April 5th, 2009 → 2:49 pm @ Seth Mnookin
The 24 hours immediately following Opening Day is always a bit of a let-down: there’s the months of buildup, the six weeks of Spring Training, that first game…and then an off-day? What, people already need a rest?
This year, the wonderful men and women at Gelf have decided to help out those of you living in NYC…and I’ve decided to help them. You guessed it: Tuesday night I’ll be part of a panel at Gelf’s first-ever Media Circus event – which, according to those in the know, is “a new monthly speaking series…held at JLA Studios in DUMBO, Brooklyn—only one subway stop away from Manhattan!” (Gmap for JLA at 63 Pearl St.) Besides me, Gawker media critic Hamilton Nolan and Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici will be talking about how we’re all about to join the ranks of the unempl…er, about “how the press covers and consumes itself.” The event is free, drinks will be served, doors open at 7pm, and the panel starts at 7:30.
(And to those of you who think I haven’t learned anything in the past five years…I’ve forever retired the oft-mocked picture of me that accompanied previous interviews, etc. For the Q/A table-setter for this event — in which I talk about the Red Sox, drugs, the Kindle, and Russian Jews — I opted for a mostly obscured shot of me riding in a tank. So there.)
Post Categories: 2009 Opening Day & Gawker & Media reporting & Portfolio & Speaking appearances
March 5th, 2009 → 1:06 pm @ Seth Mnookin
It’s been an eventful off-season: there’s the whole A-Rod ‘roid thing, the just-completed Manny negotiations, and the Yankees $800 trillion signing of Mark Texeria. In honor of all this, let’s–as Phil Lesh used to say–take a step back…and relive some moments from years gone by.
In honor of Scott Boras’s always-entertaining deal-making: an FTM excerpt about Johnny Damon’s dishonest decamping to the Yankees.
In honor of the ever-growing PED scandal: Bill James’s stance on steroids, the possibility of Jose Canseco being a great prophet, and the sheer lunacy of the MLB Players Association stance on drug testing.
And finally, in honor of the most entertaining third-basement playing today: the oft-overlooked connection between A-Rod and Jon Lester and the union’s stupidity vis-a-vis the 2003 A-Rod contract circus.
Enjoy!
Post Categories: A-Rod & Bill James & Feeding the Monster Outtakes & Feeding the Monster Sneak Peeks & Grateful Dead & Johnny Damon & Jon Lester & Jose Canseco & Manny Ramirez & Players association & Yankees
January 3rd, 2009 → 3:54 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Until I figure out what’s going on, the offer of free bookplates is being suspended. After a slow but steady trickle for the last two years, I’m suddenly getting upwards of 50 requests a day — and a good number of those are from overseas. I know Red Sox Nation has international tentacles, but I’m not convinced there’s a sudden surge of Pedroia partisans in Poland. For now, everyone who sent out bookplate requests before December 31 will get one in the mail in the next several days. Anyone who sent one between 12:01 pm on December 31 and 3:00 pm today will not be receiving one. Going forward, bookplate requests must include a sentence telling me what you liked (or didn’t like, or expect to like, or expect to not like) about the book. All that will be explained here.
Post Categories: Feeding the Monster signed copies
December 31st, 2008 → 12:14 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Everyone loves to be loved – and apparently someone out there either loves me…or is trying to bankrupt me with postage costs: I’ve gotten more than two dozen requests for signed bookplates in the last twenty-four hours alone (including several each from Russia and India). For all you domestic readers* out there, don’t worry: your bookplates will be on their way as soon as I replenish my supplies. (Blank bookplates — without cheesy Ex Libris tags or graphics of kittens — are harder to come by than you might think.) Also, feel free to send along any kind of personalized requests, ranging from “To Bob, the best Sox fan in Juneau” to “To Bob, look what your life could have been like if you’d only stuck with Little League.”
For those of you who haven’t yet read FTM and are looking for ways to use your ’08 holiday gift cards, or for those of you who are a bit behind in your Xmas and Chanukah gift buying, pick up a copy of the book one of my old friends just called “the thing that saved me from having to figure out what to buy for my step parents” and include an oh-so-special personalized note…from me! It (the book – not the bookplate) is only $11.07 at Amazon (cheap!) or $4.91 on the Kindle (which, frankly, seems criminally cheap to me…but from what I hear the whole publishing industry is about to go belly up, so what do I know)
In the days to come, I should be back in the blogging saddle with some thoughts about the Yankees off-season spending spree, the wily negotiating tactics of Scott Boras, the Brad Penney pick-up, and other baseball-related ephemera; I’ll also be writing about some of the other Mnookin-clan writers (we haven’t diversified our careers as well as perhaps we should have), the joys of owning a pit bull (I adopted one a week ago), and the future of the newspaper industry. Until then…do take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
* International fans of FTM: I’m humbled and honored that you like my book enough to read it instead of a book about cricket (although I should pause here to recommend Netherland, one of the best books I read in 2008). Unfortunately, I can’t send bookplates to non-domestic locales, mainly because it takes too long to go to the Post Office and figure out the postage, get air mail stamps, etc. That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck: if you want a bookplate, email me at monsterfeedback at gmail dot com and we’ll figure out a way for you to get me a SASE ASAP.
Post Categories: A Dog named Blue & Book Publishing & new year & Pitbulls & signed bookplates
November 18th, 2008 → 2:10 pm @ Seth Mnookin
I expect to get some hits from Gawker every now and again – after all, anyone who once wore this shirt for a photo shoot can’t be surprised when he’s ridiculed publicly. And I’d be a fool not to expect criticism from the likes of “i4yankees,” who posted in the comments section below.
But I’ve also heard from several other folks, and most of them have told me it was a dick move to post the transcript of a voicemail from a Bloomberg LP salesman regardless of how vertiginously convoluted it might have been. For the record, what I thought was odd was not – as Gawker surmised – that said cold-calling Bloomberg terminal salesman didn’t know who I was; what seemed so strange was that I should be on his radar in the first place. (I’ve never, after all, received any kind of sales pitch in the past.) I figured the only way my name could have come up – and the only way he could have tracked down my unlisted home phone number – was if someone in his office actually did know me. And it’s true: I did find it peculiar that he was able to track down a piece on The Da Vinci Code that I wrote more than two years ago without also discovering that the most recent piece I’d written was about his employer.
Anyway. The people have spoken, and they’ve said that the many hours I spend at home in sweatpants and a t-shirt have diminished my ability to navigate the vagaries of polite society. Duly noted. And my apologies, [name] of the Bloomberg LP sales office.
Post Categories: Bloomberg News & Eating Crow & Vanity Fair
November 18th, 2008 → 11:13 am @ Seth Mnookin
Yesterday afternoon I got a call from someone at Bloomberg LP. Considering the December Vanity Fair features my 6,000-word story on Bloomberg News‘s founding, its recent management changes, and the fact that it’s just about the only news organization on the planet that seems to be making any money these days, there were any number of people I could reasonably have expected to hear from.
The message I actually did receive left me speechless. An exact transcription follows:
Hi Seth, [name] calling from Bloomberg. I just wanted to give you a quick call, I was actually forwarded your information from one of my colleagues and I definitely understand you’ve been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair for some time and provided a lot of insight on Dan Brown’s book and a lot of details that events that have occurred at The New York Times, but the reason that I’m calling is that we’ve actually been reaching out to a lot of public relations firms showing them the great tools that we have on Bloomberg to scan for news content relating to Vanity Fair or of course its peers as well so I definitely want to reach out to you and see if you were possibly interested in taking a look Bloomberg. I’ve met with a lot of other publishing firms also, AMI [American Media, Inc. – publisher of The National Enquirer, Flex, and Fit Pregnancy] being one of them, and thought that you as in, as a PR representative at Vanity Fair would definitely benefit from a lot of tools that are on Bloomberg also, so definitely feel free to give me a call and I will follow up with you. Again my direct again is 212-xxx-xxxx, and again we’d be more than happy to stop by and provide you with a little demonstration of all the news functionalities that are available. Again, [name] calling from Bloomberg.
That is truly a work of art. It would have ranked among the dumbest one-minute sales pitches ever recorded even without the conflation of “contributing editor” and “PR representative,” the comparison of Vanity Fair to American Media, or the reference to The Da Vinci Code as “Dan Brown’s book.” And to think that thousands of media professionals have lost their jobs in the past month alone. Sigh.
.
Post Categories: Bloomberg News & Stupid sales pitches & Vanity Fair
November 5th, 2008 → 12:49 pm @ Seth Mnookin
After a good stretch without any stories in VF, I have two in this month’s issue: a piece on the American public’s (and the American media’s) waning interest in Iraq and one on the fairly remarkable success of Bloomberg News. Capsule descriptions have never been my strong suit, so I’ll use the magazine’s sub-heads to do the job for me…
The New York Times’s Lonely War
With most of the U.S. media withdrawn from Iraq, only The New York Times seems determined to stay the course. From inside the paper’s fortified Baghdad bureau, Seth Mnookin reveals the psychological and physical dangers that have faced the likes of John F. Burns, Dexter Filkins, and Alissa J. Rubin as the dramatic headlines of 2003 turned into a complex, difficult story that no one wants to read.
and
With its ruthless competitiveness, its singular business model, and its bizarre editorial culture, Bloomberg News has continued to expand even as the media business shrivels. Under the new stewardship of former Time Inc. chief Norman Pearlstine, reports Seth Mnookin, the brainchild of New York’s mayor is poised to become the most consulted news source in the world.
It’s still well worth it to spend the five bucks for a hard-copy of the issue itself–the photos on both pieces are stunning. Except, of course, for the left half of this one…
Post Categories: Bloomberg News & Iraq & Media & Media reporting & New York Times & Vanity Fair
