company town

Meredith Vieira Officially More Powerful Than Katie Couric

Meredith Vieira

Photo: Getty Images

MEDIA

• Is Bloomberg trying to make Apple’s stock drop? The news service accidentally ran Steve Jobs’s obituary yesterday. [ href=”http://gawker.com/5042795/steve-jobss-obituary-as-run-by-bloomberg”>Gawker]

• Katie Couric made Forbes’ annual list of most powerful women in the world, but, at number 63, she’s ranked one spot behind her Today show replacement, Meredith Vieira. The CBS anchorwoman did, however, beat out Good Morning America host Diane Sawyer. [NYP]

• What are 15,000 journalists doing at the Democratic National Convention? Journalist Justin Peters wonders the exact same thing. [ href=”http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_15000.php?page=all”>CJR]

Rolling Stone is getting a new publisher just as the retooled magazine hits newsstands. [ href=”http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282008/business/wenner_rolling_with_a_new_mag_publisher_126479.htm”>NYP]

FINANCE
• Infrastructure seems to be a buzzword of the week in the finance world, as Wall Street investment firms look to privatize infrastructure initiatives. The latest: Morgan Stanley hopes to invest up to a quarter of its $4 billion global-infrastructure fund in emerging economies. [DealBook/NYT]
• Blackstone’s Kailix hedge fund saw sharp losses at the beginning of the month, but is now experiencing a rebound. “I would say the first 10 trading days of August were very difficult, but we have experienced a bounce-back over the last 10 days or so,” said one hedge-fund official. Some analysts think this could be an industry-wide trend. [NYP]
• Lehman Brothers apologizes for plagiarizing parts of a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. stock-research report. [WSJ]

LAW
• Two New York lawyers who were improperly listed for over twenty years as school-district employees must return “every dime” of the close to $700,000 in excess pension funds they owe the state. [Law.com]
• Law firms are starting to realize that they hire more lawyers than they need. So what is Big Law going to do to fix the system? [WSJ]
• Should the legal community draft a Digital Bill of Rights? [Legal Blog Watch]

REAL ESTATE
• Heath Ledger’s Soho loft is listed for rent at $26,000 per month. [Corcoran]
• New York has few green roofs — defined by a layer of vegetation and rock that absorbs and insulates buildings, which works to reduce greenhouse gases, rainwater runoff, and electricity demand. The Con Edison training center in Long Island City, which is lined with a green and purple sedum, is one such roof. [NYT]
• With the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey seeking significant savings in the budget and the timetable of the Trade Center reconstruction, another key element of Mr. Calatrava’s design — a vast underground mezzanine free of columns — may be in jeopardy. [NYT]

Meredith Vieira Officially More Powerful Than Katie Couric