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Former New York Times CEO Janet Robinson was fired, Joe Hagan reports, after tangling with Ochs-Sulzberger family members, Arthur ÂSulzberger Jr.’s girlfriend and the Times’ digital guru.
Hagan’s… Read more
via Poynter. » MediaWire http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/175277/joe-hagan-janet-robinsons-firing-exposes-deep-veins-of-strife-within-nyt/
Morgan Stanley banker scapegoated for flop.
Elders React To… is an adorable new web series by The Fine Brothers that shows senior citizens commenting and reacting to viral videos.
This is one hip trip to the old folks home, and these seniors don’t hold back when asked how they feel about Nyan Cat, or how much grass people must have to smoke in order to watch that repetitive little pop tart shaped kitty in the sky.
It’s a laugh riot, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next episode!
–via Laughing Squid
Fine Brothers LINK
A year after Lars von Trier was publicly castigated for making a Hitler joke at Cannes, the festival has banned a controversial comedy by French comedian/provocateur Dieudonné. Entitled The Anti-Semite, the film was scheduled to play not in the official festival but in the Cannes Film Market, but outrage over its content — including mockery of Auschwitz and Dieudonné in Nazi dress — led the organization to scrap screenings.
According to Agence France-Presse, the film includes “images deriding Auschwitz,” “Dieudonne’s violent and alcoholic character dressed as a Nazi officer for a fancy dress party,” and “Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson [appearing] as himself.”
Produced by the Iranian Documentary and Experimental Film Center, The Anti-Semite stars Dieudonné, who has been charged numerous times for violating European laws with his controversial statements and performances, including one recent show in France that was halted mid-performance by authorities “for breaking local defamation laws.”
As for the Cannes screening, the Cannes Film Market’s Jerome Paillard explained the move thusly: “Our general conditions ban the presence of all films threatening public order or religious convictions, as well as pornographic films or those inciting violence.”
via Movieline http://movieline.com/2012/05/25/cannes-bans-anti-semite-dieudonne/
Literary critic Stanley Fish stirred up the publishing world this week, dismissing the need for spoiler alerts when writing about fiction or film. He used a specific example: “If The Hunger Games is so shallow that it can be spoiled by a plot revelation, the alert doesn’t save much. If The Hunger Games is a serious accomplishment, no plot revelation can spoil it.â€
Over Mulholland Books, great writers like Lawrence Block and Joe R. Lansdale have pondered the essay all day–we’ve collected some of their commentary below. Follow this link to read more essays from Megan Abbott, Nick Santora, Mischa Hiller and Marcia Clark as they are released.
Lansdale wrote: This is the silliest defense for spoiling stories for those of us who don’t want them spoiled that I have ever heard. I have spoiled, accidently, a film and I was almost lynched. They were right. If it’s done to me, I feel the same … There may be those who read the last page of a book, or like the previews for films to be so precise it lets them know how it’s going to turn out, but surprise has a great place, and most of us prefer it, and if we prefer not to have things spoiled for us, a spoiler alert is a nice warning to us who would prefer not to know. Bad journalist. Bad, dog.â€
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
via GalleyCat http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/do-spoilers-matter_b52107
@mathewi: Why I’m Leaving Facebook http://t.co/jjMQ5eDm via @prismatic
This weekly feature tells the backstory of how one e-book became a bestseller, and highlights bestselling titles that are selling more copies in digital than in print.
This week’s featured title: â€Bared to You†by Sylvia Day. It’s #20 on the New York Times e-book bestsellers list this week and
What it’s about: The first in a trilogy, this erotic novel tells the story of a recent college grad, Eva, who meets billionaire businessman Gideon.
How it became a bestseller: Day self-published “Bared to You†on April 3, 2012. The book immediately invited comparisons to “50 Shades of Grey,†the mega-bestselling, originally self-published erotic trilogy that Random House’s Vintage acquired for seven figures in March. Jane Litte, who runs the romance blog “Dear Author,†writes that “if I were to recommend any book today to readers who enjoyed 50 Shades and was looking for another book like it, this would be the first one I would offer. However, Bared to You is far better written with much hotter sex scenes.â€
Like “Fifty Shades of Grey,†“Bared to You†has now found a traditional publisher: Penguin’s Berkley imprint snapped it up this month and has already released the e-book with a new, “50 Shades of Greyâ€-esque cover. (That’s Day’s original cover on the left and Penguin’s cover on the right.) Penguin will release a paperback edition on June 7. (Day writes a bit more about the Penguin acquisition here, and notes that Penguin’s ability to get the paperback into bricks-and-mortar bookstores was one of the main reasons she signed up with them.)
“Bared to You†is $5.99 on … Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
Here are the titles in the top-35 that appear on the e-book bestseller list, but not on the print bestseller list (click the link to expand the chart).
USA Today includes all formats and genres in one list and notes which format of a book sold best. Here are the titles in the top-35 where e-books outsold print (click the link to expand the chart).
via paidContent http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/25/the-next-50-shades-of-grey/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pcorg+%28paidContent%29
