company town

Charlie Gibson’s ‘World News’ Reaches an All-Time Low

MEDIA
• Over the holiday weekend, World News With Charlie Gibson had the worst evening-newscast ratings since the ratings system was invented. [TVNewser/Mediabistro]
• The New York Times ran a picture on A1 of a boy with his legs in casts. The caption said the kid had fractured legs as a result of violence in Zimbabwe. The only trouble is that the boy actually just had club feet, no broken bones; his mother admitted to exaggerating her story. [NYT]
• A shake-up at Meredith Corporation leaves the Ladies’ Home Journal editor exiting the building. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
NBC kingpin Jeff Zucker is expected to be Mr. Popular this week at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. [NYP]

FINANCE
• New Jersey is trying to lure Lehman Brothers to the other side of the river, offering the bank a $20 million incentive package to relocate some of its workers to Jersey City. The bank didn’t comment. Perhaps that’s because it’s mostly concerned about staying afloat at the moment. [NYS]
• The dean of Harvard Business School, who happens to be an expert in asset and risk management, may join Citigroup’s board. In light of the fact that the troubled bank has written down more than $40 billion dollars recently, this could be a good fit. [NYT]
• Merrill Lynch has been talking about selling its stake in Bloomberg LP, and a blind trust run by Mayor Bloomberg himself is willing to pay up to $5 billion to buy the bank’s portion of the company. [NYP]

REAL ESTATE
• The third climber in about a month scales the New York Times building. This monkey, an activist who studies Al Qaeda, was arrested, but not before he hung a banner that referred to Osama bin Laden. [City Room/NYT]
• It’s official: The Chrysler Building was sold to the Abu Dhabi Investment Council for an undisclosed amount. This continues the trend of foreigners buying our real estate. [Bloomberg]
• The New-York Historical Society is not going to move forward with its plan for building a $100 million, 23-story Upper West Side luxury condo building. The society is bummed, but neighborhood groups and preservationists are not. [NYT]
• A Plaza Hotel condo is flipped for $24.64 million. [Real Deal]

LAW
• Pssst! Attorneys seeking to influence presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama are already floating names of potential federal-judiciary appointments. [Law.com]
• A Brooklyn attorney sued the wrong entity in a real-estate case, and now she’s being ordered to reimburse the defendant. [Law.com]
• Note to summer associates: If you don’t get a job offer at the end of the summer, try groveling. [WSJ]

Charlie Gibson’s ‘World News’ Reaches an All-Time Low