The Daily Beast

Rightbloggers Enter "Conversation" on Jason Collins, Are Pissed No One Wants to Talk to Them

Last week NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay -- spectacularly, in the pages of Sports Illustrated. He did so not because he had been arrested in a men's room or outed by a news site, but because, as he told SI, he wanted to "start the conversation" that would make it easier for young gay athle ... More >>

Beaten on Gay Marriage, Rightbloggers Begin Berating Straights

Maybe it's because everyone's sick of fighting over gay marriage. Maybe it's because our rightblogger friends' tactic of Adam-and-Steving the issue hasn't helped their increasingly hopeless cause, even within the Republican Party. In any case some of the brethren are working a new angle. Well, not ... More >>

What's the Drunkest City in the U.S.? (Hint: It's Not New York)

Sure, New Yorkers like booze. But, according to a list composed by The Daily Beast, Bostonians like it a lot more. Boston continues its reign as the drunkest city in America with 20.1% of the population identified as "binge drinkers." New York, on the other hand, doesn't even rank in the top twenty. ... More >>

Free Will Astrology: July 11-17, 2012

Mitt Loves N.Y.: John Catsimatidis

With Mitt Romney as its de facto go-to candidate, the roster of Restore Our Future, Romney's designated Super PAC slush fund, reads like a laundry list of New York City's wealthiest denizens. And, according to the Center for Responsive Politics and contrary to popular belief, Sup ... More >>

Do People Have More Sex During The Summer?

This question came to mind today, when we were busy with this serious business. People tend to wear less clothes and socialize more in warm weather, so do people have more sex during the summer? Indeed, as the season fast approaches, talk about flings and romantic things of the like -- summer lovi ... More >>

Under the Toque: Asian Food Craze, New Menu at WD-50

Wylie Dufresne at WD-50 is creating a completely different menu with brand-new dishes. [NYTimes] Iron Man competitor Joe Bastianich talks about his new book and the dark secrets of restaurants. "The skills of a maître d' are the same skills a hooker has--to please the clients. . . . Make them fee ... More >>

Author Asra Q. Nomani: The NYPD Should Spy on Muslims

As the fallout over NYPD's Muslim spying scheme continues -- even prompting Chicago's top cop to pledge against blanket monitoring of Islamic communities -- some have taken a drastically different approach to the issue. While Mayor Mike Bloomberg has defended the NYPD's controversial practices, Asr ... More >>

The Yogasm Is Enjoying Its 15 Minutes

​Yogasms have been discussed among practitioners of yoga and orgasms (quietly and behind closed doors!) for a while, but it is only now that they are truly getting their time in the sun, with devotees finally coming forward to talk about what happens during class. The Daily Beast can be credit ... More >>

Michele Bachmann's Book Cover Revealed; We Make It Steve Buscemi-y

​Michele Bachmann has had quite a week! Besides being on the cover of this week's Voice (where we reveal that we actually agree with her campaign against fluorescent light bulbs!) and causing a ruckus about HPV during national debates, and generally just staying in the news, as she is wont to ... More >>

Nancy Upton Takes On American Apparel's Plus-Size Campaign and Wins: Q&A

Shannon Skloss​American Apparel's models are generally lithe and barely clothed, and never look to be above a size two. But the troubled fashion company recently launched plus sizes in some items, and an accompanying contest to find a plus-size model: Think you are the Next BIG Thing? Calli ... More >>

Condé Nast Elevator Maybe Outed?

​Game over. Multiple sources told The Daily Beast that the owner of the @CondeElevator Twitter is John Jannuzzi, a style editor at Lucky Magazine who also runs the popular Textbook tumblr. Jannuzzi hasn't admitted to anything, but he did tweet "This is fucking ridiculous" and "Frantic text message ... More >>

Levi Aron Participated in Prayers For Leiby Kletzky; Williamsburg Bridge Acrobats Defend High-Flying Felony

​New details continue to emerge about Levi Aron, the Brooklyn man who confessed to killing and dismembering 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky this past week. Police sources said that Aron's family claims the 35-year-old was in a car accident at age 10 which impaired him mentally. Co-workers at the hardware ... More >>

Amara Tarawally, Dominique Strauss-Kahn Accuser's Jailed 'Fiancé,' Talks to Daily Beast

DSK​The rape case against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn began "crumbling" when the Manhattan D.A. picked up on some red flags, previously obscured, in the accuser's biography, the most damning of which was association with a man in jail on drug charges. A taped jailhouse call, transla ... More >>

Dominique Strauss-Kahn to Face Criminal Probe in France; Pantsless Man Flashes Women Outside H&M

​Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have been released from house arrest -- and the case against him in NYC may be in hot water -- but he'll still face a criminal probe in France for allegedly assaulting writer Tristane Banon in 2003. Banon, 32, requested the probe this past week; a French prosecutor open ... More >>

Princess Diana Covers Newsweek Because Tina Brown Said So; David Carr Pisses Off America

​The newish editor-in-chief of Newsweek is the very famous and talented Tina Brown, who took over when her floundering web project The Daily Beast partnered with the floundering newsweekly. During her editorship, Brown famously made both Vanity Fair and the New Yorker sharper and flashier, and ... More >>

The Anti-Food Truck Bandwagon Is Getting Kind of Full

​It's been quite a month for food truck haters!

The Best Brief Quotes From the Same Old Future of Media Panel

Esther Zuckerman ​Today was I Want Media's vaguely titled panel "The Future of Media: 2011," part of the ongoing Internet Week. While most of the discussion was same old, same old (Times digital subscriptions, Gawker redesign, Daily Beast-Newsweek merger), there was a mostly energetic group o ... More >>

Andrew Sullivan Shares Reader's Elaborate Sex Dream Starring Andrew Sullivan

​Yesterday on Andrew Sullivan's blog over at the Daily Beast, the august blog king shared a small example of how a "blogger's relationship to his readers can get a little strange." I'll say, Andrew. I'll say.

Bill Keller, New York Times Boss, Still Not Loving WikiLeaks, Twitter

​Yesterday the New York Times announced that Bill Keller will step down as the executive editor and be replaced by managing editor Jill Abramson, while Keller will focus on just writing. Keller seems to have started this transition when he took on a column in the redesigned New York Times Maga ... More >>

Rape Cop Reactions: Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata Got Off, But Won't Be Forgotten

​We watched the rape trial of NYPD officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata with our eyes half-covered, anticipating ugliness. And indeed it was icky, with slut-shaming and anything else to undermine the accuser. Yesterday came the verdict -- not guilty -- for the most serious charges, and ... More >>

Arianna Huffington on New York Times Paywall: More Like a 'Hedge Wall!'

​The testiness between the Huffington Post and New York Times continued late this week with HuffPo/AOL chief Arianna Huffington taking a lunch speech as yet another opportunity to needle Times executive editor Bill Keller. To be fair, Keller started it, but at this point, it's the Times that'd ... More >>

Facebook Tried to Plant Negative Press About Google

​A secretive story has been bubbling in Silicon Valley this week, in which the PR firm Burson-Marsteller pitched anti-Google articles to national newspapers on behalf of some unnamed client. Google, they claimed, has privacy issues that the American people should know about -- but it was far f ... More >>

Should the United States Release Osama Bin Laden Death Photos?

​At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, White House spokesperson Jay Carney said that President Obama and his team do have visuals of Osama Bin Laden's dead body that are "being reviewed," but he declined to "get into specifics." Tuesday morning, Drudge Report claimed that President Obama ... More >>

Journalism Is the Worst Job Ever According to Online Magazine Slideshow

​The media must have been all caught up today in covering really super important news like the fact that our black president is not from Africa, at least not directly -- that, and the fact that our news cycle can still be manipulated by a moron if he's rich enough -- because the press seems to ... More >>

Sidney Harman Dead at 92: Does His Politician Wife Own Newsweek Now?

​Sidney Harman, the audio equipment billionaire, philanthropist and Executive Chairman of Newsweek since purchasing the struggling weekly magazine about six months ago, died on Tuesday after a brief fight with acute myeloid leukemia, his family announced today in a brief statement. He was 92. ... More >>

Huffington Post Hit With $105 Million Lawsuit By 9,000 Angry Unpaid Bloggers

​In its intermittent battles with unpaid writers, The Huffington Post and its (often reluctant) defenders have trotted out a number of arguments, including most commonly the assertion that the bloggers write without compensation for attention, and most like it just fine that way. Others have a ... More >>

Katie Couric Out at CBS News; Engadget Crew Ditches AOL For SB Nation

​Every time we turn around there's a switch-up at the newly Arianna Huffington-helmed AOL and Huffington Post hybrid, with the boss simultaneously cleaning house and sprucing up, by kicking AOL-ers to the curb and hiring up a handful of big names. The Huffington reign has left a large number s ... More >>

Hillary Clinton and Others Inspire at the Women in the World Summit 2011

The Daily Beast​The second annual Women in the World summit started on Thursday with a welcome from Tina Brown, Editor in Chief of Newsweek and the Daily Beast, who hosted the event, and ended with a farewell on Saturday. Over the course of the few days, an esteemed collection of women and me ... More >>

New Newsweek Discussion Same as the Old Newsweek Discussion: Lots of Dentist Jokes!

​Today is the day: the first issue of the new Newsweek is for sale, redesigned under editor-in-chief Tina Brown, whose website The Daily Beast paired off with the struggling weekly magazine after billionaire Sidney Harman bought it for $1. The issue has Hillary Clinton on the cover, just like ... More >>

Tina Brown Excites Staff With Redesign, Still Riding New Newsweek Hype Wave

​If there's one word to describe the media news narrative so far in 2011, it's probably "reinvention," or something like it, what with all of the relaunches, redesigns and restructuring, from AOL and the Huffington Post to Gawker, the New York Times (plus Magazine), New York Observer and Tina ... More >>

Dan Sinker, Founder of Punk Planet, Was @MayorEmanuel Twitter; Andrew Sullivan Leaving The Atlantic For Tina Brown

via Daniel O'Neal​Just about everyone on the internet (including us) has already praised the Twitter account @MayorEmanuel, which ended its journey when the real Emanuel won last week's election for Chicago mayor. That fanfare makes today's victory lap and collective celebration entertaining o ... More >>

Newsweek Hit With Buyouts in the Wake of Tina Brown and The Daily Beast Takeover

​Newsweek, the long-suffering magazine, was purchased by audio equipment billionaire Sidney Harmon way back in mid-2010 and hobbled on, losing employees along the way, but impressively still managing to put out a product every seven days. Then, after months of rumor, Tina Brown came along, joi ... More >>

Did The Huffington Post Win the SEO Game With Today's AOL Acquisition?

​The Huffington Post, which was just bought by AOL for $315 million, is really good at what media mind Jeff Jarvis calls the "black art" of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. That means, when people Google (or more rarely "Yahoo" or "Bing," which are not quite verbs) a term on a search engine ... More >>

Gawker Media Rolling Out Redesign, The Daily Coming Tomorrow and NewsBeast Merged

New Jalopnik, Gawker's Car Blog​Gawker, The Daily and NewsBeast, oh my. Three of the year's biggest media launches so far have landed, albeit in different stages, on or around February 1, 2011, making for some vaguely exciting times on the internet, if you're into that sort of thing. Taken tog ... More >>

Gabriel Snyder to The Atlantic Wire: On Growing Up an Aggregator

​Gabriel Snyder, who was fired by Nick Denton as the editor-in-chief of Gawker in February 2010, will be joining The Atlantic as the editor of the magazine's Atlantic Wire aggregation website, according to an Observer report today. Snyder will replace Ben Carlson, who left for a job at Rupert ... More >>

New York Times Opens Hangover Rooms, Goes WikiLeaks; Rupert Murdoch Babies His Kids

""recoverycouch.jpg" via​It happens: some mornings you get to work without having been home the night before and you pull a freshly starched white shirt from the bottom drawer of your desk, you brush your teeth under the fluorescent light of the men's room with one of those little things you p ... More >>

Nick Summers Out at New York Observer, Returning to Newsweek For Tina Brown

​Just one big, local item on this slushy Friday for the reincarnated Press Clips column: New York Observer media reporter Nick Summers, on the job less than three months after the departure of John Koblin, is returning to Newsweek, where he worked as a reporter until October 29. While at the O ... More >>

Free Weed for Food Donations in California; New York State Fires Kosher Food Inspectors

​The Granny Purps, a medical marijuana dispensary in California, gave patients free joints for every four cans of food they donated, with a maximum of three a day. Some 11,000 pounds of food were collected. [NPR] A look at the PepsiCo Science Park in New Haven reveals an earnest effort to fin ... More >>

Who is the Media Person of the Year? (or "This Discussion Panel is On Fire, A Play in One Act.")

​At 12PM today at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute -- less than a block away from the Village Voice offices -- a panel discussion sponsored by I Want Media convened to discuss their 9th Media Person of the Year award. The panel -- featuring the New York Times' David Carr, Mediaite's ... More >>

The Daily Kill Dossier: A Hit List of News Corp's Freshest Poaches

​As it's been noted, News Corp's daily newspaper built just for the iPad -- The Daily -- is on the way. It is Rupert Murdoch's newest child, the Draco Malfoy to his Voldemort. As such, they're hiring or trying to hire every editorial staffer this side of the Bangkok Bugle Tribune, which I just inv ... More >>

Park51 Developers Apply for Federal Grant

​Remember that whole Park51/"Ground Zero Mosque" thing people were getting really upset/crazy/stupid/bigoted about a while back? The Daily Beast says the developers have applied for $5 million from a $20 million federal grant designated for post-9/11 redevelopment. On your mark, pundits. [SH]

BOOKSHAKALAKA: The National Book Awards Jam Throws Down for 2010

The 2010 National Book Awards at the Cipriani Wall Street ballroom. All the people who were at these tables are still hungover.​An unlikely ballroom of people in the troubled business of literature -- publishers, editors, writers, reporters, and respective sycophants -- gather yearly to ostens ... More >>

Press Clips: Do Not Let Robert Thomson Behead Anyone This Week, Please

​VICTORY! for a New York City newspaper, while the rest are going down, down, in an earlier round. A new, familiar byline at New York's Vulture, and a new, familiar byline at AgencySpy. The iPad is still just The iPad, but Twitter is definitely still Twitter. Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast is sti ... More >>

Press Clips: Mediaite Loses Foot Soldier Glynnis MacNicol to Business Insider

​Dan Abrams' news operation Mediaite loses a founding staff member. New York Magazine snubs New York Magazine. Alec Baldwin is New York's hot new media critic -- Guest of a Guest? Not so much. -- and Emily Smith at Page Six is having some growing pains sans-Richard Johnson, it'd appear. Press ... More >>

Press Clips: There's Room for Everyone on Brett Favre's Penis, But Not the NY Observer's Media Beat

​The New York Observer news can't stop, won't stop. The New York Times and David Carr discover The Joy of Cock-ing. The Daily Beast/Newsweek honeymoon is over before it starts. Vogue strikes a nerdy pose. Press Clips, Day 13, Happy Monday Hour edition,, right here.

Press Clips: Parker Spitzer Goes For Ratings Glory, Doggy Style

​It is no longer hailing, but it's supposed to be freezing outside. Inside, I have a fan blowing on my face. It's Tuesday. Press Clips, Day 12, Late Edition, right here:

Press Clips: "10 Reasons Nick Denton is an Asshole"

​Well, since it's now hailing outside, I'm stuck inside the office until it lets up just enough for me to run from our office to the Astor Place 6 using my emergency Umbrella Mafia-umbrella without getting completely drenched. Might as well do this thing. Press Clips, Day 11, Late "Hailpocolyp ... More >>

Who Is Howard Kurtz and Why Shouldn't You Care?

​Regardless of the likely event you're like the majority of the universe and don't follow the navel-gazing meta-narrative that is media reporting, you may have come accross the fact the one of the nation's most known media columnists -- Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post -- is leaving his job ... More >>

Ooops!

The Post's blunder was hilarious but not historic. So why has this story lasted?