crazy for Ratatouille, Pixar's latest animated blockbuster, featuring a rat (modelled after the likes of the French Laundry's Thomas Keller) who dreams of being a chef. [NY Daily News]
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PM Update: The jury has found Braunstein guilty of 14 of the 15 charges. He was acquitted of the arson charge (the fire he started in order to convince the victim to open up her apartment door as he posed as a firefighter). more ›

The strange Staten Island abduction of a 13-year-old boy twists again. The boy, who said he was taken at knife point while walking to catch a bus to school, had been handcuffed and stripped to his underwear in Brady's Pond, had told police he was attacked by someone he met on MySpace. Which is confusing, because the boy had originally said a stranger attacked him, but then police suspected there was another story. But now it turns out the attacker, William Marcus, did randomly seek out the boy. more ›

Newly anointed State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli may be a "nice guy" who finished first, but the State Legislature's dealings to put him in place makes our head spin. The Legislature, and more importantly the Assembly, had agreed to select someone an outside panel would find qualified. The thing is, no one on the shortlist was an Assembly member, so the Democratic-run Assembly which calls the shots in Comptroller selection, decided to pick Assemblyman DiNapoli of Nassau County. Check out these editorials from the region:

NY Times "A Member of the Club": "The choice is a setback for a legislature that is already considered one of the worst in the nation — and a further sign that its members are not listening to the public’s demands for reform." more ›

The Staten Island mother of an 11 month old baby was arrested after she left her baby home alone so she could go drinking. Thirty-one year old Evelyn Graft was returning home in a livery cab from a night in Brooklyn. Graft told the driver she wanted to go home "as quickly as possible" because her baby was home alone. The Staten Island Advance reported that by the time the cab arrived at her New Springville home, Graft passed out. So the cabbie called the police who found the baby Joseph fine, but unsupervised for at least two hours. more ›

There's nothing like a NY Post vs. NY Daily News pissing match! Yesterday, the Audit Bureau of Circulations announced the latest circulation figures, the Post now has a daily circulation of 704,011 copies (a 5% increase over last year) while the News is at 693,382 (1% increase). more ›

Mayor Bloomberg released the 2006 Fiscal Year Mayor's Management Report yesterday. The MMR is the Mayor's way of being accountable for city initiatives and agencies, and during the press conference, the Mayor felt that there was still work to be done, saying, "Two-thirds of the things are going in the right direction. A third aren't going as fast as I'd like, or in the right direction.": Like what? The quality of streets has declined (which the Department of Transportation says is due to construction projects), the Civilian Complaint Review Board received 16% more complaints about police officers, structural fire response times increased and pest control exterminations dropped by 39%. more ›

Tales of voodoo and secret families are coming to light as police investigate the tragic drowning deaths of two Staten Island children, apparently at the hands of their father who then threw himself in front of a subway. After working a 3pm-11pm shift at a nursing home, Francoise Mercier found her 5 year old son and 2 year old son dead in a bathtub in their Daniel Low Terrace apartment at 11:40pm. A few hours earlier, her companion, Frantz Bordes, had thrown himself in front of a Q train at Church Avenue and was decapitated. Police found a suicide note on Bordes and more suicide notes at home, with Bordes claiming Mercier's family was using voodoo on him. Bordes' brother said that Mercier's mother used voodoo to cause his headaches, while Mercier's brother said that was untrue and that Bordes had threatened to kill the children before. more ›

An Independence Bank on East 86th Street was robbed of $2,470 in a day light heist by a twenty something couple. The male robber handed the teller a note saying he had a gun, intimated he had a gun in his clothes, and then got the money; his female accomplice, who wore a cloverleaf t-shirt and black leggings with flip-flops was the lookout. And when they got the money, they just walked away. The NY Post calls them the "Bonnie & Clyde" of the hipster set as they were wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops - while the NY Daily News finds that the male robber looks a lot like Ashton Kutcher (they have a picture, and he sort of does, as much as any young white guy with longish brown hair and some scruff, wearing sunglasses and a hat, can). While this might be an audacious robbery, this is nothing compared to the mom who made her 10 year old son rob a bank. more ›

It's weeks before the start of summer, but start the alarmist drum roll now: The NY Daily News has found a station under the Brooklyn Bridge selling gas for $4.50 a gallon. Granted, that's for premium gas, but regular was a whopping $4.14 - which is practically like rental car agency pricing. The station's co-manager explained that its tanks are small, and therefore required more gas deliveries, which is really ironic to us. The average price for a gallon of gas in the city is $2.97, and Senator Charles Schumer said prices could go up to $4, as fuel costs continue to rise. This isn't a huge issue for Gothamist's day to day travels, as we hit the subway, but it is for taxi drivers (will the TLC need to raise prices again?) and our dreams of travel (both by rental car and plane). more ›

- As early subscribers to their email dispatches, we really enjoy the work done by our -ist based cousins at Thrillist. After today’s article in the NY Daily News about their “48 legit destinations, each serving 'til at least 3am on weekends”, we are inclined to love’em more. more ›

Only 18% of NY state docs have received their ordered supplies of flu vaccine, according to the NY Daily News. And as many as 38% have no vaccine at all. Smaller medical practices may be getting short-changed as larger chain stores are gobbling up the medicine. more ›

Smith/Ninth Sts., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, F and G lines: "The protective overhangs have large holes, paint peels everywhere and concrete crumbles."These selections sort of match up with the report from the Transit Riders Council last year; the City Council also found the Bronx typically had the worst stations. The NY Daily News blames these struggling station with a lack of MTA funding. Vote Yes on Proposition 2 for the Transportation Bond Act! more ›

A police officer who was fired for running an internet message board where officers could complain about the NYPD is now looking to take the NYPD to court. Edward Polstein, who had been on the force for 18 years, ran NYPD Rant, which, as Newsday put it, "can be at turns racist, raunchy, misogynistic and comical" as well as "offer unedited, first-hand accounts of what goes on behind the scenes in the NYPD." The Daily News notes some choice NYPD Rants, plus mentions that there were pictures of Hitler and the Nazis (Polstein complained the NYPD was run like the Nazi Paty) and a picture of Commissioner Raymond Kelly that would morph into Popeye! Not mention bringing in various weapons into police headquarters to show how easy it was to smuggle in concealed weapons. In other words, this is something the NYPD really doesn't want to be involved with. What's at stake is the resignation agreement that Polstein signed: He agreed to resign with an annual pension of $23,000, with the stipulation that "he never sue or attempt to gain reinstatement to the police department." But then a medical board found that Polstein should actually received $60,000 annually in disability pension, because of an on-the-job injury. Polstein naturally tried to get the higher pension, and then the NYPD said that violated the earlier agreement and then officially "terminated" him. more ›

The two NY Daily News sponsored NYC spelling bee contestants didn't advance in yesterday's fourth round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Alexander Martin, a Dwight School eighth-grader, misspelled "dissilient" (it means "springing apart, specifically bursting open"; Martin spelled it "desilient") and seventh grader Rajdeep Chahal at MS 137 was stumped with "feuilleton" ("the part of a European newspaper devoted to light fiction, reviews, and articles of general entertainment"; Chahal spelled it "fuolyurtone"). Even though these kids are headed back home early, Gothamist would like to congratulate them, because Martin and Chahal could easily whup our ass in spelling... in fact, if either one could master Movable Type, we'd love them to check our spelling. more ›

Though it was the Washington Post's biggest story, the NY media suckerpunched the Post by running the revelation that former FBI No. 2 man, Mark Felt, was Deep Throat, the shadowy informant who helped reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal the Watergate scandal. Felt, now 91, confessed after the urging of his family, catching Woodward and Bernstein off-guard (Woodstein probably were probably planning a book to be published as soon at Felt died). Gothamist, who had been obsessed with wondering who Deep Throat was, thanks to American History classes and Alan Pakula's brilliant depiction of the Washington Post's investigation in All the President's Men, loves this story and has been reading all we can about it: Here's coverage from the Washington Post and the NY Times, plus the NY Post's and NY Daily News's excited coverage. more ›